William Penn Memorial Museum Building Archives - Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine

A Home for History: S.K. Stevens and the Campaign for the William Penn Memorial Museum and Archives

Posted by Andrea Lowery on May 11, 2015 in | Comments Off by Curtis Miner On December 23, 1959, Dr. S.K. Stevens (1904-74) sent out a final, end-of-the-year message to members of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC). It came in the form of a brief, typewritten memo, informing them that Governor David L. Lawrence (1889-1966) had that morning signed a spending bill for the construction of a museum and archives building. “I think this...
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Pennsylvania State Archives: Past, Present and Future

Posted by Richard Saylor on May 11, 2015 in | Comments Off Designed by the Harrisburg architectural firm Lawrie & Green as part of the project for the William Penn Memorial complex, the current Pennsylvania State Archives building opened in October 1964. The need for a new archives building, however, dates back to when the State Archives was originally established in 1903 as the Division of Public Records under the State Library of Pennsylvania. For...
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The Pennsylvania Archives Turns 100! An Interview with State Archivist Frank M. Suran

Posted by Leonard Stout on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off 2003 marks the centennial of the Pennsylvania State Archives, the oldest component of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC), the Commonwealth’s official history agency, and State Archivist Frank M. Suran knows its history better than anyone else. An archivist’s responsibilities include a multitude of tasks. Suran discusses his beginnings at the State Archives,...
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One Hundredth Anniversary of Pennsylvania State Archives

Posted by PA Heritage Staff on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off The term “archives,” derived from the Latin archivum and the Greek archeion, refers to a government house, or the place where public records or historical documents are preserved. The Pennsylvania State Archives, the unit of Pennsylvania’s government responsible for the preservation of the permanently valuable records of the Commonwealth’s local, country, and state...
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A Centennial, A Celebration, A Cache of Treasures

Posted by Barbara Blank on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off While Philadelphians in 1905 observed the centennial of the nation’s first art museum and school, the venerable Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Pittsburghers flocked to Harry Davis’s Nickelodeon, the first motion picture theater opened in the United States. In Harrisburg that year, on Tuesday, March 28, Governor Samuel W. Pennypacker (1843-1916) signed legislation creating...
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