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Cities Without Citizens: Statelessness and Settlements in Early America

July 8 - September 28, 2003

Cities Without Citizens examines the cities, settlements and peoples of early America, and illuminates how our nation's past connects with contemporary life. Explore the beginnings of a seemingly empty land; the complexities of drawing borders; methods of identifying colonists, criminals, and slaves; the experience of massacre and catastrophe; and the attempts at establishing governance and law. Curating artist Aaron Levy of Slought Foundation juxtaposes Rosenbach historical materials with his own contemporary work, plus those of forensic photographer Lars Wallsten, the disaster relief architectural team of Gans & Jelacic, and installation artist Katrin Sigurdardottir.

Early American documents on view include:

• a 19th-century reprint of the original 1682 plan for Philadelphia;
  
• Thomas Jefferson list of slaves and linen quantities he allotted them;
  
• a 1663 Eliot Indian Bible;
  
• a true account of the trials, examinations, confessions, condemnations, and executions of witches in 17th-century Salem.