Ora Washington was
born in Virginia on January 16, 1899.&nbsp;When
Ora Washington’s sisters passed away she was introduced to tennis at a local
YMCA near her home in Philadelphia. Within only one&nbsp;year, Washington&nbsp;was
a&nbsp;leading player in the&nbsp;national&nbsp;association for Black women.&nbsp;After only four years of experience in the sport, Ora
Washington won the ATA’s Women’s singles championship.&nbsp; She held on to that title for a long seven
years from 1929 to 1936 and was a well-known African American woman as well as
an athlete. Many well-known tennis players in her time knew and talked highly
of her talents and looked up to her. Even though she loved tennis Washington
decided to highlight her talents in other sports such as basketball where she
played center for the Germantown Hornets and the Philadelphia Tribunes. 

Upon retirement from professional athletics, Ora Washington

coached and offered free tennis lessons at the public courts in her hometown.
She died in 1971.

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Ora Washington was one of the premiere female athletes of the early 20th century. She excelled in both tennis and basketball, but because of racial discrimination, she was rarely able to compete with white athletes. According to Arthur Ashe, Washington may have been the best female athlete of the 20th century. 

Ora Washington Historic Marker 

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This trail includes twenty-five monuments, historical markers, museums, and other historical and cultural sites that are primarily related to the history of women and gender. The trail starts in the center of the city and then expands to the north to include a handful of other sites such as a cluster of landmarks on the campus of Bryn Mawr that were selected for their proximity to other landmarks so that the trail can be driven in a few hours.

Marian Anderson was born on February 27, 1897 and became one of the most iconic opera singers. She recorded spirituals for a major American recording company and is known for her wide variety of performances across the nation. Anderson's performances range from an exclusive event at the White House and on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to local concerts. She was a strong supporter of civil rights, and also saw discrimination in her career. For example, she was denied a chance to perform at Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution who owned the venue. In response, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the DAR.Following that event, Anderson and Roosevelt established a friendship and the First Lady invited Anderson to sing a concert on Easter Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial and later at the White House. Anderson has also sang at two presidential inaugurations with those being the ones of Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. She was also the goodwill ambassador for the United States Department of State during a tour to Asia. President Eisenhower even assigned her as an alternate delegate in the United Nations General Assembly. The house was constructed in 1870 and acquired by Anderson in 1924. In 1943, Anderson would get married and moved to Connecticut, but was still listed as the owner of the house. Her family would continue to live in the house for a very long time after she moved out. After her mother and sister passed away, the family sold the house in 1990. The property is now owned by the Marian Anderson Historical Society and now operates as a museum. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 14, 2011.

Built in 1870, this residence would later be home to an opera singer and civil rights advocate Marian Anderson. The home was built as a two-story brick building in the Italianate architectural style. Marian purchased the home in 1924, which is the same year she became the first African-American concert artist to record the genre of spirituals for a record company. She resided in this house until 1943.

Marian Anderson House

Billie Holiday was born under the name Eleanora Fagan on April 7,1915 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her parents are Sarah Julia "Sadie" Fagan and Clarence Halliday. Her father, Clarence Halliday, also known as Clarence "Holiday", was a professional jazz musician for the Fletcher Henderson band. However, shortly after Billie was born, Clarence left his family to pursue his career as a musician and Billie moved to Baltimore, Maryland where she was raised by her mother. During this time period Billie Holiday was faced with a difficult childhood. She was left to spend much of her childhood alone and at the age of eleven Billie Holiday dropped out of school in order to help her mother with her restaurant that she had just opened.1 Eventually, Holiday and her mother moved to Harlem, New York. However, shortly after the move her mother was arrested for prostitution and Holiday herself was a victim of sex trafficking before the age of fourteen.2In order to make ends meet, as a young teen in 1929, Holiday began working various jobs to support herself but eventually found a job performing at a Harlem nightclub.3 She originally was looking for work as a dancer at a Harlem club called Pod's and Jerry's however, when there were no openings for a dancer she decided to try singing.2 Even though Holiday never received formal singing lessons, she was said to have had natural instincts when it came to music.3 Her audition impressed the owner so much that he gave her the job.This marked the starting point of Holiday's career and lead to her performing at various Harlem jazz clubs.2 She partnered with saxophone player, Kenneth Hollan, and they performed together from 1929-1931 at clubs such as Pod's and Jerry's, Grey Dawn and Brooklyn Elk's Club. During this time, she took her professional name, Billie Holiday, which was inspired by both her favorite actress, Billie Dove, and her father's performing name, "Holiday".1In 1933, Holiday had her first break through when producer, John Hammond, watched one of her performances at a New York club called Covan's. Hammond was so impressed by Holiday's music talents stating, "Her singing almost changed my music tastes and my musical life, because she was the first girl singer I'd come across who actually sang like an improvising jazz genius."1 Throughout the decade with Hammond's help, Holiday was able to start working with various famous jazz musicians such as Benny Goodman, Teddy Wilson, and Duke Ellington. During this time she also worked with a saxophonist, Lester Young, whom was Holiday's close friend and is credited with giving her the famous nickname of "Lady Day."2 In November of 1933, at the age of nineteen, Holiday worked with Benny Goodman and recored her first two songs, "Your Mother's Son-in-Law" and "Riffin' the Scotch."1Holiday continued making music however, in 1939, her career changed when she was introduced to "Strange Fruit", a song based on a poem about racial prejudice and lynching. Holiday stated that she felt such a strong passion to perform this song because it reminded her of how her father passed away after being denied medical treatment as a result of racism. However, the record label she was working for at the time, Columbia Records, found the song to be too controversial. Therefore, she ended up recording it with Commodore Records, and even though it did not get any airtime, Holiday stated that it "became my biggest-selling record." 1After the first performance of the song, "Strange Fruit", Holiday received a warning from the Federal Bureau of Narcotics to never perform the song again however, she refused to obey these demands.5 Holiday's popularity kept increasing and eventually in 1944 she signed with Decca Records. During this time she recorded another hit song, "Lover Man." This song lead to her becoming well known in the pop community and created opportunity for solo performances, which was rare for jazz musicians at this time.1In 1947, Holiday's career as a jazz musician was reaching an all time time. However, on May 16,1947 Billie Holiday was arrested after police had found her with possession of narcotics. On May 27, 1947, Holiday was sent to court on account of these charges and she stated, "It was called 'The United States of America versus Billie Holiday.' And that's just they way it felt." She plead guilty to the charges which resulted in her being sentenced to Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. Additionally, she lost the right to her New York City Cabaret Card which meant she could no longer perform at any venue that served alcohol. On March 16, 1948 Holiday was released from prison before her sentence was finished due to good behavior. 1Holiday's struggles with abusing alcohol and drugs continued throughout the 1950s. This induced not only a decline in her physical health but also had detrimental effects on her ability to perform. In 1959, Billie Holiday was diagnosed with cirrhosis, also known as liver disease and was being treated at Metropolitan Hospital in New York. However, even as she was fighting for her life in the hospital, Holiday's room was raided for drug possession. This final attack against Billie Holiday by The Federal Bureau of Narcotics was said to be done under the order of Harry J. Anslinger, who was said to be an openly racist government official. It is noted that Anslinger had been targeting Holiday ever since her first performance of the controversial song "Strange Fruit."1 The Federal Bureau of Narcotics reportedly found less than one-eighth of an ounce of heroin in her room. As a result they placed her room under strict police supervision, handcuffed her to her hospital bed, and confiscated her personal items such as her record player, comic books, radio, and magazines. They also restricted her ability to receive any visitors. Holiday is said to have not blamed the individual police agents for this treatment instead, she blamed the drug war as it resulted in treating the ill like criminals.4 On July 17, 1959, Billie Holiday died at the age of forty-four due to a pulmonary edema and heart failure.1﻿

