Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation Newsletter – Summer 2026

Posted by on Aug 13, 2026 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation Newsletter – Summer 2026 Topics in the Summer 2026 Newsletter: PHF, PHMC Join Carpenters’ Hall in Commemorating PA Provincial Conference PHF at Philadelphia Flower Show Second Annual Virtual 5K PHF Announces New Board Members Summer-2026-PHF-Newsletter...
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A Radical Shift: Pennsylvania’s Constitution of 1776

Posted by on Aug 13, 2026 in | Comments Off on A Radical Shift: Pennsylvania’s Constitution of 1776 “Our form of government still continues, but I think it cannot last long,” John Penn (1729–95) wrote to his family in England in October of 1775. The grandson of William Penn, John Penn was serving as governor of Pennsylvania. For some time, he had been observing changes in the attitudes of Pennsylvania residents regarding their relationship with the mother country. In June of 1774, he had...
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First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry: America’s Oldest Active Service Unit

Posted by on Aug 13, 2026 in | Comments Off on First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry: America’s Oldest Active Service Unit On November 17, 1774, three members of Philadelphia’s Committee of Safety met with 28 citizens at Carpenters’ Hall to discuss forming a volunteer troop amid rising tensions with Great Britain. From that meeting emerged the Philadelphia Light Horse, later known as the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry (FTPCC), or simply the “First Troop.” Its founders pledged to equip and support themselves...
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Pennsylvania’s Architectural Heritage: Statehouses and Capitols

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania’s Architectural Heritage: Statehouses and Capitols Through the three centuries of Pennsylvania’s history, the build­ings that always have been both the functional and symbolic heart of the Commonwealth have been the seats of government. These statehouses and capitols bespeak much about the governmental structure and social ideals of the respective ages which created them. Indeed, the very change of nomenclature from statehouse to capitol...
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Iconographic Treasures at the Library Company of Philadelphia

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Iconographic Treasures at the Library Company of Philadelphia In the summer of 1731, Benjamin Franklin later re­counted in his autobiography, “I set on foot my first Proj­ect of a public Nature, that for a Subscription Library.” He encouraged fifty subscribers to contribute forty shillings each for the purchase of books that were considered indispen­sable to colonial Americans, but were generally too expensive for any one individual alone to...
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Philadelphia, First

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Philadelphia, First If it happened, it happened in Philadelphia,” so goes an old adage. And one not terribly far from the truth, either. Philadelphia has witnessed much of the history of the early United States. The sign­ing of the Declaration of Inde­pendence, probably the nation’s most hallowed docu­ment, drew the colonies’ lead­ing statesmen – including George Washington, Thomas...
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Preserving Philadelphia: A Conversation with Charles E. Peterson, F.A.I.A.

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Preserving Philadelphia: A Conversation with Charles E. Peterson, F.A.I.A. Those who know Philadelphia realize that it is an enormously important city with an illustrious, prestigious past. By many it is called the birthplace of a nation, by others the cra­dle of liberty. The United States was cre­ated in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Indepen­dence. The principles of the American Revolution were...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Guide to the State Historical Markers of Pennsylvania By George R. Beyer Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 2000 (456 pages, paper, $15.95) It is generally well known that the Commonwealth’s state historical marker program is among the most popular public history initiatives ever mounted by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC). The program, also one of the...
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