John C. Van Horne is the Director of the Library Company (after having served from 1985 to 2014). Founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1731, the Library Company is the nation’s oldest circulating library and holds one of the largest collections of primary sources documenting every aspect of American history and culture from the 17th through the early 20th centuries. Particular strengths include early American economy, African American history, women’s history, and visual culture. Dr. Van Horne holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Princeton University and a master’s degree and doctorate in history from the University of Virginia. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2005. His publications include a dozen articles, many volumes of The Papers of Benjamin Henry Latrobe (Yale), and other edited works such as Religious Philanthropy and Colonial Slavery: The American Correspondence of the Associates of Dr. Bray, 1717-1777 (1985); The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America (with Jean Fagan Yellin, 1994); Traveling the Pennsylvania Railroad: The Photographs of William H. Rau (2002); and America’s Curious Botanist: A Tercentennial Reappraisal of John Bartram (1699-1777) (with Nancy Hoffmann, 2004).