Billie Holiday, also known as "Lady Day," is said to be one of the greatest American jazz singers of her time. She stood out in the jazz industry due to her unconventional music styles and improvisation. Although she was faced with many hardships throughout both her life and career, Holiday will always be remembered as a very influential figure in the jazz music industry. She was known to bring life to her music and always performed music the way she wanted to, even if others did not agree. She is best known for her songs "Lover Man" and "Strange Fruit" as well as her many collaborations with various famous jazz musicians. The historical marker located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania serves as a tribute to her accomplishments in the jazz industry.

Billie Holiday Historical Marker

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was born on September 24, 1825 in Baltimore, Maryland and was the daughter of two free African Americans. She was a women of many skills as she grew up to be a historic poet, fiction writer, journalist , activist, as well as a few more trades. Harper would come to be a highly valued and influential speaker at various events during the fight for civil rights, women's rights, and educational opportunities for all. Furthermore, Frances EW Harper had written various pieces of literature that were quite meaningful because she had used them to express the experiences of her and other African Americans at the time. At the age of three, Frances had lost both of her parents and was forced to move in and be raised by her aunt and uncle, Henrietta and William Watkins. William Watkins had been an active abolitionist who was practicing self taught medicine, organized a Black literary society, and even opened up his own school in 1820 called the Watkins Academy for Negro Youth. Frances grew up following her uncle's actions, learning from what he did to fight for civil rights, all while also attending the Watkins Academy until the age of thirteen. During her times, it was normal for one to join the workforce at this age so Harper had begun to work as a nursemaid and seamstress for a Quaker household who owned a bookshop where the teenager would deeper explore in her love of literature. At age twenty-six, Frances EW Harper had decided to began teaching. She first took a job at the Union Seminary in Ohio where she became the first woman instructor there and then after a year she moved to a school in York, Pennsylvania. During this time, Harper's home state of Maryland passed a law that any free African American living in the North were no longer allowed to enter the state with punishment of being sold as a slave, causing Harper not to be able to return to her home. Due to this she decided to dedicate her life to the anti slavery cause. She created a career being a traveling speaker for the fight for civil rights while at the same time helping slaves escape through the Underground Railroad and writing many novels and poems about her experiences. Frances EW Harper's pieces of literature came to be historic over time as the effect they had on society showed as time went on. She began to write a lot of poetry for antislavery newspapers as her poem "Eliza Harris" was published in The Liberator, and also in Fredrick Douglass's Paper. Harper's short story "The Two Offers" was also the first published novel by an African American. She was hired by a few organizations to become a traveling lecturer and speaker including the Maine Anti-Slavery Society and Pennsylvania Anti Slavery Society. Harper's fight was not only for civil rights as she was an active activist for women's rights and the temperance movement. In 1866, Harper gave one of her most famous speeches at the National Women's Rights Convention in New York called "We Are All Bound Up Together". Harper continued to spend the rest of her career fighting for equal rights, equal opportunities for school and work, and education for African American women. She co-founded and became vice president of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, was superintendent of Colored Section of the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Women's Christian Temperance Union, the director of the American Association of Colored Youth, and lastly a member of the American Women's Suffrage Association. After collecting all of these accolades, she settled down in her home in Philadelphia but never stopped fighting for what she believed in.

This historic Philadelphia home is where poet, fiction writer, journalist, and activist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper spent her later years and the location where she passed away on February 22, 1911. Born in Baltimore in 1825, she was the only child of free African American parents. After growing up in difficult conditions, she embarked on a career as a traveling speaker on the abolitionist circuit. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper also helped slaves escape through the Underground Railroad and wrote frequently for anti-slavery newspapers. As a journalist and activist, she worked with Frederick Douglass and other reformers, earning a reputation for her writing which led some to refer to her as the "mother" of African American journalism. The house has since been named a National Historic Landmark and is open to the public during special events. 

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper House

William Still (1821-1902) moved to Philadelphia in 1844 and worked with the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society. He chaired the group's Vigilance Committee and organized Underground Railroad efforts both within the city and across the country. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 required Northern states to assist in the recapture of people who had escaped slavery; it was during this time that Still and his wife Letitia (1821-1906), whom he married in 1847, protected hundreds of those very individuals. William and Letitia Still rented this row house as their home and used it to shelter hundreds of fugitives and guides, including Harriet Tubman, as a way station on the Underground Railroad. Still also kept extensive journals and a "passenger manifest," which he kept hidden until after the Civil War. He later wrote a lengthy account of his work freeing enslaved people, the 800-page The Underground Railroad (1872), one of the only accounts written by Black abolitionists. While some parts of the building are significantly different from their appearance in the 1850s, particularly due to a renovation in 1920, the stoop appears to be the same one where the Stills, Tubman, and those they helped to free stepped into the house. The Stills lived here from 1850 to 1855, an a historical marker commemorating William Still stands near a different house where they later lived in the city. James Duffin of the Keeping Society of Philadelphia identified the house from an 1851 newspaper ad for dressmaking by Letitia Still and an 1854 entry in McElroy's Philadelphia City Directory for William Still which both listed the Stills' address as the Ronaldson Street address that is now S. Delhi Street. The Philadelphia Register of Historic Places recognized the house and Underground Railroad Way Station in 2018, protecting the property from demolition or significant alteration without permission from the Philadelphia Historical Commission.

The child of formerly enslaved parents, William Still (1821-1902) dedicated his life to the abolition of slavery and protection of fugitives from slavery. His house at 625 South Delhi Street (then called Ronaldson Street) in Philadelphia was a stop on the Underground Railroad from 1850 to 1855. As chair of the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society's Vigilance Committee, Still organized Underground Railroad efforts in the city and further afield. After the abolition of slavery, he wrote an extensive book on the Underground Railroad. In 2017-2018, preservationists positively identified the house as one of the places Still and his wife Letitia (1821-1906) had lived and sheltered those who had escaped slavery. The Keeping Society of Philadelphia nominated the site to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places.

