2023 Spring Lecture Series

Lecture Series

"Powerful Infuences of the Brandywine Valley"

For our popular lecture series this year, three experienced lecturers will delve into the history of three diverse topics, using photographs and words, to explain the rarely explored but powerful influences of the Brandywine Valley.

From the development of the Kennett mushroom industry, and the historical impact of the 60-mile-long Brandywine once described as “the most storied little river in America,” to the preservation of our land that impacts the quality of life in Chester County, this lecture series will appeal to many. So come out and meet fellow attendees and learn something new about our historic Chester County!

All lectures are held at 7pm.  Coffee, tea and light desserts will be served.

FABULOUS FUNGI

March 2nd at 7pm

Tina Ellor

Mushrooms contain critical nutrients that we just do not get from other food and scarcity or absence of these things have been linked to many disease states including neuro-degeneration, coronary heart disease, diabetes, and cancer-all linked to chronic inflammation and oxidative stress.

Kennett Square is known around the world as 'The Mushroom Capitol of the World’. Contrary to popular local myth, mushroom growing in the US did not start here, and yet it grew and prospered here more so than any other locale. Why did that happen, and why is it still true today?

There are between 1.5 and 5.1 million fungi in the world, of which only about 100,000 have been identified. Of those only about 50,000 grow big enough to be considered mushrooms and of those only about 60 are commonly cultivated. We will go on a mushroom beauty parade and learn about some of the more commonly cultivated mushrooms and their nutritional superpowers.

THE BRANDYWINE AND ITS HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE TO CHESTER COUNTY

April 6th at 7pm

Robin Ashby

Please join us as we discuss the Brandywine.  A semi-shallow ribbon of water bisecting Chester County, the Brandywine served as an economic motor to developing the region as an important industrial and cultural center of the colonies.  We will take a historical view of the importance of the Brandywine to our region and how it defined Chester County from its colonial beginnings through to present-day.

PRESERVING HISTORY BY SAVING LAND

May 4th at 7pm

Catherine Quillman

Author Catherine Quillman and CCFH board member, will give an illustrated program based on her recent book, The Brandywine Battlefield: The Untold Story of Its History and Preservation. Her program will highlight the generational effort to save the vanishing battlefield of September 11, 1777, now spanning Chester and Delaware Counties. Everyone from local historians and schoolteachers, to state senators and war veterans, promoted the preservation of this “sacred” terrain with the belief, still relevant today, that the character of the land is inextricably tied to its history.

Learn more about the speaker