6 pm – Reception
6:30 pm – Lecture

The illustrated newspaper was one of the most prominent items to be found in the nineteenth-century American family parlor. Before photographs could be reproduced in print, the engravings in publications such as Harper’s Weekly and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper provided readers with pictures of the latest news. In this lecture, Joshua Brown will examine the weekly publications which brought the era’s rampant political corruption, economic chaos, and roiling social turmoil right into the homes of Gilded Age Americans.

Joshua Brown is the Executive Director of the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. He is also Professor of History at The Graduate Center.