In the early years of the new Republic, Philadelphia was the nation’s financial capital, home to the first stock exchange (1790), the Bank of the United States, the US Mint, the first securities exchange, the first commodities exchange, and other early banking and insurance institutions. The epicenter of this activity was Chestnut Street in Old
Archives: Walking Tours
Victorian Germantown and a Visit to Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion
This city neighborhood, dating to colonial times, underwent industrial development with the arrival of the Philadelphia, Germantown & Norristown Railroad in 1832 and this development continued rapidly with the arrival of the Pennsylvania Railroad in the 1880s. Learn more about this transportation impact and see some of Philadelphia’s finest examples of Victorian eclecticism. This tour
Awbury Arboretum
Awbury Arboretum offers 55 acres of green space in dense East Germantown. Originally created as a country estate for the family of Quaker shipping magnate, politician, and philanthropist, Thomas Pym Cope, successive generations of that family engaged important local architects to design their houses, including Thomas Ustick Walter, Addison Hutton, Cope & Stewardson, and Duhring Okie
Awbury Arboretum
Awbury Arboretum offers 55 acres of green space in dense East Germantown. Originally created as a country estate for the family of Quaker shipping magnate, politician, and philanthropist, Thomas Pym Cope, successive generations of that family engaged important local architects to design their houses, including Thomas Ustick Walter, Addison Hutton, Cope & Stewardson, and Duhring Okie
Bella Vista
Bella Vista (“beautiful view”) is a vibrant, historic residential neighborhood and home to the famous Ninth Street Market, AKA the Italian Market, one of the nation’s oldest continuously operating open-air markets. The tour will highlight the lively neighborhood’s architecture, diverse ethnic mix, and social changes.
Society Hill Stroll
Society Hill received its name from the “Free Society of Traders” who were granted a strip of land in this area by William Penn in 1683. Take a leisurely walk through this country’s largest, intact collection of original colonial and post-colonial residential architecture. Learn about this neighborhood’s mid 20th century renewal efforts and its contribution
Philadelphia City Archives
Join us on a special evening tour of Philadelphia City Archives on Spring Garden Street. From Board of Health lists of abandoned privy wells, to ground rent deeds, to the original architectural plans for City Hall, the records in the City Archives hold the key to innumerable inquiries into Philadelphia’s past. Learn how archivists preserve the City’s
Laurel Hill Cemetery Rescheduled to April 20
Special Tour: Laurel Hill Cemetery Designing for the Dead: Art and Architecture at Laurel Hill The birth of the rural or garden cemetery, with its spacious lots and bucolic landscapes, created a unique marketing opportunity for 19th century designers. Noted architects like John Notman, William Strickland, Frank Furness, and John J. McArthur, competed fiercely for
Founders Hall
Stephen Girard’s 1831 will left an unprecedented $2 million construction budget to build a school to educate poor orphans. He left meticulous instructions for the original classroom building, now known as Founder’s Hall. It was to be built of masonry and marble, have four 50’x 50’ classrooms on each of three floors, front and rear vestibules,
Visit West Chester!
Chester County History Center is home to over 100,000 photographs, 70,000 objects, and 750,000 documents and manuscripts that explore and preserve the rich history of Chester County, Pennsylvania. It’s also home to the award-winning permanent exhibit, Becoming Chester County, which is all about choices—the choices that colonists and indigenous peoples made. Colonists made difficult choices to immigrate
