Lectures on Tap - "A History of Body Snatching for Science"

📍 Location: Exact address given in confirmation email

🧠 Lecture: "A History of Body Snatching for Science"

🎤 Speaker: James Henry

Join us for a chilling dive into the dark underbelly of medical history as James Henry uncovers the 100-plus year reign of the body snatchers. Driven by a severe shortage of legal cadavers for medical training, professional grave robbers built a lucrative seasonal industry by secretly exhuming fresh corpses from graveyards.

This illicit trade disproportionately targeted marginalized communities, igniting public fury and violent “anatomy riots,” including New York City’s massive 1788 uprising. While families fought back with creative defensive measures to protect their dead, the grim business of body snatching persisted for generations—until modern anatomy laws and shifting medical practices claimed to shut it down. Or did they?

James Henry is a licensed NYC tour guide, a nine-year veteran guide at Green-Wood Cemetery, and a specialist in New York City cemeteries and burial grounds. He is currently working on a graphic novel about body snatching.

Get a drink, connect, and learn at Lectures on Tap! 🙌

Agenda

6:30 PM – Doors open: find a seat (open seating!), order food & drinks, and expect a bar line—arriving early is key.

6:55 PM – Host introduction

7:00 PM – Lecture begins

7:45 PM – Audience Q&A

8:00 PM – Have 1:1 time with the speaker, mingle with fellow guests, and order another round

8:30 PM – Wrap up.