William and Letitia Still Underground Railroad Way Station

Born into slavery in Natchez, Mississippi, Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, was an exceedingly well-known, self-taught African American musician. Shortly following her birth around 1819, Greenfield was emancipated. Along with her family and other former slaves, Elizabeth Taylor was formerly owned by Elizabeth Halliday Greenfield; Elizabeth Halliday was “a white Philadelphian with Welsh roots who had married into the plantocracy.” [1] Elizabeth Taylor relocated to Philadelphia with her mistress and adopted her mistress’s last name, whereas her parents emigrated to Liberia, a country in West Africa. After they resettled in Philadelphia, Elizabeth Taylor was encouraged by Halliday to indulge in her musical ability. Not only did Taylor have natural singing abilities, but she constantly studied to learn about her passion. Even after Halliday’s death in 1845, she continued to prosper in her musical realms. A few years later in 1851, “Elizabeth Greenfield gave her first public performances, in Buffalo, NY,” and not long after “she made a concert tour of several cities, including Boston and Chicago.” [5]	Greenfield’s rise to fame significantly contributed to closing the racial generalizations that coincided with vocal ability. Around 1852, Greenfield performed Jenny Lind’s repertoire; Lind was an opera singer from Sweden. While Lind’s performance was highly applauded, white elite critics labeled Greenfield’s singing as “noise.” [3] During the nineteenth century, many critics and audiences categorized singing voices as either “Black” or “white.” Greenfield appeared and performed in numerous white performance areas and gained support from innumerable wealthy, white men. White elite critics feared that Greenfield’s voice was “white,” and they feared her singing ability to “vocally pass and potentially best Lind.” [3] The critics trained listeners to decipher and categorize singing voices by race. On the other hand, some critics were moved by Greenfield's voice and performance, but their opinions changed once they saw her appearance. [4] However, Greenfield’s voice made this distinction difficult to interpret; her voice, “worked to decolonize listening and create alternative experiences of Blackness away from and in resistance to the listening ear.” [3] This where Greenfield obtained her nickname, the "Black Swan."	Through her voice and performances, Greenfield advocated for abolition and spoke out against slavery. In 1854, Taylor attended the National Women’s Rights Convention where she performed anti-slavery songs and other proclaimed anti-slavery speeches. Before this event, Greenfield “previously sung at a fundraising benefit for Shiloh Baptist Church in 1853.” [1] Many were unaware of Greenfield’s ties to slavery and were shocked to learn she was previously a slave. At both of these events, through her songs, Greenfield revealed her political views. Similarly, when Greenfieldreceived the opportunity to perform for Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace in 1854, she conveyed her viewpoints. One particular song that Greenfield sung for the Queen was titled, “The Vision of the Negro Slave.” [1] The content of this song, “is strikingly similar to the scene of Tom’s death in Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” which exhibits the cruel punishment slaves endured. [1] Once Greenfield publicly displayed her political and social beliefs, she continued to incorporate and proclaim her support for anti-slavery laws throughout her recitals.	Greenfield also focused her efforts on the “longstanding porosity of the US-Canadian Border for Black Native Americans.” [4] Being the first-ever Black woman to perform professionally on stage in Canada, Greenfield was able to expand her anti-slavery beliefs beyond domestic borders. While in Canada, or in the Us-Canadian border states, she performed her songs that consisted of an anti-slavery agenda. A Brief Memoir of the “Black Swan” begins with, “genius belongs especially to no country, nation, race, or colour.The gift of Providence—it is scattered over the world.” [6] This idea of equality amongst all is conveyed throughout Greenfield’s “Black Swan”, which is a song she performed numerous times at numerous locations.

Viewed as one of the greatest musicians of her time, Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield was an exceptional, well-known African American singer. Although Greenfield was born into slavery, she was emancipated not long after her birth. With the support of her former owner and dedicating her time to studying and learning, Greenfield excelled in her musical abilities. Once Greenfield gained popularity, she advocated for anti-slavery and equality laws through her voice and numerous performances.

Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield Historic Marker

Sarah Josepha Hale was born on October 24th, 1788 in Newport New Hampshire. With her parents being strong advocates for education of both males and females, Hale was taught beyond the average age of females during this time period. She married David Hale, who was a lawyer, but she was widowed nine years later and left with her five children. After the untimely death of her husband in 1822, Hale went into poetry to support herself and her children. The most famous book she wrote was published in 1830 and was titled Poems for Our Children which included the famous nurses rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb." However, this was just the beginning of Hale's historical fame.In the year 1837 she became the editor of the Godey's Lady's Book which allowed her to become a very influential voice for women in the 19th century. Some of the topics that she wrote on included women's education, child rearing, abolishing slavery and even colonization. In addition to being an editor for one of the first magazines focused on women's issues in the United States, Hale also raised money to support various historical sites. Some of the sites she donated to included George Washington's home as well as the construction of the Bunker Hill Monument. Due to Hale's unwavering support of both of these historical sites they are able to be publicly viewed today.Although Hale was known as a women's right advocate she particular about the rights she believed women should possess. Hale believed in the right for women to be educated and to become property holders, but did not advocate for women's suffrage. The reasoning behind this was because Hale believed that women's involvement in politics and voting would subsequently limit their influence in their home life. Hale was forward thinking overall but was still trapped by stereotypical gender roles. She even showcased this through her writing by emphasizing women's role in the domestic realm of things.Hale is also known for is advocating for Thanksgiving to become a national holiday. She began these efforts in 1846, writing to President Abraham Lincoln as well as other leading politicians to make this change. Thanksgiving, at this point in time, was only being celebrated in the Northeast. Her efforts to make Thanksgiving a national holiday were ignored until the year 1863 when, in the midst of the Civil War, President Lincoln declared Thanksgiving to be a national holiday. Hale's letter to the President is often referenced as a main factor in his decision to make Thanksgiving a national holiday.Sarah Josepha Hale lived a life full of achievements and accolades until the very end. In fact, Hale remained an editor for Godey's Lady's Book until 1877 when she decided to finally retire. Two years after later she passed away at the accomplished age of 92. However, even though Hale has been gone for over a century she is still remembered today. In 2013 a memorial park was built in dedication to her in her childhood hometown of Newport, New Hampshire. Additionally, a literature award named after her has been presented by the Richards Free Library in Newport since 1956.

This historical marker is located approximately where author, poet, women's rights advocate, and one of America's first woman editors, Sarah Josepha Buell Hale (1788-1879), lived from around the 1840s to her death in 1879. As editor of the women's magazine "Godey's Lady's Book" for four decades, Hale played a highly impactful role in shaping women's lives across the country. She is also famous for successfully promoting a national Thanksgiving Day to President Abraham Lincoln. The historical marker was placed here by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission in 2015.

