The Athenaeum of Philadelphia

09/25/2026

Explore research tools and visual prompts to craft unique stories that are fully place-centric in this 3-hour workshop. Locale is vital to all narratives. As important as human behavior and historical context, place creates, alters and necessitates plot lines.

🗓️ Saturday, October 24
🕰️ 11:00am-2:00pm
📍The Athenæum
🎟️ Open to all. Advance registration required.
📝 Works in progress are welcome!

ABOUT THE TEACHER
Cordelia Frances Biddle is a feminist and historian. Her newest novel, I Remember You, connects eras within Philadelphia’s rich and turbulent history (pub date May, 2027). Her book Listen to Me: The Women of the Bible Speak Out is a vivid retelling of patriarchal sacred texts. She’s now adapting the work for the stage. The River Was Waiting is Part II in the Gorne Trilogy - following They Believed They Were Safe. Both novels focus on the aftermath of trauma. Prior fictions include the books Sins of Commission, The Actress, Without Fear, Deception’s Daughter, and The Conjurer. These novels are set during the early Victorian era in Philadelphia and explore women’s issues, and the chasm between wealth and poverty. Her first novel, Beneath the Wind, examined one woman’s plight during the Edwardian Age. Her nonfiction books include Biddle, Jackson, and a Nation in Turmoil - which received the Athenaeum’s 2021 Literary Award - and Saint Katharine: The Life of Katharine Drexel… [Read the full bio on our website]

09/16/2026

A bulletin issued in 1915 by the State Board of Education in Harrisburg, PA four years after the School Code of Pennsylvania was issued (1911) which centralized administrative control and standardized modern educational practices. Contents include plans for 1-4 rooms schools, district high schools, rural school consolidation, suggested equipment for rural schools, heating and ventilation systems, and sanitary systems.

ℹ️Trade Catalogue Collection at the Athenaeum of Philadelphia

ABOUT THE SCHOOL CODE OF PA
The School Code of Pennsylvania was one of many calls for reform in response to rapid industrialization, urbanization, and immigration during the Progressive Era. The main objectives of this code were:

1. To establish a new six-member State Board of Education that would enforce state laws, manage school policies, and equalize educational advantages across different regions.

2. To unify ward schools into centralized city school districts.

3. To establish mandatory attendance laws that would ensure children were in classrooms rather than factory environments.

4. To formalize levels of teaching certificates and establish minimum teacher salaries based on those certifications.

5. To nationalize teacher training by bringing “Normal Schools” under state ownership.

ℹ️ Read the full School code of Pennsylvania and other laws : Act of May 18th, 1911 at catalog.hathitrust.org

09/10/2026

🔸An Alphabet of Celebrities🔸

A book published in 1900 filled with poetic rhymes and bordered illustrations caricaturing well known literary, artistic and historical figures.

ℹ️ American Imprints Collection at the Athenaeum of Philadelphia

08/22/2026

This is the DeVoe Decorative Colorguide, a mechanized apparatus with hand-operated dials that allows the user to mix and match colors of five different interior decorating elements (trim, walls, furniture, ceilings, floors) for four different rooms (kitchen, bathroom, dining room, living room), with the resulting combinations seen through a viewing window in the case top. It was manufactured by Pathe Engineering and Tool Manufacturing Corporation and introduced by F.W. Devoe & C.T. Raynolds Company to help customers in their decision-making process for interior painting.

Date: 1935 (circa) - 1940 (circa)
Medium: metal, paper, plastic, wood, ink
Extent: 21.75" L x 12.5" W x 4.0" D

ABOUT THE ONLINE EXHIBITION

“Color in a Can: Early Marketing of Paint in America” is an exhibition of advertising signs from the late 19th and early 20th centuries represents a small portion of the historical paint research collection at The Athenaeum of Philadelphia. In addition to signs, the collection also includes more than 450 items such as brochures, trade catalogs, color samples, and related materials that document the rapid growth and exuberant promotion of the paint industry. Some of the paint company names are familiar; many other companies, with names now obscure, eventually fell by the wayside or were bought out by larger corporations.

The invaluable collection from which this exhibition is drawn exists largely through the efforts of former Athenaeum Executive Director Dr. Roger W. Moss, whose extensive research and writing forms the foundation of historic paint study in America. The online exhibition and original exhibition (January 15-April 22, 2016) was curated by Denise R. Fox.

omeka.philaathenaeum.org/ColorInACan

08/20/2026

🪴Upcoming garden workshops, lectures, and exhibition!

This series is presented in partnership with PHS Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage

🎟️FREE and open to all. Registration required.

Floral illustration of Iris Versicolor Blue Flag can be found from the American Imprints Collection at the Athenaeum of Philadelphia.

“The Native Flowers and Ferns of the United States: in their Botanical, Horticultural and Popular Aspects” by Thomas Meehan
Boston, L. Prang & Co., 1878.
v. I

08/18/2026

Join us to celebrate the official release of the "Folger Shakespeare Library: Renewal and Revitalization", published by Chronicle Books and Princeton Architectural Press. This book brings together a collection of essays and archival and contemporary photography that trace the work of those who have built, supported, and reimagined the Folger Shakespeare Library, from its founding in 1932 to its reopening in 2024.

