Event

Kathryn Hellerstein, Associate Professor, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Pennsylvania

A 22 year old Jewish immigrant from a village near Prague, happened to be the telegrapher on duty in the War Telegraph Office on New Year’s Eve, 1863, when President Lincoln ordered the Emancipation Proclamation to be disseminated across the nation.  In this talk, Penn professor of Yiddish Kathryn Hellerstein will discuss the quotidian experiences at this crucial historical moment of this young man, Edward Rosewater, her great-great-grandfather, though a letter he wrote his beloved. After the talk stay for a guided curatorial tour of the Penn Libraries' exhibit "The Great Emancipator and the Great Central Fair" which focuses on the material history of the Emancipation Proclamation. For more on the exhibit see https://pennlibnews.wordpress.com/2015/01/06/the-great-emancipator-and-the-great-central-fair/