Sarah Josepha Buell Hale Historical Marker 

In the early years of the gay rights movement, committed LGBT activists from the Washington, DC and New York City chapters of the Mattachine Society, Philadelphia’s Janus Society and the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitus coordinated their efforts and held protests. The activists gathered at the White House in April 1965 to demand equal rights for LGBT citizens. Together, the groups operated as the East Coast Homophile Organizations (ECHO). The organizer of the White House picket was Frank Kameny, who would come to be regarded as one of the most significant figures in the early years of the LGBT movement. Inspired by the Washington, DC pickets, activist Craig Rodwell conceived an idea for a similar event in Philadelphia. Led by Kameny and local activist Barbara Gittings, the Philadelphia event was planned for just three months later, in July of 1965. Kameny insisted that picketers follow a strict dress code of jackets and ties for men and dresses for women. The move angered some LGBT supporters but Kameny wanted to project an image of homosexuals as “presentable and employable” in hopes of winning more supporters. The choice of Independence Hall for the event was a calculated one. It was important to Kameny and other activists to highlight the fact that they were simply demanding the basic individual freedoms enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. Thirty-nine people picketed, carrying placards demanding equal treatment under the law. At the time, it was the largest known demonstration for homosexual rights in the United States. The event, which came to be known as the Annual Reminder, took place every July 4th in Philadelphia until 1969. The final reminder event took place on July 4 of that year, just days after the Stonewall Riots in New York City, an event that led organizers to conclude that the course of homosexual activism was permanently changed. After 1969, Reminders were gradually replaced with pride parades, most of which are held in June, on or near the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. The marker that commemorates the Reminders was placed in 2005 by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. In 2015, a number of events, including a reenactment, were held to recognize the fiftieth anniversary of the first Reminder.

From 1965 to 1969, gay rights activists from Washington, DC, New York, and Philadelphia met each July 4th to picket in front of Independence Hall to demand legislation that would protect the rights of LGBT citizens. The event came to be known as the “Annual Reminder” that many American citizens were denied the basic rights enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. The events were commemorated in 2005 with the dedication of this historical marker across the street from Independence Hall.

Annual Reminders Historical Marker (Gay Pioneers Historical Marker)

Dolley was
the daughter of John and Mary Payne, a Quaker family that moved to Philadelphia
from Virginia in 1783.&nbsp; She was 15 at the
time and one of eight children.&nbsp; Her
father had freed his slaves after converting to the Quaker religion as slavery
was antithetical to the ideals of Quakerism.&nbsp;
He tried his hand as a starch merchant in Philadelphia, but failed to
such a degree that he was expelled from the Society of Friends.&nbsp; John Payne died in 1792, forcing his widow to
open a boarding house to make ends meet.&nbsp;
Mary Payne would leave Philadelphia the next year and move in with her
daughter, Lucy, who had married a nephew of George Washington.

Meanwhile,
the 22-year-old Dolley had married lawyer John Todd in 1790 and the two quickly
had two sons, John Payne Todd (known as Payne) and William.&nbsp; The house was also home to Dolley’s sister
Anna and two of John’s law clerks, who boarded with the Todds.&nbsp; Tragedy struck the family in 1793 in the form
of a yellow fever epidemic.&nbsp; Dolley, like
many, fled the city for a country resort.&nbsp;
However, her husband stayed in the city to care for his parents and his
law practice.&nbsp; Dolley lost her in-laws,
husband and 3-month-old son, William, all in 1793 (her son and husband on the
same day).&nbsp; She was now a widow at 25
with a one-year-old son to care for and in financial difficulty.

Luckily,
prior to her husband’s death, they had travelled in the social circle that included
many members of the federal government where she perhaps encountered the likes
of James Madison and Aaron Burr.&nbsp; Madison
was serving in the House of Representatives from Virginia and indications are
that Burr, Madison’s college friend, arranged the meeting between Dolley and
James at this home on Walnut Street.&nbsp; The
courtship progressed quickly and the two were married less than a year after
John Todd’s death, thus securing Dolley’s future as well as that of her young
son.&nbsp; The Madisons then moved to James’
home on Spruce Street and lived there until James’ term expired in 1797 when
they moved to Virginia and, later, the White House.

The Dolley
Todd Houses was then occupied by Revolutionary War General Stephen Moylan, the
man credited with using the term “United States of America” for the first time,
until 1807.&nbsp; It now features the
recreated law office of John Todd, the Todds bedroom and their parlor.&nbsp; It also contains two leather fire buckets that
were required in all homes for communal use.&nbsp;

Prior to becoming Dolley Madison in 1794, Dolley Todd and her first husband, John Todd, lived at this house from 1791-1793.  This 18th century, 3-story, Georgian home was built in 1775 by John Dilworth.  John Todd died in 1793 and, soon after, Dolley married James Madison.  She remained in Philadelphia until the Madisons retired, temporarily, to the family estate at Montpelier in Virginia in 1797.  The house is now part of the larger Independence National Historical Park.  It has been restored to how it looked while it was occupied by the Todds with period artifacts and furniture.  It is occasionally open as a house museum that provides a window into the life of a solidly middle-class, Philadelphia family at the end of the 18th century.

Dolley Todd House

“Without the leadership of Hannah Penn during the Colonial Period, Pennsylvania may have taken a different path” (Office of the Governor). This quote, spoken by Governor Tom Corbett is a testament to the effect Hannah had on the world after her husband’s death. Following a series of strokes Hannah had to step up and act as governor in his place until he eventually passed away and she continued to act as governor for 8 years, from 1718 until her death on December 20th, 1726 at the age of 55. She was one of the first women to hold a position of political authority in Britain, and in what would become the United States. She managed to fix several things about Pennsylvania and allowed it to remain a province, altering the course of history. Hannah was the only one of her nine siblings to survive into their teenage years. As she became only child traditional 17th century customs were disregarded, and she was taught how to manage her parent’s grocery store and take care of its finances. Her skills in these areas would help her manage the province after her husband died. Most historical accounts regard William was a good-natured Quaker who had an affinity for tolerance and building community. However, because of this he often got into tough financial situations by trusting the wrong people. William left behind lots of debt from the properties he owned, leaving Hannah to clean up the mess. Hannah was able to work to continuously pay off her husband’s debts by using the money she earned from her family’s business. On top of taking care of monetary matters, Hannah also dealt with the internal affairs of the province. She was able to prevent Maryland from claiming the eastern part of Pennsylvania with her superior organizational methods (Zorilla). When William died, he had named Hannah as the major Pennsylvania landowner, which upset his son. Hannah won the dispute in court, which was one of the few times a woman won a property dispute in this time. Hannah’s ability to successfully bring Pennsylvania back from potential ruin has earned her the respect of people in the modern day. In 1984 President Ronald Reagan named her and her husband as Honorary Citizens of the United States. She used her knowledge to effectively save the future of an entire State. On top of repaying William’s debts, she also fought strongly for a woman’s right to inherit her husband’s estate. Hannah is a strong symbol of a woman’s ability to govern, and her story of leadership empowers women and girls to this day.

