About the Historical Society of Pennsylvania
Located at 1300 Locust Street, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a premier library of historical records whose holdings include 600,000 books, pamphlets, serials, and microfilm reels; 20 million manuscripts; and over 300,000 graphics items.
At HSP, students can engage with this vast array of documents. Archival holdings include treasures like the first two drafts of the U.S. Constitution, extensive collections on slavery, abolitionism, and the Underground Railroad, and immigration and the formation of diaspora communities. The collections stretch from the early colonial period to the twenty-first century and encompass local, regional, national, and global developments.
The range of subjects is manifold: constitutionalism, citizenship, political divides, reform movements, and wars; science and medicine; global commerce and industrial, mining, transportation, and banking firm development; religion and ethnocultural conflict; family history and community heritage; architecture and urban planning; arts and popular culture; race, gender, and class; and more.
Penn Courses Supported
The following courses have employed the collections and expertise of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania:
- Philadelphia: Immigration, Disease, and Quarantining (Professor David Barnes, HSS, Spring 2022)
- Race, Ethnicity, and American Constitutional Politics (Professor Rogers Smith, Political Science, Spring 2022)
- History Workshop (Professor Sophie Rosenfeld, History, Spring 2022)
- Language of Abolitionism, England/U.S. (Professor Chi-Ming Yang, English, Fall 2022)
- Abolitionist Movements and the Law (Professor Kathy Brown, History, and Professor Sally Gordan, Penn Law, Spring 2023)
- Freshman Seminar: Investigating the Old 7th Ward (Professor Amy Hillier, SP2/Urban Studies, Fall 2023)
- Orthodox America (Professor Reyhan Durmaz, Religious Studies, Fall 2023)
- Art in Philadelphia in the 19th Century (Professor Michael Leja, Art History, Spring 2024)
- American Revolutionary Era (Professor Emma Hart, History, Spring 2024)
- Penn Slavery Project (Professor Kathy Brown, History, Spring 2024)