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Mother Bethel, the first African Methodist Episcopal church and meeting place of the first Colored Convention, was founded by Rev. Richard Allen in 1816. The church has been rebuilt twice, progressing from a blacksmith’s shop to a free-standing building. It has been sitting on the same plot of land in Philadelphia since its charter, making it the longest continuously African American owned piece of land in the United States.

- Abi Bernard, 2017 Mellon Scholar

Breton, William L.,  artist. Bethel  African Methodist Episcopal Church, Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Kennedy & Lucas' Lithography, July  1829.  1  print: lithograph; 23 x 30 cm. (8.75 x 11.5 in.)

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Views of Liberia from "W.F. Lynch report of mission to Africa" [graphic]. 1853. 

Series of titled views of the black emigrant country of Liberia that accompanied a government report compiled by William F. Lynch, Commander, United States Navy following an exploratory excursion to the west coast of Africa. Colonization and emigration to Liberia were possible answers to hotly-debated slavery question and at the center of the discussions at the Maryland Free Colored People's Convention, held in Baltimore in 1852.

- Ashley Council, 2017 Mellon Scholar  

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Produced by the “father of the American cartoon” Thomas Nast, this emancipation print depicts a series of scenes contrasting African American life before and after slavery and images representing freedom like African American children attending public school and African Americans receiving payment for their work. Though the images echo Black Philadelphians’ perception of slavery and the meaning of freedom, it is more reflective of northern whites’ idealized construction of emancipation and freedom.  Further, it betrays their naiveté on the issue of civil rights granted in written law as opposed to experienced in practice.

- Ashley Council, Mellon Scholar Intern 

Nast, Thomas, 1840-1902 artist. King & Baird printer. Emancipation: the past and the future. Philadelphia: Published by J. W. Umpehent, 1865. 1 print: wood engraving, color; 38 x 52 cm.(15 x 20.5 in.)    

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This episode of Unfolding Fossils is brought to you by the Library Company of Philadelphia and the personal library of Sarah Mapps Douglass, a prominent African American abolitionist, gifted artist and educator.

Written by a female author, our copy of Familiar Lessons in Mineralogy and Geology... (Vol. II) includes this beautiful hand-colored fold-out showing impressions of leaves on various stones as well as layers of sedimentary rock. Douglass signs her name at the top of the title page signifying her ownership of the book.

Welsh, Jane Kilby. Familar lessons in mineralogy and geology... Vol. II. Boston : Clapp & Hull, 1833.