Hannah Callowhill Penn was the second wife of William Penn, who is credited as Pennsylvania’s founder.  The pair traveled from Bristol to Pennsylvania and arrived on December 10th, 1699 (Kelley).  There William acted as proprietor until he was unable to due to a series of strokes leading to his death.  Afterwards, Hannah had the duty of managing all the province’s official business, being the first and only woman to do so.  She can be credited with fixing major problems left behind after her husband's death.  The historical marker is placed at the site where she and William stayed after arriving to Pennsylvania.

Hannah Callowhill Penn - Historical Site

Elizabeth “Betsy”
Griscom was born on January 1, 1752, the eighth of seventeen children. When she
was a teenager her family apprenticed her to a local upholsterer, where she met
fellow upholsterer apprentice John Ross. The two were married in 1773, and they
later moved to a home on Arch Street, where they set up an upholstery shop on
the first floor. The house was built sometime around 1740, with a rear section
added a decade or two later. Betsy and her husband rented the home from Hannah
Lithgow, who owned it and several others on the street. While the building at
239 Arch Street is considered to be where Betsy Ross lived, it is possible she
actually lived in one of the adjoining buildings. Betsy is believed to have
lived on Arch Street at least from 1776 to 1779.

Around 1776 Betsy’s
husband John died, allegedly from a gunpowder explosion while serving in the
Philadelphia militia. In 1777 she remarried to a sailor named Joseph Ashburn.
In 1781 his ship was captured by British forces, and he died in captivity a
year later. Betsy married again in 1783 to John Claypoole, an acquaintance of
Joseph who had known him in prison. Betsy continued running her upholstery
business for the next several decades, making flags and other products, before
finally retiring at age 76. She died in 1836 at the age of 84. She was
originally buried in a Quaker cemetery, and then later moved to a cemetery at
Mount Moriah. In 1975 the purported remains of Betsy and her third husband John
were exhumed and interred next to the Betsy Ross House, as part of the American
Bicentennial. 

It was not until 1870
that the story of Betsy Ross sewing the first American flag emerged. That year
William Canby, a grandson of Betsy, delivered a speech at the Historical
Society of Pennsylvania presenting the story. According to the account, in 1776
or 1777 Betsy Ross was approached by George Washington, Robert Morris, and George
Ross (uncle of her first husband John) and commissioned to sew the first
American flag. She was shown a proposed sketch of the flag, and made one
adjustment: she used five-pointed stars instead of six-pointed. After Canby’s
revelation, other descendants of Betsy Ross came forward claiming it to be true;
soon the story was circulating widely in pamphlets and books. Although there is
proof that Betsy Ross did make flags both during and after the American
Revolution, most scholars doubt that she sewed the first American flag. They cite a complete lack of evidence to
verify the story, and the fact that it did not come to light until nearly a
century after it allegedly happened. Nonetheless, the story soon became widely
accepted among the public, and Betsy Ross became an American icon. 

After the story of
Betsy Ross and the flag emerged, much attention was focused on her former home
and shop on Arch Street. Over the years it had housed a variety of businesses,
and by the late 1800s it was one of the only surviving colonial-era buildings
in the area. In the 1870s the building housed a tavern owned by the Mund
family, who used the Betsy Ross story to attract customers. In 1898 the
American Flag House and Betsy Ross Memorial Association was formed and
purchased the building to convert it into a museum. By 1937, the house was
severely dilapidated and in need of restoration. Philadelphia radio businessman
A. Atwater Kent contributed $25,000 to save the house. Historical architect Richardson
Brognard Okie was hired to implement the restoration; he utilized as much of
the home’s original components as possible, as well as historically-accurate
parts from demolished homes. The entire house was completed and opened to the
public on Flag Day, June 14, 1937. Two buildings to the west side of the house
were purchased and demolished to make a garden and courtyard. In 1941 the house
was given to the city of Philadelphia. An annex building was added in 1965, and
a fountain added to the courtyard in 1974. Historic Philadelphia Inc., a
nonprofit historical organization, assumed management of the property in 1995. &nbsp;

Today the Betsy Ross
House remains open to the public as a museum. Many rooms are furnished to
resemble their colonial America appearance. Items on display include personal possessions
of Betsy Ross, as well as memorabilia relating to the legend of her flag; the
museum also has an archival collection of documents available for research. Self-guided
and audio tours are available, and a Betsy Ross impersonator is often on site
to give demonstrations and engage with visitors. The museum hosts various
events and temporary exhibits throughout the year focusing mainly on the
American flag, upholstery, and women and life during eighteenth century
America. The courtyard and an indoor gallery are also available to rent for
different events.

The Betsy Ross House is a historic home in Philadelphia alleged to be the site where the first American flag was created. The Arch Street residence was built around 1740, and during the 1770s it was home to local upholsterer Elizabeth “Betsy” Ross. According to popular legend, Ross was asked to sew the first Stars and Stripes flag in 1777. Most scholars are highly doubtful that Betsy Ross actually made the first American flag; the story did not emerge until nearly a century later. Today the house has been restored and preserved as a museum. It is open to the public for tours, and contains a large collection of artifacts, documents, and memorabilia relating to both Betsy Ross and the story of her sewing the first flag. 

The Betsy Ross House

In December of 1833, the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society (PFASS) was founded with the purpose of rallying support for the abolishment of slavery. While many abolitionist groups already existed at this time, most excluded women in favor of an all male membership. Lucretia Mott attended and spoke at the meetings of these organizations, but became frustrated that she could not become a delegate. With the assistance of 21 other prominent women within the community, she founded the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in a Philadelphia schoolroom. The PFASS circulated flyers and petitions to rally support for their cause. As early as 1836, they lobbied congress to enforce emancipation and fundraised a large amount of money for other anti-slavery societies. While other female anti-slavery societies existed, the PFASS became the national focal point for female anti-slavery societies and hosted several national conventions to facilitate their interaction.Lucretia Mott was one of the central figures in the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. She was born as Lucretia Coffin on the island of Nantucket on January 3rd, 1793. The Coffin family was respected on the tiny whaling island. Like most of the population of Nantucket at this time, the Coffins were devout Quakers. At the age of 13, Lucretia was sent to New York to attend a Quaker school. Following her graduation, she became a teacher at the same school and eventually married James Mott, a fellow teacher at the school. The couple moved to Philadelphia and became closely involved in the budding social reform movements within the city. By this time, Lucretia was a respected Quaker preacher and a powerful voice for abolitionist and feminist movements.In the winter of 1833, 22 women gathered in a Philadelphia schoolhouse for the founding meeting of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. Like other abolitionist groups, they campaigned to convince the public as well as lawmakers of the immorality of slavery. The inspiration for its creation came from the exclusion of Mott and other women from a notable anti-slavery convention. They decided that creating their own organization would allow them to fight for their cause. Their constitution stated “We deem it out duty, as professing Christians to manifest our abhorrence of the flagrant injustice and deep sin of slavery by united and vigorous exertions.” For the next three decades, the organization functioned as an integral part of the northern abolitionist movement.The Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society primarily fulfilled their mission by fundraising for the American Anti-Slavery Society, the organization that many of their husbands served as delegates in. However, they also directly communicated with Pennsylvania lawmakers and spread awareness among the public. Their impressive financial contributions alone kept several abolitionist groups functioning. Also, they secretly supported groups dedicated to hiding fugitive slaves despite internal conflict over the legitimacy of this strategy. Members of the PFASS could often be seen going door to door to persuade people to support the abolitionist movement. This grassroots propaganda strategy was notable as it challenged social norms at the time.The Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society dissolved in 1870 following the ratification of the 15th amendment. Of course, its primary accomplishment was the abolishment of the practice of slavery in the United States. However, scholars point to the PFASS as a stepping stone in the women’s suffrage movement. Several members, including Lucretia Mott, went on to be pivotal figures in that movement. Also, the foundation of the group and its work over the years reflected a significant change from prior social norms. While notable female orators had lended their voices to reform movements in the past, none had achieved the official recognition that the members of PFASS fought to earn. By the end of the anti-slavery movement, women like Mott who were initially excluded had cemented their place as key abolitionists. They took the respect their work had earned and channeled it into the women’s suffrage movement.

