Discover includes listings for publications (books, pamphlets, serials and newspapers) as well as some graphics and manuscript collections.
Catalogs & Research Tools
The Historical Society has many different tools for helping researchers find the materials they need. Some tools are available on this website; others are available only in the library at 1300 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107.
For assistance using any of our research tools, please contact our ready reference staff by email or call our Reference Line (215) 732-6200 ext. 209.
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 A growing online repository selected from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's photographs, artwork, maps, manuscripts, and more. |
 HSP has partnered with Ancestry.com, the world’s largest online family history resource, to digitize over seven million Pennsylvania vital records from our collection. |
 A finding aid is a description of a collection, usually including a biography or history of the collection’s creator, and an inventory listing the contents of each box or other file unit. |
 Resources and bibliographies for architectural history, women's history, military history, vital records, and more. |
 This online guide contains short descriptions of the collections (manuscripts, photographs, serials) of the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies, which merged with HSP in 2002. |
 Card files in the Reference Room, broken down into separate sections for manuscripts, broadsides, graphics, maps, sheet music, Afro-Americana, genealogical resources, and newspapers. The manuscripts catalog provides item-level access to several large manuscript collections. |
 The public version of this database includes records for selected collections at HSP that are not listed elsewhere on our website, as well as collections at several other local repositories. The database is part of a survey project sponsored by the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL), and also includes records compiled during a 2000-2002 survey at HSP. Both surveys were funded by the Mellon Foundation. |
