Exhibits at HSP
Step into the past and explore the countless stories in our collection with curated exhibits at HSP.
Exhibits are open to both researchers and the public. They can be viewed free of charge anytime during library open hours.
Upcoming Exhibits
Voices of the Community: Local Black Preservation
On view June 12, 2025 - September 26, 2025​
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Voices of the Community: Local Black Preservation explores the history, migration, and preservation of African American communities in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Lawnside, New Jersey. Curated by community historians and activists, this exhibit uses archival documents such as personal papers, photographs, musical scores, and ephemera to highlight strategies Black individuals and communities utilize to preserve their heritage. The historical formation of organizations, creation of music, and building of communities have resulted in a cultural preservation movement based on principles of self-determination and collective action.
Focused on four themes, the exhibit is a call to action to rethink what preservation is and why it matters:
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Black Joy
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This section examines the development of Lawnside, New Jersey—the only historically African-American incorporated municipality in the Northern United States. Through maps, municipal documents, and oral histories, it highlights how Black families intentionally built a self-governed community that continues to thrive.
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Message in Our Music
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Music as memory and protest takes center stage in this theme, which explores over a century of Black musical expression in Philadelphia and beyond. Visitors will encounter original scores, rare photographs, and writings that celebrate theaters, clubs, and venues that were not only cultural hubs but also sites of resistance. This section honors music as a preservation practice, sustaining collective identity and spirit.
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Fulfilling America’s Promise
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The founding of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) is explored through the work of Carter G. Woodson and the Philadelphia Heritage and PhilaMontco branches of ASALH. This theme features original Negro History Week ephemera, mayoral proclamations, and writings that affirm the long fight to institutionalize Black history in public life.
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All Power to the People
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Rather than focusing on monuments or museum walls, this theme explores how Black Philadelphians have preserved their stories through informal networks—flyers, lectures, oral histories, and neighborhood organizing. It underscores the preservation work done not through buildings but through memory, storytelling, and shared spaces.
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About the Curators:
Faye Anderson is a social justice activist and historic preservationist based in Philadelphia. She is the founder and director of All That Philly Jazz, a place-based public history project documenting and contextualizing the city’s golden age of jazz. As a preservation activist, she was profiled by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation part of their Preservationist in Your Neighborhood series, successfully nominated the John Coltrane House for listing on the 2020 Preservation At Risk, and saved from demolition the former location of the Check Café, a jazz club on Ridge Avenue. Anderson continuously advocates for repairs, inspections, and reinstallations for African American historic markers including the Blue Horizon and Jessie Redmon Fauset markers, as well as nominating new ones, such as one for Lee Morgan in 2022, and for Moses Williams earlier in 2025.
Shamele Jordon is a professional genealogist, producer, lecturer, and writer, and the founder of Genealogy Quick Start. Her extensive background includes research for the PBS series Oprah’s Roots: African American Lives I and II, and she has served in leadership roles with the African American Genealogy Group and the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania. A recipient of a New Jersey State Library grant to research Civil War burials in Lawnside, Jordon is a respected educator and advocate for community-based history.
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Established on September 9, 1915, by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, we are the Founders of Black History Month and carry forth the work of our founder, the Father of Black History. We continue his legacy of speaking a fundamental truth to the world–that Africans and peoples of African descent are makers of history and co-workers in what W. E. B. Du Bois called, “The Kingdom of Culture.” ASALH’s mission is to create and disseminate knowledge about Black History, to be, in short, the nexus between the Ivory Tower and the global public. We labor in the service of Blacks and all humanity.
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Philadelphia Heritage and the PhilMontco branches of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) ​
Support for this exhibit comes from The Haverford Trust Company and the Pennsylvania Abolition Society Endowment Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation.
"To Provide a Naval Armament:" U.S. Navy & Marine Corps History, 1775 – 1958
On view October 8, 2025 to December 12, 2025
In Collaboration with Homecoming 250​​​​​​​
Philadelphia gave birth to the U.S. Navy twice—first in 1775 and again in 1794. The later Navy reflected the young nation: ships designed by Quakers, built in shipyards along the East Coast with wood harvested by enslaved people, led by white officers, and crewed by a diverse mix of nationalities, ethnicities, and religions. The Marines of both eras laid the foundation for one of the world's elite fighting forces.​​
​While prominent Philadelphians appear in naval history, the story also lives in the letters and journals of sailors, surgeons, and shipyard workers. In partnership with Homecoming 250, "To Provide a Naval Armament:" U.S. Navy & Marine Corps History, 1775–1958 explores the Navy and Marine Corps through the Historical Society of Pennsylvania’s collections, tracing their evolution from the American Revolution to the early Cold War, all while remaining anchored in Philadelphia.
​Support for this exhibit comes from The Haverford Trust Company.
Past Exhibits
Free, As One: Black Worldmaking in the Pennsylvania Abolition Society Papers
On view February 6, 2025 - May 23, 2025
In Collaboration with the 1838 Black Metropolis​​
Free, As One: Black Worldmaking in the Pennsylvania Abolition Society Papers highlights themes of Black self-determination and leadership from the 1770s onward in the abolition movement of the Mid-Atlantic region. Drawing from the Pennsylvania Abolition Society (PAS) collection and commemorating the 250th anniversary of its founding, this exhibit refocuses our attention on abolition as a global Black-led political movement championed by the PAS.
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​Using | Doing | Teaching Black History
See Program
Keynote: Nell Irvin Painter
​Support for this exhibit comes from The Haverford Trust Company and the Pennsylvania Abolition Society Endowment Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation.
2024 marked the 200th anniversary of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania! Since HSP’s founding in 1824, we have collected and preserved an astonishing array of documents that bring the people of the past into conversation with us today. As part of our anniversary celebration, HSP teamed up with partners to develop collaborative programming and joint exhibits based on the strategic themes of our collection.