The East Side Freedom Library invites you to the first meeting of our Labor History Reading Group:

The Philadelphia Labor Movement & the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793

Tuesday, June 23, 2020, 7pm

At the suggestion of our Labor Advisory Committee, ESFL is introducing a monthly Labor History Reading Group. We will read articles which will focus on relevant themes which can generate a conversation between the past and the present. Please email [email protected] to receive the Zoom invitation. Participants are asked to read the monthly article and come prepared to participate in the discussion.

Our first meeting will discuss Mark Lause’s article, “The Contagion and a Cure,” published by the Labor and Working Class History Association. We are pleased to announce that Mark, who lives in Cincinnati, will be joining us for the conversation. We are also hoping to have Roger Guenveur Smith in the mix, too. Roger wrote a play, “Two Fires,” which explored the Yellow Fever Epidemic through the lens of Philadelphia’s Free Black community.

Philadelphia was not only the intellectual center of the American Revolution, but it was also the center of the labor movement in the late 18th century and the home to the country’s most developed free Black community. When the Constitution was ratified in 1787, the Philadelphia bricklayers’ union led the celebratory parade, carrying a banner reading “Both Buildings and Governments Are the Work of Our Hands.” African Americans, led by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, created the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first Black-run church in the country. But the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 sorely tested workers, people of color, their organizations, and their relationships.

Join us, via Zoom, on Tuesday, June 23 at 7pm, for what is certain to be a lively conversation
Free and open to all

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