**PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A VIRTUAL PROGRAM THAT WILL TAKE PLACE VIA ZOOM. Registrants will receive a link to access the Zoom Meeting via email.**  

For many Americans, the birth certificate is a mundane piece of paper, unearthed from deep storage when applying for a driver’s license, verifying information for new employers, or claiming state and federal benefits. Yet it plays such a central role in determining identity and citizenship. Learn about the birth certificate's two-hundred-year history and discover when, how, and why they came to matter so much in the United States. Examine the intersections of democracy, race, work and family as it relates to birth certificates and other vital records with award-winning historian Susan Pearson. Pearson, an associate professor of history at Northwestern University, is the author of The Birth Certificate: An American History. 

Register directly on Zoom HERE. Sponsored by the Friends of the Library. This virtual event is a collaboration between the libraries in Andover and Tewksbury.