Explore: politics

Tagged politics

Let's Talk: Philly D.A.

Philadelphians, we need to talk! Join your neighbors at eight Free Library of Philadelphia libraries between May 23 and June 30th, to watch and discuss individual episodes of the award winning PBS documentary series Philly D.A. . We…

Frenemies: The Strange Friendship of JFK and Richard Nixon

The 1960 presidential campaign was close, hard-fought, and left both sides feeling embittered. Kennedy’s final margin of victory was less than 115,000 votes out of nearly 70 million cast. Nixon was convinced that the Kennedy…

Trust No One: Joe McCarthy and the Politics of Fear

Lies. Alternative facts. Demonize and Destroy Your Opponents. Does this sound familiar? Former Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) has been dead for 63 years, but the political tools and techniques that he pioneered are as fresh as…

Voting by Mail? Avoid "Naked Ballots"!

Updated Tuesday, October 20, 2020 12:15 p.m. Spanish and Chinese translations have been added to this blog post. In the real world, small technical details count for a lot. How many checks were never cashed because the person who wrote…

Making Her Mark: Philadelphia Women Fight for the Vote Exhibition Opens Fall 2020

As we find ourselves weeks away from Election Day, consider this question: Who was the first person in your family to vote? The stories of Philadelphia women who built and sustained movements dedicated to voting rights is…

Defying Putin: The Dangers and Opportunities in Opposing Russia’s President

Bad things happen to people that Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, dislikes. Currently, Aleksi Navalny, the most important leader of Russia’s opposition, lies in a German hospital bed struggling to recover from a cup of…

The Picture of Health: The Strange Case of John F. Kennedy

During the critical first presidential debate in 1960, the difference in the physical appearance of the two candidates could not have been sharper. Vice President Richard Nixon looked like a man who belonged in a hospital. The…

A Dying Man Runs for President

If ever a man simply wore himself out while serving his country, Franklin D. Roosevelt is his name. First elected during the depths of the Great Depression in 1932, he was still on the job twelve years later in the midst of World War…

President Eisenhower, Senator McCarthy, and "The Junketeering Gumshoes"

During the years that Dwight Eisenhower served as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, he had to contend with some of the most demanding and difficult personalities on two continents. The shortlist included Franklin D. Roosevelt ,…

Race in the United States: Social Justice Virtual Workshops for Teens

Updated Friday, July 10, 2020 4:59 p.m. "The Social Justice Symposium Teen Planning Committee supports the Concerned Black Workers of the Free Library of Philadelphia ! CBWFLP Response to DEI/Board of Trustees' letter We are…

"I Voted" Stickers from Our Special Collections

It's Primary Election Day in Philadelphia! If you've signed up in Pennsylvania to vote by mail , you should have already received your ballot with its easy-to-follow instructions, enclosure envelope, and mailing envelope. The…

Women of the World, Unite!

"Women of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains!" You’ve probably heard a slightly different version of this quote (or, to be fair, misquote ) from Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto , the…

Get Your Trusted 2020 Presidential Election News from the Free Library

Super Tuesday is now behind us. The 11th debate of the Democratic presidential primary is on the horizon. Candidates are dropping out of the race left and right, but it’s still anybody’s game. As the field narrows, how can…

Women's History Month 2020: Stories We Know, Stories We'll Discover

"Even if I believed that women should be denied the right of suffrage, wild horses could not drag such an admission from my pen or my lips, for this reason: precisely the same arguments used to prove that the ballot be withheld…

MLK Day of Service | When the Youth Lead

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a strongly celebrated day in Philadelphia. People of all ages come together to support their communities and uplift the values of MLK’s civil rights leadership during this nationally recognized Day of…

Election Day is Tuesday, November 5

Election Day is Tuesday, November 5 throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. During this general election, Philadelphians will elect a Mayor, 10 District Council and Seven Council at-Large members, as well as Judges, City…

New Voting Machine Demonstrations at a Neighborhood Library Near You!

Whether you've voted or not in the past few years for national or local elections, you may or may not know that voting security has become an ever-increasing concern. A bipartisan report by the Senate Intelligence Committee released…

How to Vote in the Primary Election on Tuesday, May 21

Philadelphians: it’s time to make your voting plans for the 2019 Pennsylvania primary election, which will be held this coming Tuesday, May 21! The Free Library is here to help you vote, in more ways than one. Here’s an…

First Ladies, In Their Own Words

The position of First Lady is a unique one in American government. It’s not a democratically elected position, but the office holds a great deal of cultural clout, and the women who occupied it have been deemed significant enough…

Plan for the Polls: No Excuses!

