Talks & Tours
"Tom is one of the most engaging speakers I have ever worked with. His knowledge of his research topics is extensive, and he is able to communicate in a lively and fun way. When I booked him to give a talk to Philadelphia museum and cultural professionals in November 2011, I knew everyone would be in for a treat. He revealed so much about a largely unknown topic, the 1926 Philadelphia Sesquicentennial - people really enjoyed it. Tom is fantastic, and I look forward to working with him again."
Lauren Zalut, American Swedish Historical Museum
PLEASE NOTE: Most of these talks can be given remotely via Zoom, either live or pre-recorded. For an example of a recent Zoom talk to the Legacy Foundation of the Union League of Philadelphia, click here. Please contact me at thkeels@gmail.com for more information.
Tom Keels has been informing and entertaining local groups with his presentations and historic tours for over a decade, speaking on such diverse topics as Philadelphia’s forgotten world's fair, sordid scandals, vanished department stores, lost architecture, cemeteries and burial grounds, and neighborhoods like Rittenhouse Square and Chestnut Hill. Examples of his talks include:
NEW! ROGUES’ GALLERY: WHEN RICH PEOPLE SPEND GOOD MONEY ON BAD ART
For those climbing the social ladder, assembling a world-class art collection has always been a golden ticket to the top ranks of society. But in their haste to reach the top, many arrivistes have fallen victim to fraudsters. The Roman poet Horace wrote that “He who knows a thousand works of art knows a thousand frauds.” During the Renaissance, a young artist named Michelangelo fooled a prince of the church into buying an ancient Roman statue that Michelangelo himself had carved and antiqued. In early 20th century Philadelphia, both multi-millionaire P.A.B. Widener and legal eagle John G. Johnson paid a not-so-small fortune to a European grifter named Leo Nardus who supplied them with da Vincis, Rembrandts, Vermeers, and other Old Masters – all of which were completely bogus. Later, both men would redeem themselves by assembling world-class collections which they donated to the National Gallery of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. As the recent scandals involving Knoedler & Co. and other dealers and auction houses prove, the art world remains a frenzied Vanity Fair, where wealthy status-seekers fling away their fortunes in exchange for masterpieces which turn out to be mere dross.
Sesqui! Greed, Graft, and the Forgotten World's Fair of 1926
The Sesqui Sinks. The Sesqui-Centennial International Exposition of 1926, held in South Philadelphia, was meant to be the greatest world's fair since the 1876 Centennial. Thanks to political corruption, greed, egotism, and the wettest summer on record, it became a crumbling, sodden, bankrupt mess, Philadelphia's "forgotten fair." The Sesqui served as a symbol for the city's monolithic Republican Organization, where one boss (Congressman William S. Vare, the "Duke of South Philadelphia") could kidnap an entire world's fair and transfer it from the newly completed Fairmount Parkway to the swamps of South Philly, his congressional district. This talk also explores how the Sesqui became an unwitting battleground for many of the social struggles convulsing America in the 1920s: racism, anti-Semitism, women's rights, the Ku Klux Klan, eugenics, and Prohibition.
The Ladies of the Street. One of the few bright spots of the Sesqui-Centennial was the High Street of 1776, a recreation of a Federal-era Market Street lined with 22 reconstructions of vanished historic structures, from William Penn's Slate Roof House to the Jefferson Declaration House. Created by the Women's Committee, the Street of 1776 was the Sesqui's most popular single attraction, and one of the few to turn a profit. Other popular attractions created by women included Sulgrave Manor, a replica of the ancestral English home of the Washington family. The Ladies of the Street describes how Philadelphia women defied the corrupt Republican Organization to create some of the fair's most memorable monuments.
With Liberty and Justice for...A Few. Philadelphia's African Americans, Jews, and Catholics all made major contributions to the celebration of America's 150th birthday. Yet each were treated very differently by the fair's managers and by the city government, reflecting the prejudices of America in the 1920s. Irish Catholics used the Sesqui to trumpet their emergence into the city's power structure. Despite their major financial and organizational contributions to the fair, Jews were reviled and attacked by anti-Semites, starting with Henry Ford and his Dearborn Independent. African Americans struggled to make their presence felt despite the widespread racism of the day, only to see their major projects sabotaged by fair executives. All this against a backdrop that included eugenics, anti-immigration agitation, and a planned visit by 100,000 Ku Klux Klan members for their 1926 Klonvokation, all with the blessing of Philadelphia's city fathers.
The Art of the Sesqui. Despite its shortcomings, the Sesqui offered many Americans their first glimpse of the new movements that had revolutionized European art since 1900, introducing them to artists like Kandinsky, Matisse, and Picasso. The Palace of Fine Arts housed over 10,000 works of art, including an entire gallery devoted to the sculpture of the late Auguste Rodin, collected by Philadelphia theater magnate Jules Mastbaum. After the fair closed, this gallery would serve as the nucleus of the Rodin Museum, now one of the jewels of the Museum Mile on the Ben Franklin Parkway.
Philadelphia's Golden Age of Retail
Tom and his co-author Lawrence M. Arrigale bring Philadelphia's heyday as a mercantile mecca back to life with presentations on the city's dear departed department stores -- Wanamaker's, Strawbridge & Clothier, Gimbels, Lits, and Snellenburg's -- as well as its specialty shops, like the Blum Store, Nan Duskin, Jacob Reed's Sons, J.E. Caldwell's, Bailey Banks & Biddle, and many others. Their presentations illustrate how our city's retailing titans revolutionized American marketing, developed "retailtainment" as a concept a century before it became a buzzword, helped generations of Philadelphians celebrate holidays and other special occasions.
