Thomas Burnett Pugh (1829–84) was a native of Unionville, Pennsylvania, where while still a teenager he had been an ardent Abolitionist, working “with his father in rescuing slaves and passing them northward.” Pugh became a Philadelphia publisher and bookseller and then a lecture manager. He was instrumental in promoting Anna E. Dickinson in the early and mid-1860s and then, in 1869, founded his “Star Course” of lectures at the Academy of Music, an annual series that became “the leading intellectual institution of Philadelphia.” Through it, Pugh “did more to popularize elevated entertainments; did more to keep the best always first; did more to encourage growth of intellectual life, of genius, of wit, of artistic refinement, of general education, than any manager of public entertainments whose name is recorded in the history of Philadelphia” (“Obituary. T. B. Pugh,” clipping from unidentified paper, 6 June 84, in Star Course scrapbook, Philadelphia Academy of Music Archives, PH in CU-MARK, courtesy of JoAnne E. Barry). Clemens had lectured for Pugh on 7 December 1869 ( L3 , 415, 416 n. 1).