This spring as the sun sets join an “out-of-doors” reading room as we read and discuss selected passages from an historic author and connect these works to Wallace House & Old Dutch Parsonage and New Jersey history.

No advanced reading or preparation is required. Dress to sit outdoors.

250 years ago in the spring of 1773 Phillis Wheatley traveled from America to England to publish Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, making her the first published African-American poet and the first African-American female published writer. This season’s reading room features the works of three early American Black women in words.

• Thursday, March 16: Phillis Wheatley

• Thursday, April 20: Esther “Hetty” Saunders

• Thursday, May 18: Sojourner Truth