Baseball season is upon us, and so is an opportunity to bring it into your classroom. Since the 19th century, the history that has unfolded on and about the baseball field has paralleled that which has taken took place in the homes, businesses, and streets surrounding the American ball park. Join other educators, students, historians and scholars at HSP this Thursday, April 3rd for a lecture and  discussion of Philadelphia's very own Pythian Baseball club. This event offers Act 48/CEU credits and a topical unit plan is available for you too!

HSP has a new document display on view!  The current display, “Up A Tree”,  provides you with images and information on family history documents found in HSP’s archives, including a family tree of Benjamin Franklin’s family. If you haven’t thought about it already, the exhibit will surely instigate a personal desire to dig into your own ancestral past.

Black History Month may be over, but that does not mean the end of studying African American history.  In Philadelphia cultural organizations and the City’s council members have designated 2014 as the year to commemorate a typically unsung hero, Octavius V. Catto (whose birthday was on February 22).  They have made a notable announcement of a memorial to be erected in Catto’s honor, which also brings local news and current events into the classroom.

On February 27^th, HSP will be hosting a lecture and panel discussion entitled “The Blackest Market: Kidnapping, Slavery, and Salvation”. The not-so-fun word play in the title alludes to the racial fabric and illegal and immoral nature of the part of history that will be discussed. Author of We Shall Be No More: Suicide and Self-Government in the Newly United States and other titles, Dr.