The Author Events Series presents Russell Shorto and Molly Beer  | Angelica & Taking Manhattan

In Conversation with Michelle Craig McDonald

In this enthralling and revealing woman’s-eye view of a revolutionary era, Molly Beer breathes vibrant new life into a period usually dominated by masculine themes and often dulled by familiarity. In telling Angelica’s story, she illuminates how American women have always plied influence and networks for political ends, including the making of a new nation.

Taking Manhattan tells the riveting story of the birth of New York City as a center of capitalism and pluralism, a foundation from which America would rise. It also shows how the paradox of New York's origins--boundless opportunity coupled with subjugation and displacement--reflects America's promise and failure to this day. Russell Shorto, whose work has been described as "astonishing" (New York Times) and "literary alchemy" (Chicago Tribune), has once again mined archival sources to offer a vibrant tale and a fresh and trenchant argument about American beginnings.

Raised in Angelica Schuyler Church’s namesake town of Angelica, New York, Molly Beer is an award-winning author of essays, longform journalism, and oral history. She teaches nonfiction writing at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Russell Shorto, author of the bestsellers Smalltime, Revolution Song, Amsterdam, and The Island at the Center of the World, is the director of the New Amsterdam Project at the New York Historical. He lives in Maryland.

Michelle Craig McDonald is the Director of the Library & Museum at the American Philosophical Society, and has worked for nearly three decades as an educator and administrator. She earned her Ph.D. in History from the University of Michigan where she focused on business relationships and consumer behavior between North America and the Caribbean during the 18th and 19th centuries. She also holds an M.A. in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College, Annapolis, an M.A. in Museum Studies from George Washington University, and a B.A. in History from the University of California, Los Angeles, and was the Harvard-Newcomen Postdoctoral Fellow in Business History at the Harvard Business School. McDonald is the author of Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States (UPenn Press, 2025), and co-author of Public Drinking in the Early Modern World: Voices from the Tavern (Pickering & Chatto/Routledge Press, 2011), and her research has been supported by the Fulbright Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, the Library Company of Philadelphia, and the Winterthur Library and Museum.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians.

Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! After the program, attendees will be invited to continue the countdown to the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence in 2026 and meet Philadelphia’s Revolutionary City Project partners, including colleagues from the American Philosophical Society and the Museum of the American Revolution.

All tickets are non-refundable.