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The General Society Calendar of Events
Labor, Landmarks and Literature Lecture Series continues a tradition of public lectures that started at The General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen (GSMT) in 1837.
All lectures are hosted in the General Society building at 20 West 44th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues) and will take place on Tuesdays at 6:30 pm.
Reservations are strongly recommended as seating is limited. Admission tickets are not mailed but held at the door. Admission is $15, $10 for members, and $5 for students. Special lecture packages available: Full Pack includes all 12 lectures for $120, $70 for members. Six Pack includes any 6 lectures for $60, $30 for members. Four Pack includes any 4 lectures for $45, $20 for members.
Note a standard year membership is $50. Click here to become a member.
Tickets can be purchased online. We accept all major forms of payment online.
To request a brochure for on Labor, Landmarks, & Literature, or further information on events at The General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen contact 212-840-1840 or email library@generalsociety.org.
Click here to download the PDF brochure of Labor, Landmarks, & Literature.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA), the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), and the New York Council for the Humanities.
| Full Pack (12 lectures) — Non-Member: $120 | |
| Full Pack (12 lectures) — Member: $70 | |
| Six Pack — Non-Member: $60 | |
| Six Pack — Member: $30 | |
| Four Pack — Non-Member: $45 | |
| Four Pack — Member: $20 |
Ellen Litwicki specializes in American cultural history and the Gilded Age/Progressive Era. Her research focuses on the history and significance of American cultural rituals of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her book America’s Public Holidays is a history that examines how middle-class representatives of various constituencies used public holidays to inscribe their competing visions of America into the nation’s collective consciousness during the “frenzy of holiday creativity” that pervaded the United States between the Civil War and World War I.
| Non Member Price - $15 | |
| Member Price - $10 | |
| Student Price - $5 |
Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden, a distinguished Smithsonian Affiliate, was created as Sailors’ Snug Harbor a “haven for aged, decrepit and worn sailors.” By the turn of the 20th century, Snug Harbor was the richest charitable institution in the United States. Snug Harbor’s major buildings are representative of the changing architectural styles of the early 19th and 20th centuries. The first buildings were built in the Greek revival style. As the complex expanded, new buildings were erected in Beaux Arts, Renaissance Revival, Second Empire and Italianate styles. High Victorian decorative components were added throughout the 83-acre site. In the 1960’s, the newly formed New York City Landmarks Commission stepped forward to save the buildings, designating them as New York City’s first landmark structures, and listing them on the National Register of Historic Places. The City acquired Snug Harbor during the Lindsay administration with the goal of transforming it into a major cultural center.
| Non Member Price - $15 | |
| Member Price - $10 | |
| Student Price - $5 |
The Historic House Trust works with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation to preserve its collection of historic houses, which span 350 years of New York City life. From modest farmers’ cottages to grand mansions, the 23 sites in the Trust’s collection are located in all five boroughs and tell the story of New York City’s evolution - and America’s history in microcosm - from its beginnings as a Dutch outpost, through the American Revolution, to its rise as a mercantile center and great 21st-century city. Mr. Vagnone will discuss various models for the preservation of historic resources such as the Living Legacy Alternative Stewardship Project.
| Non Member Price - $15 | |
| Member Price - $10 | |
| Student Price - $5 |
Trained as a social historian of modern America, Richard's scholarly interests are in political economy, the workplace, urban life, and American politics. He is the author of The Triangle Fire, the Protocols of Peace and Industrial Democracy in Progressive Era New York (2005), co-editor of Sweatshop USA: The American Sweatshop in Historical and Global Perspective (2003), and editor of Exploring America's Past: essays in Social and Cultural History (1996). He is currently finishing a book entitled The World in a Box: Containerization, the Port of New York and the Postwar Global Economy, under contract for The University of Pennsylvania Press.
| Non Member Price - $15 | |
| Member Price - $10 | |
| Student Price - $5 |
A historical overview, with a focus on independent comics.
