Enfilade

Upcoming from The Library Company of Philadelphia:

Finding Moses Williams

Online, Wednesday, 19 November 2025, 1.00–3.30

Silhouette of Moses Williams, perhaps by Raphaelle Peale or by Williams himself, after 1802, 9 × 8 cm (Library Company of Philadelphia).

This program of illustrated talks by five speakers will focus on the identification of the exceptional hollow-cut paper profiles created by Moses Williams (1776–1830) at Peale’s Philadelphia Museum and on presenting new historically accurate information about Williams’s life and family. Moses’s parents were manumitted by Peale in 1786 and Moses, who was born enslaved, was then indentured to Peale by his parents until age twenty-eight

Raised within the Peale family, Moses was literate and trained in skills for creating and installing the Museum’s displays of art and natural science. After the installation of a physiognotrace device for creating hollow-cut paper profiles in 1802, Moses was freed and given the concession to operate this new attraction. The popularity of this inexpensive form of portraiture and the highly accurate and elegant profiles Moses cut, made him financially independent.

Recent research into Moses’s life provides us with a clearer understanding of his artistry and other activities, as well as his death date and the identity of his descendants. And, the story of Williams’s birth family illuminates how the practice of indenture used by Free Black families, like the Williams family, was a strategy for seeking financial stability.

A small selection of Moses Williams’s profiles will be on display at the Library Company during November and December and in the Peale Gallery at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The program is sponsored by the Library Company of Philadelphia’s Program in African American History and the Center for American Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Registration for this free virtual event is available here»

p r e s e n t a t i o n s

1.00  Welcome — Sarah Weatherwax (Senior Curator of Graphic Arts, The Library Company of Philadelphia)

1.05  Introduction to LCP’s Program in African American History — Wynn Eakins (Reference Librarian and African American History Subject Specialist, The Library Company of Philadelphia)

1.10  Finding Moses in the Peale-Sellers Family Album — Carol Soltis (Project Associate Curator, Philadelphia Museum of Art)

1.35  Presenting Moses at The Peale, Baltimore’s Community Museum — Nancy Proctor (Re-founding Director of The Peale)

2.00  ‘Not Yet Completely Free,’ Moses and His Family in the Context of the Gradual Manumission Act — Ellen Fernandez Sacco (Genealogist and Independent Scholar)

2.25  Locating Moses William in Philadelphia: New Information about Moses Williams’s Life and Death Based on a Re-examination of Philadelphia’s Primary Sources — Dean Krimmel (Creative Museum Services, Research Consultant to The Peale)

2.50  Moses Williams, A Technical View — Lauren Muney (Silhouette Artist and Researcher)

3.15  Final Q&A