This historical marker commemorates the founding of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in December of 1833. In a Philadelphia schoolhouse, the 22 founding members gathered for the first meeting of an organization that would go on to play a pivotal role in the abolitionist movement. The PFASS changed public opinions on the morality of slavery and petitioned government officials to support anti-slavery measures. The work of these women is also acknowledged as an early foundation for the Women’s Rights Movement. One of the key founding members, Lucretia Mott, was a Quaker preacher who went on to lead the Women’s Rights Movement


Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society Historical Marker

In 1977, the museum curator Mario
Boulton Stroud founded the Fabric Workshop and Museum, originally just as the
Fabric Workshop, with the intent of making a non-profit workshop that prioritized
teamwork and creativity. Through the Workshop’s Artist-in-Residence program,
which would host artists at the Museum, the Museum initially held artists to
make functional pieces of art through screen printing. However, the Workshop
quickly found that the stipulation that the art had to be functional was
limiting the creativity of the artists, and as such, the artists within were allowed
to operate outside of this requirement of functionality.

In a similar fashion, the rule that
artists were required to use fabric was altered as time went on. Artists soon
began working with many more materials, some of which were often unfamiliar to
them. In many ways, this was reflective of the artists’ actions and their
changing the very definition of what fabric was to them. During this period of
change, the Workshop also put in place an educational outreach program for
inner-city children to be able to have a creative outlet for themselves, as
well as a place to learn about the textile industry and receive training for a
job in it. In 1996, the Workshop changed its name to the Fabric Workshop and
Museum, as a reflection of the institute’s growing collection of art. Today,
the Museum continues to take on artists, and works to further broaden the
public’s knowledge of the fabric arts.

Founded in 1977, the Fabric Workshop and Museum was established in order to give artists a space to experiment, as well as to bring the public face-to-face with the artistic process. Within its permanent collection, the Museum holds not just numerous works of art, but also ongoing research, fabric prototypes, videos of the creative processes behind these works, and more. Additionally, the Museum is one of a small number of museums that is part of the Artist-in-Residence Program. Today, the Museum works with artists from all sorts of backgrounds, and encourages artists and the public to experiment with new forms of materials and media.

The Fabric Workshop and Museum

Born in Philadelphia in 1842, Anna E. Dickinson was the youngest of five children. She was raised in a Quaker family and her father was an ardent abolitionist. In 1844, while campaigning against slavery, her father gave an impassioned speech but died of a heart attack soon after. As a result, Anna's mother raised the children on her own, homeschooling Anna until she was old enough to attend the Friends Select School of Philadelphia, followed by Westtown Boarding School. By age fifteen, Anna began working as a schoolteacher and transcriptionist. During the 19th century, middle- and upper-class women were expected to abide by a "cult of domesticity," adhering to virtues such as "piety, chastity, and submissiveness," while accepting that their place was in the home, not the public sphere. However, Anna Dickinson refused to abide by these societal norms and instead sought to make a place for herself by advocating for public causes, finding her voice on the stage. While still a teenager, she began giving public lectures that soon drew audiences by the thousands, as she spoke at important venues throughout the Northeast.From a young age, Dickinson had absorbed the ideas of William Lloyd Garrison, embracing his fervent commitment to ending slavery, much as her own father had dedicated himself to the same cause. She wrote an essay for Garrison's anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator, when she was just thirteen, which established her future course. A few years after the publication of the article, she embarked on a speaking tour in Boston, and then throughout the state of Massachusetts and New England. Her public speaking engagements brought in a modest income, which she used to support her family.Although Dickinson initially became one of the first female employees at the U.S. Mint, she was fired from the position when she openly spoke out against Union policies during a public meeting, even criticizing the Union General George B. McClennan. Thereafter, she devoted herself to public causes, while becoming friends with the Quaker abolitionist, Lucretia Mott, who was rallying the Quaker community to anti-slavery efforts. As a white female abolitionist, Dickinson took inspiration from figures such as Mott, and also from Black female campaigners, such as Sojourner Truth, whose denouncement of slavery helped open up a space for other women to enter the public discourse and speak out, whether on the public stage or through writing and publishing.Dickinson was nineteen when she embarked on a public lecture tour sponsored by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. She also gave a speech in Philadelphia titled "The Rights and Wrongs of Women." In this controversial speech, she argued that women should condemn slavery not only because they had a moral responsibility to end injustice, but also because women were the intellectual equals of men and were therefore capable of making reasoned, persuasive arguments. During her first appearance in New York City in her early twenties, she spoke to a crowd of 5,000 people at the Cooper Institute, a prominent venue now known as the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Art and Science.In 1964, Dickinson became the first woman to speak in front of Congress, for which she received a standing ovation. She advocated for securing equal rights for African Americans and preserving the Union, yet she also did not hesitate to question President Abraham Lincoln, who was present at the speech. For her commitment, she was given the moniker, "Joan of Arc of the Civil War." A few years later, Dickinson wrote a novel titled, What Answer?, which was set during the Civil War and depicted an interracial marriage. Later, she also attempted to write and perform in plays, but her plays were not taken seriously because she was a woman, receiving much criticism. Still, at the height of her public speaking career, Dickinson was earning as much for her lectures as the acclaimed American author, Mark Twain. Twain attended one of her lectures and described the experience in a California newspaper article:<blockquote>“She talks fast, uses no notes what ever...never hesitates for a word, always gets the right word in the right place, and has the most perfect confidence in herself. Indeed, her sentences are remarkably smoothly-woven and felicitous. Her vim, her energy, her determined look, her tremendous earnestness, would compel the respect and the attention of an audience, even if she spoke in Chinese..."</blockquote>Following her commitment to abolitionism, Dickinson later campaigned on behalf of women's rights and universal education. At first, she diverged from the views of fellow women's rights advocates and contemporaries, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Dickinson wanted to focus on securing voting rights for African American men, rather than campaigning for female suffrage, as this would have only been limited to white women at the time. However, she later embraced universal female suffrage. When the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 made it possible for her to give public lectures throughout the country, she traveled with a U.S. congressional committee to San Francisco, visiting the Rocky Mountains along the way. A photograph shows her stepping off a train platform in Cheyenne for a breath of air. Following the public lecture she gave in that city in June 1869, a Cheyenne newspaper stated unequivocally that "Mrs. Stanton is the salt, Anna Dickinson is the pepper, and Miss Anthony the vinegar, of the modern women’s rights movement.”

