Related Resources

This page includes additional resources on the state of Pennsylvania from the Library's website.

American Folklife Center State Resources

Finding Aids to Collections in the Archive of Folk Culture: Pennsylvania Collections
The Archive of Folk Culture holds approximately 2700 collections consisting of more than 150,000 sound recordings and 3 million items. At this time only a portion of them have catalog records and finding aids. Contact the Folklife Reading Room for additional information about collections.
Folklife in Your State: Pennsylvania
The collections of the American Folklife Center contain large amounts of rich and varied materials from Pennsylvania that document the diversity of the state's folk traditions. Pennsylvania's Local Legacies Projects, an exploration of local traditions and celebrations is available on the Center's Web page.

America's Library

America's Library is especially designed for elementary and middle school students. This site contains a wide variety of information related to United States history and culture. Search for Pennsylvania to find examples such as these:

Explore the States

Pennsylvania

Jump Back in Time

Bibliographies and Guides

Pennsylvania: Local History & Genealogy Resource Guide
Compiled by reference specialists at the Library of Congress, this guide identifies key print and online resources for pursuing family history, as well as state, county and municipal historical research, for the state of Pennsylvania.
U.S. State Poets Laureate: Pennsylvania
This site provides the names of all current state poets laureate of the United States. It also includes a history of the laureateship in each state, as well the District of Columbia, and attempts to provide a comprehensive listing of all prior state poets laureate. Included is information on the position of State Poet Laureate in Pennsylvania.

Exhibitions Featuring Pennsylvania

American Treasures of the Library of Congress: Ephrata Community Songbook
The principal source for the music of the German Seventh-Day Baptists, a group that immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1732. Johann Conrad Beissel, founder of the Seventh-Day Baptists, served not only as spiritual director of the group but also as its composer, devising his own system of composition. This style of music declined after the death of Beissel in 1768.
American Treasures of the Library of Congress: First Hospital for the Mentally Ill
Benjamin Hornor Coates, M.D., was attending physician at the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia from 1828 to 1841. The Pennsylvania Hospital began admitting mentally disturbed patients after 1752. It was the first institution in the United States dedicated to the treatment of mental and physical illness in a period of reform that saw the shift away from punishment and restraint toward the treatment of patients’ symptoms.
American Treasures of the Library of Congress: Land Grant
William Penn received a royal charter from King Charles II of England in 1681 to cover a debt of £16,000 owed by the monarch to Penn’s father Admiral William Penn, by which he became the proprietor of a huge tract of land in what is now Pennsylvania. Just three months after the king signed the patent, young Penn had two agencies selling land there and also dispatched his cousin William Markham as his deputy.
Benjamin Franklin: In His Own Words
This exhibition, Benjamin Franklin: In His Own Words, indicates the depth and breadth of Franklin's public, professional, and scientific accomplishments through important documents, letters, books, broadsides, and cartoons. This exhibition includes his articles published in The Pennsylvania Gazette newspaper and his involvement with Pennsylvania.
Gettysburg Address
Abraham Lincoln was the second speaker on November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg. Of the five known manuscript copies of the Gettysburg Address, the Library of Congress has two.

Global Gateway

France In America
Conceived in partnership with France’s national library, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, France in America / France en Amérique is a bilingual digital library made available by the Library of Congress. It explores the history of the French presence in North America from the first decades of the sixteenth century to the end of the nineteenth century. Search the project to find items related to Pennsylvania.

Historic Newspapers

Chronicling America: Pennsylvania
Historic American newspapers from 1789 to 1963 selected and contributed by state partners in the National Digital Newspaper Program. Search this collection to find selected newspaper articles that mention events in Pennsylvania.

Law Library

The Guide to Law Online: Pennsylvania
The Guide to Law Online, prepared by the Law Library of Congress Public Services Division, is an annotated guide to sources of information on government and law available online. It includes selected links to useful and reliable sites for legal information on U.S states and territories, including Pennsylvania.

Resources for Teachers

The Library of Congress offers classroom materials and professional development to help teachers effectively use primary sources from the Library's vast digital collections in their teaching. Find Library of Congress lesson plans and more that meet Common Core standards, state content standards, and the standards of national organizations.

Features & Activities

Primary Sources by State: Pennsylvania
The Library of Congress has rich documents and artifacts from every state, the U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia.

Lesson Plans

Creating a Primary Source Archive: All History Is Local
Examine the interplay between national, state, local, and personal history. Students produce a digital collection of primary sources from their family or local community based on the Digital Collections.
Exploring Community Through Local History: Oral Stories, Landmarks and Traditions
Students explore the local history of the community in which they live through written and spoken stories; through landmarks such as buildings, parks, restaurants, or businesses; and through traditions such as food, festivals and other events of the community or of individual families.
Local History: Mapping My Spot
Students create their town’s history for coming generations and place themselves on the map in a literal as well as figurative sense, by producing portions of an updated version of an early twentieth century panoramic map from the Digital Collections.