The building was designed in 1932 by Paul Philippe Cret and has undergone a four-year, $80 million overhaul, expanding the library's programming, exhibition and public spaces. The original building was preserved, while allowing for changes that created the first permanent exhibit, improved accessibility and greatly enhanced the visitor experience.

Philadelphia-based architecture firm, Kieran Timberlake, assessed every detail of the original building, developed the overall planning and architectural design and, taking a uniquely holistic approach, collaborated with leading designers in landscaping, branding, typography and exhibition design to breathe new life into this storied building.

🗓️ Tue, Sep 1
🕰️ 6pm
📍The Athenæum
🎟️ Pay What You Wish. $10 Suggested.
🔗 https://tr.ee/VLscFG
🥂 Post-talk book signing & refreshments
📚 Pre-order your book at www.folgerbook.com

SPEAKERS
David Brownlee, Historian (moderator)

Steve Kieran - Architect
KieranTimberlake Principal

Wendy Evans Joseph - Exhibition Design
President Studio Joseph

David Whitney - Director of Operations
Folger Shakespeare Library

Hallie Boyce - Landscape Architect
Vice President & Partner, OLIN

🔍Image from Cret Collection at the Athenaeum of Philadelphia.

08/17/2026

08/14/2026

🌳🏡🌳Some opinions and an early analysis on the significance of trees in Philadelphia from the Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide (1886).

The Builders’ Guide can be accessed by visiting philaathenaeum.org/research or go directly to philageohistory.org/BuildersGuide

ABOUT THE BUILDERS’ GUIDE
Published weekly between January 1886 and November 1940, the “Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders' Guide” is a published source for documenting buildings in Philadelphia, containing hundreds of thousands of specific building references as well as statistical and editorial analysis of the building trades during the city's most dramatic period of growth.

Modeled after the “Real Estate Record” of New York City, which began publication in 1868, “Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders' Guide” was founded in 1886 by publishers McNamee & Bright, both of whom had worked in the real estate advertising departments of established Philadelphia daily papers. By 1900 there would be similar papers with similar titles in Chicago, Montreal, Pittsburgh and San Francisco. The Builders' Guide differed from mass circulation papers in that its target audience was not the general public, but the building profession. This included architects, builders, general contractors, real estate developers, bankers, investors, conveyancers, and a host of tradesmen of all sorts from bricklayers to plumbers to glaziers to electricians.

In thousands of cases, the Builders Guide is the ONLY published source that links an architect, developer, or contractor with a specific building. Since the format of this newspaper includes "Advance News", "Building News" and "Contracts Awarded" it is often possible to trace sequentially, the history of a building from first announcement of intent to build, to a listing of all architects who submitted plans, to all contractors that submitted bids, to the awarding of those architectural and trade contracts, to the actual construction start, and, often years down the line, the multiple alterations and additions that were done to that building.

08/07/2026

A glimpse inside the Athenaeum ✨

Here are some snippets from when Hank Flynn from FOX 29 Good Day Uncut visited us this week. Executive Director, Beth Hessel, and Associate Archivist, Brice Peterson, discuss our collections, programming, and why you might consider becoming a member.

The full video segment can be viewed at www.fox29.com

07/31/2026

The future is uncertain for this 200-year old building that was first occupied by the Franklin Institute and then the Philadelphia History Museum at Atwater Kent.

The building was designed for the Franklin Institute in 1825 by neoclassical architect, John Haviland (1792-1852), who is regarded as one of the most important architects working from Philadelphia in the early 19th century. His other commissions in the l820s include the First Presbyterian Church (1820), the Eastern State Penitentiary (1821), Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church (1822), the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf (1825).

When the Franklin Institute’s new museum opened on Benjamin Franklin Parkway in 1934, this building was purchased by radio manufacturing magnate, Atwater Kent, and donated to the City of Philadelphia for the purpose of collecting the city’s material culture and displaying it for the public. An estimated 3,200 people attended the opening exhibition in 1939 that displayed ship models and relics of Philadelphia’s maritime history.

In 2018, the Philadelphia History Museum closed due to financial struggles and the building has been visibly neglected. Last week, we signed a letter along with several institutions and individuals asking our city’s Administration for the following:

🏛️Commit to immediate stabilization and routine maintenance of the property to
prevent further deterioration and correcting the outstanding L&I code violations;
🏛️Evaluate viable long-term options, including continued city ownership with a
renewed public use, partnership with a cultural institution, adaptive reuse, or sale,
through a transparent public process.
🏛️Publicly articulate a timeline and process for determining the building’s future

The Atwater Kent Collection has been stewarded by Drexel University since 2022. There are more than 133,000 historical artifacts in the Collection and to date, Drexel has made over 20,000 objects available digitally via the AKC Online Collection database. You can learn more about current and upcoming exhibits featuring artifacts from the collection at philadelphiahistory.org.

Image: Karl Lutz Collection at the Athenaeum of Philadelphia