Pennsylvania Photos and Documents

This collection of newsletters and newspapers includes activities, events, meetings, and news for Erie's LGBTQ community from 1992-present. This publication included titles such as: Erie Gay Community Newsletter, Erie Gay Community News, Erie Gay News, and Womynspace/Womanspace Newsletter.

These booklets are the annual and biannual reports for the Erie Public Library. They date back to 1899 when the library opened to the public. Some include reports for the Erie Public Museum which, for a period of time, was located in the Erie Public Library building.

This collection includes early photographs showing student life, faculty, buildings, and grounds of Friends' Central School, a co-ed Quaker School founded by three Quaker meetings in 1845. The school has had three locations; 4th and Cherry St, 15th and Race St. in Philadelphia and City Line Ave in Wynnewood, PA. The current location is the former estate of the Wistar Morris family and was landscaped by Frederick Olmstead. The collection gives an overview of the history of Quaker education and includes photographs of early Quaker educators important in the history of Quaker meetings in the Philadelphia area. Quaker curriculum was unique for its time. The school included both Quaker and non-Quaker children from both Hicksite and Orthodox Quaker Meetings. Science and Latin were taught to both boys and girls and both genders participated in physical education. Holidays were not observed. An early instructor was Benjamin Eakins, who taught penmanship and the headmaster who was present during the relocation to City Ave, was Barclay Jones, cousin of Rufus Jones. Photographs from the 1920s included in the collection highlight the beauty of the Wistar Morris estate whose mansion is still used as the main campus building and features an original Tiffany window.

Johann Heinrich Keppele was born in 1716 in the village of Treschklingen, in what is today's German state of Baden-Württemberg. In 1738, at the age of 22, Keppele emigrated to America, arriving in Philadelphia, where he settled, and after beginning as an innkeeper, became a prosperous merchant and importer. In 1741 he married Anna Catharina Barbara Bauer (1725-1774), who was born in the village of Meckesheim, in Baden. They had 15 children, of whom 5 daughters and 4 sons survived into adulthood. Henry Keppele was a successful and well-known butcher, innkeeper, merchant, ship owner, and real estate entrepreneur. Keppele was also a one-term member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, and an active member of St. Michael's and Zion Lutheran Church. On 26 December 1764 he was one of the co-founders of the German Society of Pennsylvania, dedicated to helping German immigrants; and he served as its first president, from 1765 to 1781. Keppele died in Philadelphia on June 1, 1797. The Henry Keppele family record book, written in Keppele's own hand, contains biographical information about himself and his family, including a list of his children, with their birth, death, and marriage dates. This is followed by copies of 8 poems in English, in a different hand, copied ca. 1839-1843. The book contains many blank leaves at the back. The Henry Keppele Geburtsregister is approximately 100 pages long. It begins by recording family information similar to what is contained in the Keppele family record book. The remainder and bulk of the book contains prayers and poems written by Keppele. The last entry is from November. 10, 1794, 3 ½ years before his death in June 1797.

This collection consists of the daily German language newspaper "Der Demokrat". Variant titles are: Philadelphia Demokrat, Philadelphia Demokrat und Anzeiger der Deutschen, and Philadelphier Demokrat. It merged with the Morgen Gazette to form the Gazette-Demokrat. This collection includes issues for 1838-1876 with some missing years and issues. The years 1877-1907 were digitized separately and can be viewed at: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102409452/Home

This collection contains items from the German Society of Pennsylvania's archival holdings related to Philadelphia-based German-American singing societies of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Items include: souvenir programs, recordings, correspondence and sheet music.

The Pamphlet Box Collection/ Pennsylvania Institution for the Deaf consists of nine annual reports, from 1883, and one for each year from 1917-1924 inclusive. It also includes five copies of the student newsletter, Mount Airy World, with two copies from 1912, one from 1913, one from 1917, and the last, from 1921. Together, these annual reports and newsletters document the statewide importance of the Institution; both faculty and students came from all over Pennsylvania to work and study there. The collection also documents the increased importance of women at the Institution, in their roles as faculty and staff members, and as committee members working in association with the Institution's Board of Directors.

The Welfare History Collection documents the roles and importance of several welfare organizations formerly located in and/ or associated with the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia spanning the years circa 1881-1921. The records include annual reports, charters, and by-laws of the Americanization Committee of Germantown, the Pauline Temporary Home, the Germantown Door of Hope, the Florence Crittenton Home, and the Philadelphia Home for Incurables. The materials document the roles that women had in these organizations, and by extension, in the larger community.

Welcome to the B. Reed Henderson High School Collection, a part of the POWER Library: PA Photos and Documents. Henderson High School, located in the Borough of West Chester, dates back to 1906, and its long history has great significance to the Borough and to Chester County. The Henderson High School Library currently maintains a collection of archival items, and we regularly receive requests from alumni and other community member to view these materials. The collection consists of School publications dating back to 1906; it includes magazines, yearbooks, newspapers, and programs that relate to both School and local news and events. We are interested in preserving these materials to ensure their survival as part of the history of the School, West Chester Borough, and the regional area. We would also like to make them more widely available; the collection has been used in large part for genealogical research, and making it more readily available will facilitate this use.

This collection consists of historic photographs of Norristown, Pa., from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.