The Society’s collections center on eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and parts of Delaware and Maryland, but also include a wealth of materials on the eastern United States, the founding of this country, and the diversity of ethnic and immigrant experiences across the United States. Please use the toolbar on the left to access our research guides.

Areas of particular strength include the following (click on a heading for more information about our holdings relevant to that topic):

• Architectural history – architectural drawings, fire insurance surveys, photographs, atlases, scrapbooks, newspapers.
• Arts and culture – landscapes, portraits, and other works of art on paper, theater playbills and posters, sheet music, literary works, papers of people in the arts, records of cultural organizations.
• Business history – company records and government reports regarding banking, insurance, trade, publishing, transportation, manufacturing, mining, retail, and other industries from the 18th century to the present.
• Community and social service history – records of social welfare agencies, disaster and war relief groups, educational institutions, religious- and labor-movement-based projects, and mutual benefit societies, as well as papers of several wealthy Philadelphia philanthropists.
• Creation of Pennsylvania Commonwealth and the United States – papers of the Penn Family and other leading Pennsylvania families, early Pennsylvania grants, deeds, maps, and collections documenting the movement for U.S. independence and the formation of the American republic.
• Ethnic history – manuscripts, graphics, printed materials, and microfilm documenting the experiences of over sixty ethnic groups, intergroup relations, and ethnic stereotyping.
• Family history and genealogy – family papers, vital records, tax lists, census records, genealogical scrapbooks, fraternal organization records, indexes to passenger lists and obituaries, Philadelphia city directories, military muster rolls.
• Philadelphia neighborhood history – planning reports, neighborhood histories, records of real estate firms and civic organizations, photographs, memoirs, and oral histories.
• Politics and government – strongest for the 18th and 19th centuries, materials include state and local publications, papers of public officials, records of political and civic associations.
• Wars and military history – strongest for Revolutionary War through World War II: military unit records, firsthand accounts by soldiers and civilians, war posters, records and publications of home front organizations, veterans’ groups.
• Women’s history – women’s diaries, letters, and household accounts; papers and records documenting women’s professional lives, cultural activities, community service, and political activism.