In honor of National Volunteer Month, we’re celebrating our volunteers’ connections and contributions to history with a special document display featuring some of their favorite items from our collections. More than 50 volunteers serve at HSP behind the scenes, in advisory capacities, and directly with the public. Through their interactions with the collections, they have discovered and engaged with history in ways that until today have remained hidden. 

 

Explore HSP’s collections through our volunteers’ eyes with original documents from the Children’s Aid Society of Pennsylvania Records, the Philadelphia Record Morgue Photograph collection, the Penn and Logan Papers, the Genealogical Charts Collection, the Pennsylvania Abolition Society Papers, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania Collection of Trade Cards, and more. 

 

The display also features rarely viewed items from HSP’s Treasures Collection, including the first Newport printing of the Declaration of Independence by Solomon Southwick, famously known for a glaring typo. Other items from the collection include the journal of William Still, commonly known as the Father of the Underground Railroad; the map showing the land acquired in 1737 by Pennsylvania authorities from the Lenni Lenape tribe through the Walking Purchase; and the Resolution of Non-Importation Made by the Citizens of Philadelphia, which protested British taxes.

 

This display was curated by HSP’s volunteers and by Amanda J. Dean, HSP’s executive offices manager.