Kent Worcester is the author of C.L.R. James: A Political Biography (1996) and The Social Science Research Council, 1923-1998 (2001), and the coeditor of Trade Union Politics: American Unions and Economic Change, 1960s-1990s (1995) and Violence and Politics: Globalization's Paradox (2002). He teaches courses on democratic theory, international relations, social movements, and contemporary warfare. He earned a B.A., University of Massachusetts at Boston, and an A.M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D., all from Columbia University. He is the co-editor, with Jeet Heer, of A Comics Studies Reader (2008).
| Non Member Price - $15 | |
| Member Price - $10 | |
| Student Price - $5 |
Bill Kartalopoulos teaches classes about comics and illustration. He is a Contributing Editor at Print Magazine, where he regularly writes about comics, and is the Programming Coordinator for SPX: The Small Press Expo. He reviews comics for Publishers Weekly, and has worked as a Publishing Associate at Raw Books and Graphics. In 2008 Bill was the curator for “Kim Deitch: A Retrospective” at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art.
| Non Member Price - $15 | |
| Member Price - $10 | |
| Student Price - $5 |
Located in Paterson, New Jersey, considered the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution, New Jersey’s Great Falls once provided its water to generate power to run mills that produced silk, locomotives, aircraft engines and guns. In 1778, Alexander Hamilton first visited the falls and noted its waterpower potential for industrial development. Years later, as the country's first treasury secretary, he selected the site to become the nation's first planned industrial city. The area was named a National Historic District in 1976, and designated as a national park in 2009.
| Non Member Price - $15 | |
| Member Price - $10 | |
| Student Price - $5 |
Weeksville Heritage Center is dedicated to preserving the historic Hunterfly Road Houses and the significant history they represent. The landmark Hunterfly Road Houses are the last surviving residences of 19th century Weeksville, one of the nation's earliest free African-American communities. The area was named after free African-American James Weeks, who acquired property in the area in 1838, only eleven years after slavery ended in New York State. By the 1860’s, Weeksville had become an intellectual, cultural and economic center for free African-Americans. A model of the African-American contribution to the development of Brooklyn, the region and the nation, historic Weeksville is the premier example of the 19th century African-American experience in the North.
| Non Member Price - $15 | |
| Member Price - $10 | |
| Student Price - $5 |
Professor Haverty-Stacke is the author of America’s Forgotten Holiday: May Day and Nationalism, 1867-1960. Though now a largely forgotten holiday in the United States, May Day was founded here in 1886 by an energized labor movement as a part of its struggle for the eight-hour day. In ensuing years, May Day took on new meaning, and by the early 1900s had become an annual rallying point for anarchists, socialists, and communists around the world. Yet, American workers and radicals also used May Day to advance alternative definitions of what it meant to be an American and what America should be as a nation.
| Non Member Price - $15 | |
| Member Price - $10 | |
| Student Price - $5 |
Mr. Barwick, a leading authority on planning and preservation, has had a long association with the Municipal Art Society (MAS), working with the organization three times. He served as Executive Director from 1969 to 1975, as President from 1983 to 1995, and returned as President from 1999 until 2008. During this time he and MAS have played an important role in projects such as saving Grand Central Station, the campaign for community-based planning, and the rezoning of Times Square. Mr. Barwick also was President of the New York State Historical Association, Chairman of New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, and Director of the New York State Council on the Arts.
| Non Member Price - $15 | |
| Member Price - $10 | |
| Student Price - $5 |
Peter Gutiérrez is a consultant who works with schools, libraries, and publishers to advance the role of graphic novels in literacy development. Peter's non-fiction, short fiction, poetry, and comics have appeared in numerous publications. Recently these have included The Financial Times, Rue Morgue, Screen Education, BookShelf, Graphic Novel Reporter, School Library Journal, Shantytown Anomaly, and ForeWord Magazine, where he is the graphic novels columnist. His book on scriptwriting will be published by Scholastic in 2010.
| Non Member Price - $15 | |
| Member Price - $10 | |
| Student Price - $5 |
R. Sikoryak specializes in making comic adaptations of literature classics, producing a mashup of high and low cultures. Sikoryak earned his B.F.A. from the Parsons School of Design in 1987, and is currently on staff at the school. Sikoryak is also known for his "Carousel" series of multimedia comics slideshows, featuring cartoonists like Lauren Weinstein, Michael Kupperman, and Jason Little. Sikoryak's cartoons and illustrations have appeared in The New Yorker, Nickelodeon Magazine, Drawn and Quarterly, World War 3 Illustrated, and RAW, among other publications; and on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
| Non Member Price - $15 | |
| Member Price - $10 | |
| Student Price - $5 |
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