With the launch of our Division of Cultural and Civic Engagement (DCCE), the Free Library is committed, more than ever, to getting Philadelphians involved in what’s happening in their neighborhoods and communities, as well as the…

Angela Saini | The Patriarchs: The Origins of Inequality

REGISTER Angela Saini is the author of Superior , an “easy-to-read blend of science reporting, cultural criticism, and personal reflection” ( Slate ) that explores the resurgence of the harmful and faulty study of race…

Heather McGhee | The Sum of Us (Adapted for Young Readers): How Racism Hurts Everyone

REGISTER Sandra Shaber Memorial Lecture The Sum of Us , Heather McGhee’s 2021 odyssey across the American landscape of inequality, won wide acclaim for its empathetic and incisive imagining of a future that could offer more than…

Reginald Dwayne Betts | Redaction

REGISTER A “powerful work of lyric art” and “tour de force indictment of the carceral industrial state” ( The New York Times Book Review ), Reginald Dwayne Betts’ poetry collection Felon won the…

Democracy, Democratic Values, and the Recent US Experience

From the works of Plato to those of the Founding Fathers, certain traits of a political system are critical to sustaining democracy. By examining instances where democracies have succumbed to authoritarian government, the course…

American Presidency

The 2016 American Presidency Series will blend education and entertainment for the whole family, offering lectures and analysis about the presidency and leadership along with enriching programs for children in our neighborhood libraries.…

Presidents of the United States

Under the United States Constitution, the President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States. As chief of the executive branch and face of the federal government as a whole, the presidency is…

U.S. Elections and Politics

The United States midterm general election will be held on Tuesday, November 6, 2018. In Pennsylvania, the ballot includes candidates for Governor, Lt. Governor, U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, the Pennsylvania State Senate,…

NewsBank Hot Topics

Trending news and hot topics for your next assignment! Hot topics covers Current Events, Business & Economics, Civics, Government, & Politics, Social Issues, Science, Technology & Health, Sports, Arts & Literature, and People in the News.

Gale OneFile | High School Edition (formerly InfoTrac Student Edition) *

High school students will have access to age-appropriate content from magazines, journals, newspapers, reference books, and engaging multi-media covering a wide range of subjects, from science, history, and literature to political…

Neal Gabler | Against The Wind: Edward Kennedy and the Rise of Conservatism, 1976-2009 with Patrick Kennedy

In conversation with former congressman Patrick Kennedy Neal Gabler is the author of Catching the Wind: Edward Kennedy and the Liberal Hour , a “rich and insightful” ( The New York Times ) account of the figure known as the most complex…

Kerri K. Greenidge | The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family

In conversation with Tamala Edwards, anchor, 6ABC Action News morning edition Historian Kerri K. Greenidge is the author of Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter , a portrait of the post-Reconstruction civil…

George Lakey | Dancing With History: A Life for Peace and Justice

In conversation with Varshini Prakash Active in grassroot campaigns for social change for more than seven decades, sociologist and Quaker organizer George Lakey was first arrested at a civil rights demonstration in 1963 and most…

Andrew K. Diemer | Vigilance: The Life of William Still, Father of the Underground Railroad

Andrew K. Diemer is the author of The Politics of Black Citizenship: Free African Americans in the Mid-Atlantic Borderland, 1817–1863 , an examination of the ways in which free Black Philadelphians and Baltimoreans fought to defend…

Anand Giridharadas | The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy

Ellis Wachs Endowed Lecture In conversation with Tamala Edwards, anchor, 6ABC Action News morning edition A former longtime columnist and foreign correspondent for The New York Times , Anand Giridharadas is the bestselling author of …

Stacy Schiff | The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams

In conversation with award-winning journalist and broadcaster Tracey Matisak Acclaimed for her “balanced, perceptive, thoroughly researched and exceptionally well written” ( The New Yorker ) nonfiction portraits of historical figures,…

Maggie Haberman | Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America

In conversation with Tamala Edwards, anchor, 6ABC Action News morning edition Maggie Haberman was part of a team that won a 2018 Pulitzer Prize for its reportage of the investigations into then-President Donald Trump’s, and his…

Charlayne Hunter-Gault | My People: Five Decades of Writing about Black Lives

In conversation with Dorothy Roberts Referred to by Jelani Cobb as “a Dean of American journalism,” Charlayne Hunter-Gault has chronicled some of the past half-century’s most important moments in Black life, culture, and politics. Often…

Anna Badkhen | Bright Unbearable Reality: Essays

In conversation with Airea D. Matthews, Philadelphia Poet Laureate and Co-Director of the Creative Writing Program at Bryn Mawr With an artist’s perspective and a ground-level view of people in extremis across the world, writer Anna…

Reza Aslan | An American Martyr in Persia: The Epic Life and Tragic Death of Howard Baskerville

Religion scholar Reza Aslan is the author of the No. 1 New York Times bestseller Zealot , “a lucid, intelligent page-turner” ( Los Angeles Times ) that sifts through centuries of mythmaking to present a clear account of the life and…

Saidiya Hartman and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor| Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America

One of academia’s leading authorities on African American literature, enslavement, gender studies, and the ways in which marginalized people are excluded in historical narratives, Saidiya Hartman is a University Professor at Columbia…