Executive Director’s Message
Written by Brent Glass in the From the Executive Director category and the Fall 1990 issue Topics in this article:Twenty-five years ago, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission moved to its present quarters at the corner of Third and North streets, across from the State Capitol. The new facility, known formally then as the William Penn Memorial Museum and Archives Building, instantly attracted national recognition as a showcase for the collection, preservation, study, interpretation and exhibition of state history.
The State Archives is truly one of the Commonwealth’s great treasures. Although the public – especially school children – is more familiar with The State Museum of Pennsylvania, visitors to the Archives are always impressed with the quantity and quality of the documents and records available for research. The physical holdings of the State Archives include approximately 46,000 cubic feet of records – plus more than 900 maps, approximately 400,000 photographic prints and negatives, and 600 audio recordings, motion picture films, microfilms and photostatic copies! Available on microfilm are county records, including wills, deeds, slave registers, tax lists and federal census records for Pennsylvania.
Numbers alone do not sufficiently reveal the true value of the State Archives. The content of the collection is superb. The Land Records Office, for example, contains original records of land granted by founder William Penn more than three centuries ago, as well as documents of state boundary lines and deeds for all property presently owned by the Commonwealth.
Major record groups of the State Archives represent all branches of government, including the Proprietary Government (1664-1776), Department of State (1681-1978), the Supreme and Superior courts (1740-1971), General Assembly of Pennsylvania (1776-1974), Department of Forests and Waters (1897-1971), Department of Military Affairs (1793-1950), and Department of Education (1854-1969).
Of the nearly four thousand researchers that visit the Archives each year, seventy percent are genealogists. Records of specific interest to them include passenger lists, primarily German and Swiss arrivals at the port of Philadelphia between 1727 and 1808; official naturalization lists, dating from 1740 to 1773; naturalization records of the eastern, southern and western districts of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court; and records pertaining to military service. In addition to assisting these visitors, the Archives staff also responds to nearly forty-five hundred letters and more than two thousand telephone inquiries yearly. Both professional and avocational historians make frequent use of the official papers of twelve twentieth century governors. Other collections often examined by researchers include those concerning Pennsylvania’s forests, industry, transportation and technology.
As state government’s role and activities have expanded, and as the contact points between the state and the citizen have burgeoned, the importance of public records has become better understood and appreciated. Units of local government, for instance, depend on the State Archives for records management services and security storage of microfilmed records.
Clearly, the Pennsylvania State Archives is an institution of enormous and far-reaching significance. Our staff remains dedicated to not only preserving these rare and priceless treasures, but to making sure they are as easily accessible as possible, thus ensuring that researchers – no matter their purpose – may see, firsthand, the documents, photographs and films that chronicle what William Penn envisioned as “the seede of a nation.”
Brent D. Glass
Executive Director
