Preserving Pieces of Pennsylvania’s Past: An Inside Look at the Building of the Commonwealth’s Collections

Associations between butterflies and buttons, Conestoga wagons and cannon, sculpture and arrowheads, or fossils and founder William Penn’s original Charter may seem tenuous, even obscure and, perhaps, nonsensical. But a relationship does exist: they are among the one and a half million objects and thirty thousand cubic feet of manuscripts, records, maps and photographs in the custody and...
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Montgomery County: Cultural Microcosm of the Commonwealth

The third most populous county in Pennsylvania, with ap­proximately 480 square miles of rolling hills criss-crossed by rivers, streams and superhighways, Montgom­ery County is a microcosm of the Com­monwealth, a reflection of its cultural development. Pan of Philadelphia County until 1784, Montgomery Coun­ty served as a sanctuary for numerous ethnic and religious groups seeking the freedom...
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Historic Sites of the Revolution

Pennsylvania is unusually rich in historic sites associated with the American Struggle for nationhood two centuries ago. The Bicentennial observance under­scores the importance of this treasury of the state’s historic heritage. The deep involvement of Pennsylvania people and land in the Revolutionary War is reflected by these historic sites maintained by government as well as organizations...
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Shorts

“Making History,” a major exhibit illustrating how evidence from the past is discovered in documents, books, artifacts, objects, and photographs at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, will remain on view through Saturday, May 27 [1995]. The exhibit will also examine the ways in which selections drawn from the society’s extensive holdings have been used to...
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Through a Looking Glass: Colonial and Colonial Revival Hope Lodge

An avenue of overarching trees leads from the road to the house which stands on a slight rise. A little to the west is St. Thomas’s Hill, thrice held by soldiers during the Revolutionary struggle. In front, to the north across the pike, the Wissahickon winds through peaceful meadows and beyond rises the long slope of wood-crowned Militia Hill – every rood of land full of historic...
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A Step Back In Time: Graeme Park, Colonial Country Estate

Some call it a time capsule from the eighteenth century, others, a place hallmarked by beauty and tranquility, ambition and greed, deceit and scan­dal, joy and happiness, sadness and sorrow – all of which have left an indelible spiritual imprint. But mostly, Graeme Park, a country estate less than twenty miles north of Philadelphia in Horsham, Montgomery County, is a place of pure paradox....
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