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Looking Back, Moving Forward: HSP's Bicentennial Year in Review

Thank you for joining us in our bicentennial year! We celebrated this milestone with events and projects designed to bring the people of the past into conversation with us today. Our goal has been to help you discover meaningful connections with history and with one another. 


Partnerships and Community 

Inviting you into our astonishing collection of books, manuscripts, and graphic items is the core of our mission. For our birthday, we partnered with organizations that found connections to their work in our collections. Together we presented five exhibits on our five strategic content themes. For instance, we collaborated with the Independence Historical Trust (IHT) to explore the history of banking.


This included an exhibit on the First Bank of the United States, which IHT is working to restore and open to the public. Showcasing its origins in the 1780s as a story of innovation and early American enterprise, the collaborative exhibit deployed HSP’s documents in support of wider public history initiatives. 


We also followed our partners’ lead in selecting and inviting a speaker for each exhibit’s signature lecture.  We opened the year in partnership with the Association for Public Art (aPA), who introduced us to artist Xenobia Bailey. In addition to her talk in March, Ms. Bailey also created street banners to commemorate HSP’s 200th. These were co-commissioned between aPA and HSP. Such programs gave our audience an opportunity to hear from new voices and experts beyond an academic community, while introducing new guests to HSP.

If you are one of those new audience members, we hope you have enjoyed getting to know us and will stick around for more collaborative programming across the arts and heritage landscape.

 

Read more about those partnerships and exhibits on our Exhibits page. There are links to the signature lectures, and you can always visit our YouTube to watch a program you may have missed.  


Our History on the Street fest on October 5 brought our community of cultural organizations and vendors together for a lively block party that combined activities, tours, food, and demonstrations. Our library doors were open for a pop-up exhibit highlighting the histories of the neighborhood and participating organizations as well as the year 1824.



Collections New and Old 


Since HSP’s founding in 1824, we have collected and preserved an astonishing array of documents, and that activity has not slowed! In the fiscal year 2024, we have acquired 571 new books and printed materials and 390 linear feet of manuscripts through purchase and donation. The topics, materials, and formats vary widely and truly invite you to find yourself in history. Yearbooks, activist newsletters, folk dancing photos and memorabilia, and records from sports reporting offer countless opportunities for exploration. HSP’s collection of prints, photographs, and other works of art on paper greatly expanded. Several of these acquisitions document the built and natural landscape. Among them is a bound volume of prints, Delices de la Grande Bretagne, engraved and published by William Birch in London before he emigrated to the young United States. The collection also includes a watercolor landscape by 19th-century Philadelphia artist William H. Dorsey. Additionally, the new acquisition list features an extensive collection of works by the late Thomas Crane, a renowned architectural and interior photographer. HSP also received records of notable figures and communities compiled by later historians and biographers. Such is the case of the collection of conservationist and activist Rosalie Barrow Edge's papers, compiled by Hawk Mountain Sanctuary curator Jim Brett (1939-2023). Many of the papers concern the development of the sanctuary, documenting Edge's efforts to secure its land starting in 1934.   



Collections stewardship activities also require revisiting documents long in HSP’s collection to update their care and housing. Over 20,000 Penn Family documents were acquired in 1873, and many of them needed new boxes and other treatments for careful storage. Conservators completed this work on 222 volumes and 51 boxes of records, insuring that our collections remain stable and usable by current and future generations of researchers.


Likewise, our archivists return to centuries-old catalogs to update them, designing searchable digital finding aids. The Frank M. Etting collection arrived to HSP in 1891 and has been a very popular collection with researchers. Creating a modern inventory will make it much more accessible for patrons. 


Welcoming the Next Generation of Scholars 

As we enter our third century, we are committed to establishing programs and relationships that equip undergraduate, high school and middle school students to research and share their historical inquiries. HSP has formed an alliance with the University of Pennsylvania to integrate archival research into course curricula across multiple departments. 


The Public History Summer Academy launched this year, introducing undergraduates to archival research and careers in public history. Additionally, we continue to lead National History Day Philly, an award-winning program that fosters critical thinking and civic engagement for students. In partnership with a half dozen other cultural organizations in the city, we invite students to select and research a historical topic of their choice and develop and present their research at a spring competition. Consistently, our Philadelphia students advance all the way to national competition, and this year two projects received national awards.  


A Community of Support 

None of this future-facing history work would be possible without the contributions of dedicated volunteers and committed funders. We would love to involve you in our work as well! From planning events like Young Friends Holiday Open House and Founders Award dinner to assisting with onsite school lessons, we have opportunities for you to join us in HSP’s third century! Connect with us today.  




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