This historical marker acknowledges the life of the abolitionist Anna E. Dickinson (1842 - 1932), who was born in Philadelphia to a Quaker family. In addition to her commitment to ending slavery, she was a campaigner for women's rights and universal education, an advocate for labor and prison reform, and the first woman to address Congress. On the public lecture circuit, she spoke to thousands of listeners at prominent venues such as the Cooper Institute (Cooper Union) in New York City. In 1864, in the midst of the U.S. Civil War, she gave an impassioned speech to the House of Representatives and to President Abraham Lincoln, in which she voiced her support for the preservation of the Union while also pressing for equal rights for African Americans. As a white woman, Dickinson was influenced by other white abolitionists such as Lucretia Mott and William Lloyd Garrison, and by Black abolitionists such as Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass. She did not hesitate to defy the expectations that were placed upon her as a middle-class woman in the nineteenth century, in which she was expected to remain within the home. Instead, she confidently carried her message to the public sphere. For her deep commitment to the abolition of slavery, she was often called "Joan of Arc of the Civil War."

Anna E. Dickinson Historical Marker

This public art installation outside the Philadephia City Hall building commemorates several of the city's innovators including John Bartram, William Camac, Mary Cassat, Rebecca Cole, Thomas Eakins, John Fitch, Benjamin Franklin, Francis Hopkinson and Betsy Ross.

Philadelpia Firsts Public Art 

One of the first historical precedents for Mother's Day was an annual day called "Mothering Sunday," which was observed in the Christian tradition during the medieval period in Europe. Held on the fourth Sunday of Lent, it was a time when people would return to their local church or "mother church." Prior to this, there was also a precedent for Mother's Day in the ancient Greek and Roman pagan festivals that honored mothers and motherhood. Within the Greco-Roman pantheon of deities, the great mother goddess known as Rhea in ancient Greece and Cybele in ancient Rome was celebrated with an outdoor festival each April.Although the celebration of Mothering Sunday was a part of Christian culture during the European middle ages, over time it gradually lost its religious affiliations and became more of a secular holiday in Europe (and in America). Children continued to give their mothers small gifts and flowers as tokens of their appreciation, but the historical roots of the tradition were mostly lost over the centuries. All of this changed in the nineteenth century when several women activists sought to re-establish a tradition honoring mothers during and after the Civil War. These efforts then culminated In a campaign led by Anna Marie Jarvis, a resident of Philadelphia, for federal recognition of Mother's Day in the early 1900s. Jarvis hoped that the occasion would be a time for people to remember their mothers, and to reflect and appreciate the sacrifices that they had made. In her view, this new observance of Mother's Day would be connected with the earlier contemplative and religious Christian tradition from which it emerged.Anna Marie Jarvis's mother, Anna Reeves Jarvis, lived in West Virginia during the Civil War. During the 1860s, around the time of her daughter's birth, she founded "Mothers' Day Work Clubs" to improve childcare by promoting the teaching and sharing of mothering skills with other women in the community. The new clubs ended up providing solidarity between women in the midst of the divisive war. In 1868, Anna Reeves Jarvis decided to expand upon her Mothers' Day Work Clubs by planning a "Mother's Friendship Day," in which mothers gathered with Union and Confederate soldiers to encourage reconciliation in the years after the war.Along similar lines but on a larger scale, in 1870 the suffragette and abolitionist Julia Ward Howe proposed a "Mother's Peace Day." Howe lived in New England and was best known for writing the lyrics to The Battle Hymn of the Republic (1861), a pro-Union anthem, at the beginning of the Civil War. Yet in 1870, five years after the war had ended, Howe penned a pacifist proclamation asking mothers to come together to promote world peace. By 1873, Howe was campaigning for this day of peace to be celebrated nationally each year on June 2nd. Around the same time, another activist named Juliet Calhoun Blakely established a local mother's day celebration in Michigan, and similar events in other communities have also been documented during this period. In the early 1900s, Anna Marie Jarvis began campaigning in Philadelphia for Mother's Day to become an official holiday. Jarvis was moved to first observe the occasion herself after her own mother's passing in 1908, when she sent flowers to her mother's church in West Virginia. As described by the historian Katherine Antolini in Memorializing Motherhood: Anna Jarvis and the Struggle for Control of Mother's Day, Jarvis herself viewed Mother's Day as an occasion to honor the homemaking and childrearing functions of motherhood, rather than to recognize the ways in which many mothers were also engaged members of their communities with broader responsibilities outside the home. Nevertheless, a recent article in TIME Magazine notes that:<blockquote>"some historians also point out the paradoxical timing of Jarvis’ version of Mother’s Day taking hold at the beginning of the 20th century: people had been talking about the idea for decades, but the holiday got national attention just at a time when more women were beginning to get jobs outside the home, and some experts see the embrace of a celebration of motherhood as a backlash against that change."</blockquote>In 1912, Jarvis launched a Mother's Day International Association, and in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed an executive measure announcing that the special occasion would be celebrated annually on the second Sunday in May. However, the commercialization and secularization of the holiday followed soon after, much to the dismay of Anna Jarvis. She was deeply upset that Mother's Day was becoming irreverent, as florists and retailers sought ways to maximize profits from the sale of flowers and gift items. Jarvis took matters into her own hands by writing harsh letters, threatening lawsuits, planning protests, and even blaming Eleanor Roosevelt for using Mother's Day as an opportunity to raise money for charitable causes. In 1933, Jarvis went so far as to ask President Franklin D. Roosevelt to remove Mother's Day from the federal calendar. Yet, her efforts to reverse the tide were unsuccessful. The holiday that she helped to create had become part of the American culture and economy. It remains so to this day. As a special occasion, Mother's Day is celebrated in various forms and at different times of year by other cultures across the world. In 1998, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission installed a historical marker commemorating Jarvis's particular connection to the establishment of Mother's Day in America. The marker was installed across from the former location of John Wanamaker's department store, which was known as Grand Depot, as Wanamaker had been an early supporter of Mother's Day becoming a federal holiday. The historical marker describes the origins of Mother's Day in the U.S. in the following way: "Founded by Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia. First officially observed in 1908, it honored motherhood and family life at a time of rising feminist activism. An early supporter was John Wanamaker, whose store stood opposite. Mother’s Day was given federal recognition, 1914."

