ALLIE AVIS
Stars, Stripes, and Sales: Shaping American Identity Through Advertising
Allie Alvis, Curator of Special Collections of the Winterthur Library, is responsible for the stewardship and engagement of the collection. They previously worked as an antiquarian bookseller at Type Punch Matrix (Washington, DC) and as the special collections reference librarian for the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives. Allie originated the concept of Pop Bibliography and maintains popular accounts across various platforms as Book Historia.
MATTHEW SPARACIO
Making Natives Ephemeral: Ephemera and the Roots of the United States
Dr. Matthew Sparacio received his PhD Native American History Auburn University. He teaches at Georgia State University. His research interests include pre- and post-removal Choctaw history, health cultures in colonial America, and the history of the book and print in Indian Country. His first book, The Choctaw Civil War: Justice and Sovereignty on the Franco-Choctaw Frontier, examines the connections between violence, trade, and justice in the mid-eighteenth-century Native South.
ANDY McCARTHY
“Evacuation Day to Y2K”: Researching Cultural Origins in New York City
Andy McCarthy is a reference librarian in the Irma and Paul Milstein Division of U.S. History, Local History, and Genealogy at the New York Public Library. A former researcher at ABC News, he also worked as a double-decker bus tour guide and performed a monthly monologue and slideshow act about the history of West 42nd Street for THE DEUCE film series at Nitehawk Cinema. Recent publications include a piece for Lit Hub Crime Reads on the 30th Anniversary of the movie Goodfellas, and for the New York History journal, “Salutary and Well-Intentioned Violence: The 1858 Staten Island Quarantine Fires.”
THOMAS HORROCKS
Murder & Memory: the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Thomas A. Horrocks received a Ph.D. in history from the University of Pennsylvania. He is an independent scholar who spent 30 years working as a library administrator at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Houghton Library, Harvard University; and the John Hay Library at Brown University. His latest book, The Annotated Lincoln, co-edited with Harold Holzer, was published by Harvard University Press in 2016. He recently completed a book on Abraham Lincoln in 50 Objects and has begun work on The Lincoln Assassination in 50 Objects.
MICHAEL RUSSO
“Cupid Under Fire: Valentines of the Civil War”
Michael A. Russo is a visual artist, retired art educator, and the Vice President of the National Valentine Collectors Association. In the past, his ephemera collections have been featured in Martha Stewart Living Wedding magazine and he has appeared with her in a television segment on the Victorian Language of Flowers.
ANNE PEALE
Death By Lightning: Memorializing James A. Garfield
Anne Peale received a MSc in Material Cultures and the History of the Book, and a PhD in Geography from the University of Edinburgh. She is the Chapin Librarian at Williams College, where she curates a collection of rare books and manuscripts for use in undergraduate instruction and research. She is the recipient of an M.C. Lang Fellowship in Book History, Bibliography, and Humanities Teaching with Historical Sources from Rare Book School, and leads more than fifty hands-on instruction sessions each year for Williams students and other groups.
SARAH WEATHERWAX
“A Stupendous Folly:” Philadelphia’s Sesquicentennial Exposition
Sarah Weatherwax received a BA in History from the College of Wooster (Ohio), a MA in History from the College of William and Mary, and has worked at the Library Company of Philadelphia since 1993. She contributed a chapter about lithographer Peter S. Duval to Philadelphia on Stone: Commercial Lithography in Philadelphia, 1828-1878. She has curated exhibitions on diverse topics, most recently on Imperfect History, which examined the role of graphic arts in preserving and distorting history. Other research interests include women in photography and Philadelphia’s built environment.
SARAH FINN
Gugler Lithographic Company World War II Mobilization
Sarah Finn receivde her MLIS with an Archival Concentration, and a MA in History from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is a Special Collections Librarian at Milwaukee Public Library. She is passionate about sharing the history of print with the wider public and curates two popular Instagram accounts highlighting the wide array of materials found in libraries, particularly printed natural history illustrations.
DAVID FREUND
Everyday Genius: America Shaped in Photo Postcards
David Freund taught at Pratt Institute and Ramapo College, where he chaired the Visual Arts department. A 1978 NEA grant supported his nationwide study of gas-station culture, later published by Steidl. His work has been exhibited at Light Gallery and the George Eastman Museum, and is held by MoMA and other major institutions. He has served on the boards of the Society for Photographic Education and the Ephemera Society of America. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is currently planning an exhibition of his postcard collection.
FAITH PAGE
“Diaries of the African American Mother”
Faith Page received a BA in History from William and Mary as well as a certificate in Public History and Material Culture from the National Institute for American History and Democracy. She is currently pursuing an MA in Museum Studies. Her historical focus is African American history during Reconstruction, as well as Victorian history and literature. Her work as a tour guide at Preservation Virginia’s Gray’s Creek site helped her to reexamine the relationship between African Americans and the site.
ELEANOR SHIPPEN
All in for the Semiquin: Postcards and Public Memory at Delaware 250
Eleanor Shippen received a BA in Anthropology from the University of Victoria in British Columbia, and is a second year Lois F. McNeil Fellow in the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture. Her thesis research centers on postcards and their ability to reflect personal, commercial, and national narratives of commemoration. She currently works with Delaware 250, the state’s Semi quincentennial Commission, as the Marketing and Engagement Intern and serves as co-chair of the New Professional and Student Committee for the National Council on Public History.
RACHEL SHAPIRO
A History in Unexpected Places: Scrapbooks, Ephemera, and Women’s Music Clubs
Rachel Shapiro received a BA in Music Performance and English from Simpson College, Indianola IA, and is a Ph.D. candidate in Musicology at Florida State University. Her dissertation is titled “Ephemera and Remembrance in American Music Historiography: The Case of Marjorie Church (1893-1953)”. Her current research explores remembrance, history-making, and the role of ephemera in documenting the histories of overlooked and marginalized voices. She also works as a teaching assistant at Florida State University and as an Archival Assistant with the Florida State University College of Music Archives.