Pennsylvania Repositories

By Valerie-Anne Lutz, Head of Manuscripts Processing

By  Stacey C.  Peeples, Curator - Lead Archivist

The Pennsylvania Hospital, the nation’s first chartered hospital, was founded by Dr. Thomas Bond and Benjamin Franklin, in 1751.  It was the first institution in colonial America organized exclusively for the treatment and care of the sick poor and mentally ill. The Pennsylvania Hospital became a primary force in shaping the attitude of colonial Americans toward persons with emotional and psychological disorders, as well as advancing the practice of clinical medicine through Dr. Bond’s lectures to medical students at the hospital.

As part of our Repository blog series, we are reposting another of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Archival Adventures in Small Repositories. This month's entry is on the Darby Library Company - an institution that was founded back in 1743.

To highlight some of the smaller repositories in Pennsylvania, each month we will repost a blog posting from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Archival Adventures in Small Repositories. This blog is part of the Historical Society's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories. This project, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, seeks to improve the accessibility to the important collections at small archival repositories.

You may know of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP) as the keeper of such national treasures as the first draft of the United States Constitution, an original printer’s proof of the Declaration of Independence, and many other such venerable documents.

But did you know that HSP is also a chief center for the documentation and study of ethnic communities and immigrant experiences in the 20th-century? Or that we are one of the largest family history libraries in the nation?

To highlight some of the smaller repositories in Pennsylvania, each month we will repost a blog posting from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Archival Adventures in Small Repositories. This blog is part of the Historical Society's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories. This project, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, seeks to improve the accessibility to the important collections at small archival repositories.