About This Collection
The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction was established under the Constitution of 1874. It replaced the Office of Superintendent of Common Schools, which had been created in 1857 to assume the duties relating to the administration of public schools originally lodged with the Secretary of the Commonwealth by the Free School Act of 1834. By 1876, the officials working under the Superintendent were commonly known as the Department of Public Instruction. The powers and duties of this Department were greatly increased in 1923 when the State Library and Museum, the State Board of Censors, the Public School Employees' Retirement Board, the Pennsylvania Historical Commission, and the various State professional examining boards were made administrative units of Public Instruction. In keeping with its responsibility for administering the State's educational policies, the Department of Public Instruction supervised the public school system, distributed State subsidies to school districts, administered teachers' colleges and vocational-education programs, issued licenses for certain professions, and operated the State Library. Several administrative units were eventually separated from the Department. In 1945 the Historical Commission, the Museum and the State Archives were merged to form an independent agency, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. The State Board of Censors was abolished in 1956 when the act creating it was declared unconstitutional by the State Supreme Court, and in 1963 the professional examining boards were transferred to the jurisdiction of the Department of State. In 1969 the name of the Department of Public Instruction was changed to the Department of Education. The Bureau of Statistics became the Bureau of Information Systems. This collection contains copies, arranged chronologically and thereunder numerically by license number, of medical licenses designated by law to be retained in the archives of the Department of Public Instruction. The certificates list the name of the physician, the date the license was issued, and the names of the agency and of officials conferring the license. This series is a continuation from the Department of Education series 22.50 Record of Medical Licenses Recommended by the State Medical Society covering 1894-1911, these records are also digitally available. Licenses from 1964-1971 are available in our Department of State (RG 26.97) files. Disclaimer: Records from 26.97 are not digitized. Please visit the PA State Archives to see the rest of the collection.