Charlestown Historical Society was founded in 1973 as a non-profit, non-political organization whose aim was and is to provide future generations with a small "window on the past," showing through artifacts and records what life was like in this quiet Chester County, Pennsylvania farming community in the 19th century. The Society's archival holdings, which total over 50 linear feet of materials dating from the early 1700s to the present, include photographs, slides, deeds, maps and atlases, family papers, farming records, business records, school and municipal records, newspaper clippings, scholarly articles, research notes, ephemera, scrapbooks and various other materials collected from local people and organizations.