Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Historical Society of Pennsylvania main building
Formation	1824
Type	Historical Society
Headquarters	1300 Locust Street Philadelphia, PA 19107
President and CEO	Dr. Page Talbott
Website	Homepage

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a historical society founded in 1824 and based in Philadelphia. The Society's building, designed by Addison Hutton and listed on Philadelphia's Register of Historical Places, houses some 600,000 printed items and over 19 million manuscript and graphic items. The Society maintains printed collections on Pennsylvania and regional history and manuscript collections covering 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-century history. The holdings of the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies were added in 2002 and those of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania in 2006. The Historical Society has recently undertaken efforts to appeal to a younger demographic, including having open bar events.

The society's building on the southwest corner of 13th and Locust Streets was formerly the site of the Patterson Mansion. General Robert Patterson, a general of the Mexican-American and Civil Wars purchased the mansion from John Hare Powell, the founder of the Pennsylvania Agricultural Society. After Patterson’s death in 1881, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania purchased the mansion as its permanent home. The mansion was demolished between 1905 and 1909 and the main block of a new fireproof building, again designed by Addison Hutton, was constructed on site. The totally fireproof building was dedicated in 1910.

The Society’s collections include a number of different types of materials:

To help researchers find the materials they need, all of these resources are available through the "Online Catalogs and Research Tools" of the society's web site.

The society publishes Sidelights, a semi-annual newsletter, Pennsylvania Legacies, a semi-annual illustrated history magazine, and the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, a quarterly scholarly journal published since 1877.