Philadelphia History Meetup

The Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides (APT) is pleased to announce a free Zoom webinar on Wednesday September 23 at 7 pm with John Garrison Marks, author of the recent book, Thy Will Be Done: George Washington’s Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory. His perspective is particularly valuable now as guides in Philadelphia grapple with how best to interpret the President’s House/ Slavery Memorial with a full set of rewritten panels.

How should we remember George Washington’s entanglement in slavery? Americans have argued over that question for nearly 250 years. More than any other Founding Father, Washington’s ties to slavery have vexed us. He enslaved more people than any of his fellow founders, yet he was the only one of them to emancipate the people he held in bondage. Since his death, Americans have grappled with this contradiction, shaping and reshaping our collective memory of Washington and slavery—along with our understanding of the nation.

In this talk, historian John Garrison Marks tells the story of Americans’ long, fraught struggle to come to terms with Washington’s legacy of slavery. He traces how politicians, abolitionists, educators, activists, Washington’s former slaves and their descendants, and others have remembered, forgotten, and manipulated slavery’s place in Washington’s story, and how they have wielded versions of that story in the political and cultural fights of their time. Marks shows how generational struggles over our collective memory of Washington and slavery have always been part of a bigger conversation about defining the United States and its people.

As debates about the founders’ participation in the system of slavery continue to roil public discourse, Marks shows with new clarity that Americans have never collectively reconciled Washington’s conflicted legacy—but by truly grappling with Washington’s role as enslaver and emancipator, we may come to better understand the nation and ourselves.

John Garrison Marks is a historian and writer whose work explores history, museums, and the ways Americans engage with the past. He is the author or editor of three books, and his work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, TIME, Smithsonian Magazine, and elsewhere. His latest book, Thy Will Be Done: George Washington’s Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory (2026), explores how generations of Americans have thought, and fought, about slavery’s place in George Washington’s legacy over the past 250 years. Marks is also a leader in the public history field. He also serves as the Director of the Public History Research Lab at the American Association for State and Local History, where he has worked since 2017. He earned a Ph.D. in history from Rice University.

RSVP on the event page of the APT website to reserve your spot. Sign ups will close at 6 pm on September 23. The Zoom link will be sent out a day or two before the event. Contact APT President Marianne Ruane president@phillyguides.org with any questions.

It promises to be a fascinating event whether or not you currently lead tours at the President’s House/ Slavery Memorial site – although if you do, this session is a MUST! All are welcome; please join us.

The Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides (APT) challenges the general public to Pub Trivia on Sunday, September 27 from 12-4 pm at Ladder 15, 1528 Sansom Street in Philadelphia. Doors open at 12 noon and Pub Trivia will begin at 1 pm. Teams can include up to five people. Don’t have a team? We’ll make one for you!

APT members, round up your brightest guide colleagues to show what guides know. Not up for the hot seat? Come cheer for the home side!

Not an APT member? Gather your brainiest history friends and take on the tour guides!

Admission is free. Food and beverages will be available for purchase. It’s the battle of the brag with some fun Philly and history-themed prizes too! If you already have a team ready, please have ALL members of the team register separately as seats are limited. Members of the planning committee and anyone who plans to attend but not play trivia should also register. Please RSVP on the website event description – the sooner the better helps us plan!

Pub Trivia is part of We Want More History, a national weekend of history events from September 25-27, 2026.

The next monthly meeting of the Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides (APT) will be held on Wednesday, October 14 at 7 pm, featuring Tim Dewysockie, the author of Grave Dealings: Body Snatching in Philadelphia, 1762-1883. The first American medical school in the 18th century was established in Philadelphia. Doctors needed cadavers for anatomical lectures, but fresh bodies were hard to get. The only legal source of cadavers was executed criminals, and there weren’t enough of them.
The solution? Body snatchers stole bodies from cemeteries and sold them to medical schools for dissection. In Grave Dealings: Body Snatching In Philadelphia, 1762-1883, Tim digs through archives to unearth the forgotten history of a time of graveyard crimes and the seedy underworld of resurrectionists plying their trade. Philadelphia pioneered many medical innovations and became the center of American medical education … and body snatching!

Tim will speak on many aspects of body snatching in Philadelphia. It was not until the 1880s that Pennsylvania enacted laws to stop the practice of body snatching and established laws governing the use and disposal of human remains. Grave Dealings was named an Anisfield-Wolf finalist for 2026 and shortlisted for the Athenaeum of Philadelphia Literary Award.

Tim Dewysockie graduated from Rowan University in 2020 with a master’s degree in history and has a passion for local history. Tim has worked in libraries and archives for almost two decades. Tim currently works at Rowan University Libraries in New Jersey.

The meeting will be at Philly's Gourmet Steaks, 114 Market St., on the second floor. Come early for dinner and drinks! The Zoom link will be available in the APT Tour Talk newsletter the week of the meeting; non-members should contact Marianne Ruane president@phillyguides.org no later than 5 pm the day of the meeting to receive the link. A recording will be available on the APT YouTube page for a month following the talk.

APT meetings are open to aspiring and working tour guides as well as anyone with an interest in Philadelphia-focused history. Attend one meeting for free and then it is $60 to join the association for the year or $10 per monthly meeting in-person event. Zoom meetings are free. Please join us for convivial company, good food, fascinating presentations, and lively discussions!

The Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides (APT) has arranged an outing on Wednesday, October 21 at 11 am to the Penn School of Nursing’s Bates Center (Claire M. Fagin Hall, 418 Curie Boulevard, floor 2U on Penn’s Campus). There is no cost for this 60-minute guided tour led by APT Secretary and Penn Nursing alumna, Pam Covey.

Our tour will focus on the exhibit covering nursing during the American Revolution. Many who think of nurses on the battlefield typically think of the Civil War and the World Wars. But there were nurses present to tend to the wounded and the sick during the American Revolution as well. For every physician who prescribed treatments and dressing changes during the Revolutionary War, there were multiple nurses, mainly women, who aided injured or sick soldiers in distress. Many people believe the professional nursing profession began with Florence Nightingale and the establishment of community hospitals, but women have tended and nursed the sick for centuries before that. This exhibit will give us insight into the overlooked nurses of the American Revolution.

For more than 30 years, the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing has hosted and facilitated special events that have highlighted the history of nursing and healthcare. The Center is committed to preserving a voice of nurses’ history, and provides considerable evidence for scholars and students to “question traditional disciplinary paradigms, to give voice to the historical power of nursing, and to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of local and global approaches to issues of health and illness.” The Center has a unique collection of historical documents and materials in curated displays that will help us learn more about the history of nursing, especially in revolutionary Philadelphia.

You can reserve your spot for the tour by emailing APT Secretary Pam Covey directly at Phillyguides@gmail.com. Join us for an interesting tour! All are welcome.