Galleries

In the Heart of Philadelphia: The Story of Library Hall

This gallery invites you to explore the story of Library Hall, showcasing the different phases of its construction and the historical context in which this building came to life.

Good Deeds in Pennsylvania

In 2014, the American Philosophical Society received a donation of deeds and legal documents recording the ownership of several hundred acres of land in Chester County, Pennsylvania from William Penn's original grant to the 20th century. This unbroken chain of documents archives nearly three centuries of the history of what is now the Brushwood Stable and Bryn Clovis Farm. This gallery offers a guided tour through these complicated documents and views them through the lenses of local, family, and national history.

Celebrating 275 Years of Promoting Useful Knowledge

To mark the 275th anniversary of the American Philosophical Society in 2018, this timeline highlights key events that helped define the APS during its illustrious history.

Americanization: Then and Now

How have the politics and rhetoric of U.S. immigration policy shifted over the past century?

This gallery explores a 1919 immigration pamphlet that contains rhetorical features that might surprise contemporary readers.

Eastern Apps: Visualizing Historic Prison Data

The APS Library holds admission books of the Eastern State Penitentiary, from roughly 1830-1850. The admission books contain the names, offences, sentences, places of origin, and race/ethnicity of inmates, as well as comments about the moral standing of the prisoners.

This gallery presents a collection of interactive apps that explore trends in the data from the books.

A Journey of Inquiry: Exploring the Scientific Process

Baruch S. Blumberg led a varied life full of unexpected adventure and discovery.

This gallery highlights the influence of the philosophy of science that coursed through his scientific career.

Frontiers of Knowledge: Britton Chance and New Channels of Discovery

From his earliest days as an inventor to his days as a pioneer of biophysics, Britton Chance was dedicated to scientific research and medicine, with patents in fields ranging from seafaring devices to magnetic imaging.

This gallery highlights different periods of Britton Chance's life and career through photographs, letters, and other documents.

Too Near to Where History is Being Made: Henry Howard Houston II In a Time of War

This gallery follows the life of Henry Howard Houston II, a young Philadelphian who fought and died in World War I.

The day he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, Henry joined the Pennsylvania National Guard to serve at the U.S.-Mexican border during the U.S. punitive expedition against Pancho Villa in 1916.

After leaving the border, he joined the Ambulance Corps in France. When the U.S. officially joined the war, Henry returned to America and trained with the U.S. Army. He returned to France as an aerial observation officer. He died in France in 1918.

The gallery is divided into four sections. The first uses a map to join together letters and pictures from Henry's journey around the country and to France. The second highlights photographs from the collection. Many of these show the devastation of war. The final sections surface themes and topics that are found in Henry's letters. These sections provide an entry into the world in which Henry lived and the issues that we important to him.

View the gallery: Too Near Where History is Being Made

Joining the Fray: Mapping a World of Paine

This graph contextualizes a selection of digitized cartoons, portraits and broadsides from the Colonel Richard Gimbel Collection of Thomas Paine Papers.

The reception, reputation and reactions to Paine are charted in Joining the Fray: Mapping a World of Paine. Particular attention is paid to the printers and publishers who often risked their safety to make these works available, as well as the members of extra-parliamentary associations demanding reform in the age of Paine.

All digitized graphic material related to Thomas Paine can be seen here and all text material from that same collection can be found here.

View the gallery Joining the Fray: Mapping a World of Paine.

Colonization in the Foulke Papers

While Pennsylvania slaveholders gradually relinquished their title and freed their slaves, the fate of the millions of slaves still held in bondage across the United States became a topic of heavy political debate.

Enhancing the work of the African American Subject Guide, this gallery includes example letters from the correspondence, short biographical sketches of the individuals involved and a bibliography of relevant sources. Scholars interested in the colonization movements of the Nineteenth Century are encouraged to use this gallery as a starting point into these matters.

View the gallery Colonization in the Foulke Papers.