Today in History

The following dates in history feature significant events in Pennsylvania's history as highlighted in the Library of Congress' collections.

January 3
Political and social reformer Lucretia Coffin Mott was born on January 3, 1793 in Nantucket, Massachusetts to a Quaker family. Inspired by a father who encouraged his daughters to be useful and a mother who was active in business affairs, Lucretia Mott worked as a tireless advocate for the oppressed while also raising six children. Over the course of her lifetime, Mott actively participated in many of the reform movements of the day including abolition, temperance, and pacifism. She also played a vital role in organizing the 1848 Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, which launched the woman suffrage movement in America.
January 17
Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706, in Boston, Massachusetts, but his adopted home was Philadelphia, the largest city in eighteenth-century America. His many accomplishments as printer, scientist, and statesman are particularly remarkable when considered in the context of colonial North America. A spirit of pragmatic innovation imbued all of Franklin's intellectual, social, and scientific pursuits. He dedicated himself to the improvement of everyday life for the widest number of people and, in so doing, made an indelible mark on the emerging nation.
March 12
On March 12, 1901, Andrew Carnegie, one of the world's foremost industrialists, offered the city of New York $5.2 million for the construction of sixty-five branch libraries. The Scottish immigrant's fortune eventually would establish many more libraries and charitable foundations.
April 4
Carrie S. Burnham began her argument, made before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania on April 3 and April 4, 1873, for her right to vote. "It is not simply," Burhnam reasoned, "whether I shall be protected in the exercise of my inalienable right and duty of self-government, but whether a government, the mere agent of the people, …can deny to any portion of its intelligent, adult citizens participation therein and still hold them amenable to its laws…"
May 4
On May 4, 1894, Bird Day was first observed at the initiative of Charles Almanzo Babcock, superintendent of schools in Oil City, Pennsylvania. By 1910, Bird Day was widely celebrated, often in conjunction with Arbor Day.
June 4
On June 4, 1754, twenty-two-year-old Colonel George Washington and his small military force were busy constructing Fort Necessity, east of what is known today as Uniontown, Pennsylvania.
July 1
The Battle of Gettysburg began on July 1, 1863.
July 2
On July 2, 1863, the lines of the Battle of Gettysburg, now in its second day, were drawn in two sweeping parallel arcs. The Confederate and Union armies faced each other a mile apart. The Union forces extending along Cemetery Ridge to Culp’s Hill, formed the shape of a fish-hook, and the Confederate forces were spread along Seminary Ridge.
July 3
On July 3, 1863, Union troops repelled a massive artillery assault on Cemetery Ridge during the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg in southern Pennsylvania. During the early morning hours Confederate General Robert E. Lee ordered General Longstreet to prepare General Pickett's troops for the assault.
September 26
On September 26, 1777, British troops marched into Philadelphia and occupied the city forcing the Continental Congress, meeting in the Pennsylvania State House (later renamed Independence Hall), to flee to the interior of Pennsylvania. General Washington and his army had battled the British south of Philadelphia at Brandywine Creek on September 11.
October 3
On October 3, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt met with miners and coalfield operators from the anthracite coalfields in Pennsylvania in an attempt to settle the strike, then in its fifth month. The country relied on coal to power commerce and industry and anthracite or "hard coal" was essential for domestic heating.
October 14
William Penn, English religious and social reformer and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, was born on October 14, 1644, in London. Pennsylvania, while predominantly Quaker, soon became a haven for minority religious sects from across Europe, as well as the most culturally diverse of the thirteen original colonies.
November 14
Many subscription libraries—founded to benefit academies, colleges, and other groups—were established from the late seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. The Library Company of Philadelphia grew out of the needs of the Leather Apron Club, also known as the "Junto," of which Franklin was a member. In addition to exchanging business information, these merchants discussed politics and natural philosophy, contributing to their requirements for books to satisfy their widespread interests. Volumes were purchased with the annual contributions of shareholders, building a more comprehensive library than any individual could afford.
November 19
On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered a short speech at the close of ceremonies dedicating the battlefield cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Honoring a request to offer a few remarks, Lincoln memorialized the Union dead and highlighted the redemptive power of their sacrifice. Placing the common soldier at the center of the struggle for equality, Lincoln reminded his listeners of the higher purpose for which blood was shed.
December 12
On December 12, 1787, delegates to the Pennsylvania ratifying convention meeting at the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall) voted to ratify the Constitution of 1787. Five days earlier, Delaware had become the first state to adopt the work of the Constitutional Convention.

Veterans History Project

The Veterans History Project (VHP) collects and preserves the remembrances of American war veterans and civilian workers who supported them. Click on the link below to locate veterans from Pennsylvania.

Veterans History Project: Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania: State Resource Guide

Digital Collections: Ask a Librarian