Wicked Philadelphia
You Are Invited to a Mischianza. A look at the Mischianza of May 1778, when the British Army occupying Philadelphia celebrated the departure of its commanding officer with an orgy of dancing, gambling, dining and drinking that would cost nearly $600,000 today.
The Storey Cotton Con -- Philadelphia’s Ponzi Scheme. In 1900, five con artists created the Storey Cotton Company, a phony commodities trading firm that bilked Americans out of millions of dollars before its inglorious collapse in 1905.
The Sugar Daddy and the Broadway Butterfly. A Jazz Age story of a wealthy Philadelphia blueblood and his chorus girl mistress, and the scandal that erupted when the mistress inconveniently turned up dead in her Manhattan apartment.
Where the Bodies Are (And Aren't) Buried. Three tales of murder, rape, political corruption body snatching, and misplaced corpses, drawn from three chapters of Wicked Philadelphia.
Philadelphia’s Devious Dames and Wicked Wenches. Cherchez la femme with a close-up look at some of the female swindlers and sirens who have seduced the Quaker City over the years.
Forgotten Philadelphia: Lost Architecture of the Quaker City
Landmark To Landfill: Four Lost Philadelphia Monuments. An overview of how changes in Philadelphia’s social, economic, and political history have altered its architecture, focusing on the rise and fall of the Slate Roof House, Jayne Building, Broad Street Station, and Liberty Bell Pavilion.
Philadelphia’s Three World’s Fairs: The Good, The Bad, and The Unrealized. A comparison of the glorious 1876 Centennial, the unfortunate 1926 Sesqui-Centennial, and the mostly unrealized 1976 Bicentennial.
Philadelphia’s Edifice Complex. What happens when ego outstrips reason in the Quaker City, from Robert Morris’ unfinished French chateau to recent examples of egregious architecture.
Franklin’s Forgotten Philadelphia. A tour through the vanished city where Benjamin Franklin lived, worked, and helped to create the United States of America.
Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square
Rittenhouse Square: Lifestyles of the Formerly Rich and Famous. Stories of the Square when it housed more millionaires per square foot than any other neighborhood in America.
Modern Medicis: Rittenhouse Square and the Arts. A look at how Joseph Harrison Jr., William and Anna Wilstach, Alexander and Lois Cassatt, Edward and Eva Stotesbury, Edward and Mary Louise Curtis Bok, Henry P. McIlhenny and other Philadelphia philanthropists created and shaped the city’s cultural institutions.
Philadelphia Graveyards and Cemeteries
Designing for the Dead: Art and Architecture in Philadelphia Cemeteries: Keels explores how the birth of the rural cemetery in Philadelphia provided local designers with a novel outdoor laboratory where they could exhibit their works, and experiment with new styles. Such noted architects and artists as John Notman, William Strickland, Alexander Milne Calder, Frank Furness, Horace Trumbauer, and Paul Philippe Cret all created designs for cemetery gatehouses and individual monuments. In some cases, they became "cradle-to-grave" designers for the city's elite.
Sinners, Scandals & Suicides: The Seamy Side of Laurel Hill: Sure, Laurel Hill has its brave military heroes like George Gordon Meade, its uplifting reformers like Sarah Josepha Hale, and selfless philanthropists like Robert Carson. But what about the less than pure spirits? The South Philly gangster who got whacked when he tried to infiltrate the Schuylkill County numbers racket? The Civil War hero, who made his fortune from white lightning and who, because of his many illicit affairs, was referred to by the local press as "a slayer of innocence and a robber of chastity?" The vile seducer who was slain by his victim's daughter and then ended up buried a few hundred yards away? And the con woman with a dozen aliases who rose from South Broad Street to become the Toast of Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Tom Keels will introduce you to all these dastardly denizens of Laurel Hill.
Philadelphia’s Forgotten Graveyards: Where Are They Now? Burial sites that have vanished over time due to neglect, development, or corruption.
America Lies Here: Colonial and Federal Graveyards of Philadelphia. A tour of our earliest burial grounds, from Gloria Dei, Christ Church, and Mikveh Israel to Richardson’s, the city’s first independent cemetery.
Laurel Hill and the Victorian Way of Death. How Philadelphia’s first rural cemetery, established in 1836, came to embody the Victorian ethos of the “good death.”
TOURS:
Tom is a tour guide at historic Laurel Hill Cemetery, and regularly leads tours there on such topics as “Architects and Architecture at Laurel Hill” and “Sinners, Scandals, & Suicides,” along with general tours. In addition, he has conducted tours of West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Lower Merion and Woodlands Cemetery in West Philadelphia.
CLIENTS:
Among the organizations Tom has addressed are:
- American Institute of Architects (Philadelphia chapter)
- American Revolution Round Table of Philadelphia (ARRTOP)
- Athenaeum of Philadelphia
- Chestnut Hill Historical Society
- Christ Church Preservation Trust
- Curtis Institute of Music
- East Falls Historical Society
- Free Library of Philadelphia (central branch authors’ series)
- Friends of Independence National Historical Park
- Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC)
- Harvard Club of Philadelphia
- Museum Council of Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley
- Nuclear Regulatory Commission (Region I) Annual Meeting
- Old York Road Historical Society
- Springfield Township Historical Society (Montgomery County)
- Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia
- Union League of Philadelphia
- Victorian Society in America
- Walk Philadelphia Guides
References and fees available upon request.