Browse Items (624 total)

Frank M. Etting's connection with the Historical Society began in 1855 when he was elected recording secretary at age 22. After a decade in the army, 1861-1870, he returned to Philadelphia to begin a career of public service. He became director of…

Trade card promoting surveyor and insurance agent Fred C. Davis and depicting a racist caricature of an African American man on a horse-drawn plow. Shows the man barely seated, leaning back, and with his legs in the air on the plow. He holds broken…

The French Benevolent Society was founded in Philadelphia in 1793. The society serves indigents of French descent and provides scholarships to local students of French extraction. The records include minutes, correspondence, financial and membership…

Following in the footsteps of the Dutch and British, French settlers arrived in the Caribbean in the 1630s and established trading ports on the islands of Saint-Domingue (later Hispaniola), Martinique, and Guadeloupe. The settlers, with the aid of…

Racist trade card promoting Gately & Britton’s home furnishing store in Reading, Pa. and depicting a caricature of an African American boy sitting against a fence post eating a large slice of watermelon. Shows the boy squatting on his toes and…

Selection of 18th and 19th-century prints showing landscape views of towns and locations in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York.

Selection of 18th and 19th-century prints showing landscape views of towns and locations in New York and Pennsylvania.

Selection of 18th and 19th-century prints showing landscape views of towns and locations in Pennsylvania and Virginia.

The entries in this logbook include discussion of supplies brought on board, where enslaved people -- referred to as "passengers" -- were picked up, trips to the "Negro market," and descriptions of the geographical attributes and inhabitants of…

This collection includes letters and documents of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and of members of Congress, 1758-18ll; of generals and prominent civilians of the Revolutionary period, 1770-1820; of signers of the Constitution,…