Anne A. Verplanck, Ph.D.

Biography

Anne Verplanck teaches courses in American art and visual culture, social and cultural history, American decorative arts, museum studies, and heritage studies. Prior to joining the Penn State Harrisburg faculty in 2010, she worked in the museum field for 30 years. Until 2009, she was the Curator of Prints and Paintings at Winterthur Museum, where she also served as Interim Director of Museum Collections and Interim Director of the Research Fellowship Program. In addition, she taught in the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture/University of Delaware, and George Washington and George Mason universities. She has served in curatorial and consultant positions to numerous museums and historic sites and has lectured widely. Verplanck serves on the Board of the journal Winterthur Portfolio and on the Collections Committee of the Biggs Museum of American Art. A graduate of Connecticut College, Anne earned her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in American Studies at the College of William and Mary.

Professional Affiliations

• American Studies Association
• College Art Association
• American Association of Museums
• Association of Art Museum Curators
• Association of Historians of American Art

Research Interests

Anne Verplanck researches 18^th- and 19^th- century American art in its many contexts. She is currently at work on a book-length study, The Graphic Arts of Philadelphia, 1780-1880, which explores some of the forces that shaped a century of artistic patronage and production in one of America's most prosperous urban centers. Works in progress include “The Local, the National, and the Antiquarian,” which examines the slippage between local and national movements commemorating America’s colonial and early national pasts in the mid-nineteenth century, and an essay analyzing the patronage of photographic images in antebellum Philadelphia. These projects have been supported by research fellowships from Winterthur, Hagley, the Library Company of Philadelphia, Princeton University Libraries, and the American Antiquarian Society.
 

Courses Taught

• AM ST/HUM 307, American Art
• AM ST 400, America to 1765
• AM ST 401, Revolution and the Early Republic, 1765-1815
• AM ST 480, Museum Studies
• AM ST 491W, Themes and Eras: The City
• AM ST 533, American Civilization in the 18th Century
• AM ST 550, Public Heritage
• AM ST 570, Topics in American Art: Painting
• AM ST 570, Topics in American Art: Decorative Arts and Material Culture

Publications and Research

Selected Publications

• Quaker Aesthetics: Reflections on a Quaker Ethic in American Design and Consumption.  Philadelphia, PA:  University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003 (co-edited with Emma Lapsansky).
• “Patina and Persistence: Miniature Patronage and Production in Philadelphia, 1840- 1860,” in Sven Beckert and Julia Rosenbaum, eds., The American Bourgeoisie: Distinction and Identity in the Nineteenth Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 63-85.
• “The Silhouette and Quaker Identity in Early National Philadelphia.” Winterthur Portfolio 43:1 (Spring, 2009), 41-78.
• "The Social Meanings of Portrait Miniatures in Philadelphia, 1760-1820," in Ann Smart Martin and J. Ritchie Garrison, eds., American Material Culture: The Shape of the Field (Winterthur, DE: Winterthur Museum, 1997), 195-223.
• “John Ramage” and “Benjamin Trott,” in American National Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).

Selected Exhibitions

• Installations of Prints and Paintings Gallery, 2001-2009, Winterthur Museum, Winterthur, DE
• Currier & Ives: The Sporting Prints,   March-June, 2001, Winterthur Museum, Winterthur, DE
• Steamboat Vacations: Excursions on the Chesapeake, April 1999-Jan. 2000, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, MD
• Auguste Edouart and the American Silhouette Tradition, 1995-2000, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC