An on-going conversation about the struggles and successes of immigrants throughout Philadelphia’s 300-plus-year history, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Becoming U.S. program series continues this spring with Age and Assimilation.

Collections

HSP is one of the nation's leading repositories of ethnic and immigrant studies materials, with its collections documenting the experiences of over sixty ethnic groups in the United States.

Areas of strength include African American, Chinese, German, Greek, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Jewish, Native American, Polish, Puerto Rican, Slovak, and Ukrainian communities in the United States. There is also substantial documentation on the history of American nativism and ethnic stereotyping.

Ethnic history materials at HSP include:

• Hundreds of ethnic newspapers and other serials in hardcopy or on microfilm

• Records and publications of ethnically based fraternal organizations, service agencies, cultural projects, media organs, and religious congregations

• Immigrant families’ letters, diaries, photographs, and scrapbooks

• Ethnically based businesses’ financial records, correspondence, and advertising

• Literature, art, and music of many different ethnic and immigrant communities

• Advocacy groups’ legal, civic, and organizational records

• Published materials such as biographies, travel accounts, phrasebooks, political pamphlets, government reports, and family histories

• Research files from scholars studying specific communities

• Analyses of U.S. society and culture focusing on ethnicity, migration, racism and race relations, cultural transformation, and transnational identities

• Photographs, prints, and drawings documenting many ethnic groups

• Posters and broadsides that present ethnic images and stereotypes

• Published and unpublished materials regarding ethnic persecution and resistance.

Please refer to Discover, HSP's online catalog, for information about books, images, journals, manuscripts, maps, and other items in HSP's collection. You may also want to browse the Balch Manuscript Guide, which describes holdings by ethnic designation.

For further assistance, please contact a Reference Librarian.