This historical marker notes that Mother's Day was first observed in the U.S. in 1908 and was signed into law through an executive measure by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914. Anna Marie Jarvis (1864 - 1948) campaigned to establish Mother's Day as a national holiday after the passing of her own mother, Anna Reeves Jarvis. Her mother was a resident of West Virginia who had, in an earlier generation, founded a "Mother's Day Work Club" in her hometown during the Civil War. Although Mother’s Day was granted federal recognition in 1914, Anna Marie Jarvis eventually grew to regret the commercialization and secularization of the holiday, as retailers sought to profit from the special occasion, and it lost its contemplative and religious connotations. In 1933, Jarvis even petitioned President Franklin D. Roosevelt to remove Mother's Day from the federal calendar. However, she could not undo what she had helped to create; the holiday remains a part of the American culture and economy to this day. This historical marker, installed by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, describes the first observance of the holiday in the U.S. as honoring "motherhood and family life at a time of rising feminist activism." The marker also notes that an early supporter of the effort was John Wanamaker, who owned a store across the street.

Mother's Day Historical Marker

Joan of Arc was a peasant girl living in medieval France. She believed she could save her country, France, from the English conquerors during the Hundred Years' War. With no military training and acting under divine guidance, Joan secured the confidence of Dauphin (later King Charles VII) and led the French army in a momentous victory at Orleans in 1429. After seeing the prince crowned (King Charles VII), she was captured by the English and their French collaborators, tried for witchcraft and heresy, and burned at the stake in 1431, at the age of 19. The Maid of Orléans (as she was known) had long been considered national heroine and an enduring symbol of French unity and nationalism. On May 16th, 1920 she was canonized by Pope Benedict XV.The original statue of Joan of Arc for Paris was commissioned in 1874 by Napoleon III, intended to help in re-establishing French confidence after the humiliating military defeat of 1870 by the Prussian army. Emmanuel Frémiet, French sculptor, had earned a reputation for his work incorporating human and animal motifs in the neo-realistic manner. To develop the memorial to the French heroine, Frémiet studied the design of fifteenth-century French armor and dress in order to convey the figure within her historical context. The statue was installed at the place where Joan was wounded, Place des Pyramides in Paris.In 1889, when the members of the French community in Philadelphia wanted to commemorate their centennial, they arranged to purchase a cast of the original, Place des Pyramides Joan of Arc statue from the artist. They made a contract with the artist that there would be only three cast of this sculpture: the one in Place des Pyramides, the one in Philadelphia, and another one in France in the town of Nancy. The Philadelphia sculpture was purchased with the help of the Fairmount Park Art Association and was first installed on the eastern approach to the Girard Avenue Bridge Bridge on the Schuykill River. The original dedication took place on November 15, 1890. In 1959 the sculpture was gilded and moved to its present location near the Philadelphia Museum of Art by the Fairmount Park Art Association. In 2009, it was removed to repair a crack and re-gilded and returned to its current spot in 2010.

Joan of Arc Statue is a gilded bronze equestrian sculpture of Joan of Arc by Emmanuel Frémiet. Bought by the Fairmount Park Art Association in 1890, the monument was at first placed at the east end of the Girard Avenue Bridge. Unappreciated at that location, it was moved to its present one in 1959, after being given its gilt coat in the basement of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The sculpture represents Joan of Arc, a heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint, astride a horse. Her proper right hand is raised and she holds up a flag in her proper right hand. In her proper left hand she holds the reins. She is crowned with a laurel wreath and clothed in armor. A sword hangs by her proper left side. The horse is walking with its front, proper left and rear, proper right hooves raised.

Joan of Arc Statue

According to the Bulletin of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania lists the crossroads, 21st Street and North College Avenue as their location in 1918. It served as an important location throughout the Flu Pandemic. Students stopped attending their classes to better support the surronding community. Freshmen worked as ambulance drivers while older students supported patients in the college hospital. 

Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania

The land
that is now home to Laurel Hill was purchased by Francis Rawle in 1760.&nbsp; Unfortunately, he died in a hunting accident
the following year.&nbsp; His widow then
remarried Samuel Shoemaker in 1767, the same year Laurel Hill was built.&nbsp; Shoemaker held numerous municipal positions
within the city, to include treasurer and mayor from 1769-1771.&nbsp; After the British abandoned Philadelphia
during the Revolutionary War, the American government found Shoemaker guilty of
treason (he remained loyal to the British) and seized his land holdings.&nbsp; Parts of the family, to include Rebecca, then
fled to New York.&nbsp; Samuel, his son and
step-son eventually continued to England.&nbsp;
Rebecca managed to repurchase Laurel Hill after the war.

Rebecca’s
son, William Rawle, inherited Laurel Hill in 1819.&nbsp; This prolific Philadelphia resident held many
offices, to include U.S. District Attorney, Trustee of the University of
Pennsylvania, president of the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society, president of
the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and attorney and counsel for the First
Bank of the United States. &nbsp;He also wrote
and published his “View of the U.S. Constitution” in 1825, one of the earliest
documents on Constitutional law.&nbsp; Lastly,
he was the first chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association and the
co-founder of Rawle and Henderson, the oldest active law firm in the United States.

William sold
Laurel Hill to another Philadelphia leader, the “Father of American Surgery,”
Dr. Philip Physick.&nbsp; The good doctor
passed in 1837 and Laurel Hill passed to his daughter and son-in-law, Sally and
Dr. Jacob Randolph.&nbsp; The estate was known
as Randolph House until the name reverted back to Laurel Hill in 1976.&nbsp; The Estate was eventually purchased by the
city in 1869 and the land became one of the foundations for East Fairmount
Park.

The historic
estate is now maintained by the Women for Greater Philadelphia, a women’s nonprofit
that was established in 1973 as the Women for the Bicentennial.&nbsp; Their first major project, and major success,
was the restoration of Laurel Hill.&nbsp; It
is now a historic home museum that has been restored to a style popular in the
late 18th century.&nbsp; Among its more
impressive holdings are an 18th century Chippendale mahogany highboy
gifted to the estate by the Rawle family in 1993 and an 1808 English Broadhead
pianoforte. 

The Women for
Greater Philadelphia sponsor various special events at Laurel Hill, to include a
holiday house tour, a masquerade party, and its Rooms in Bloom
festivities.&nbsp; However, Laurel Hill’s most
popular event series is its Concerts by Candlelight program which has been
running continually for over 40 years.&nbsp; &nbsp;

Situated on a bluff overlooking the Schuylkill River, Laurel Hill Mansion is a two-story Georgian home constructed primarily of brick.  It was built in 1767, most likely at the behest of Rebecca Rawle.  It had additions added in the first half of the 18th century and was owned by prominent Philadelphia lawyer, William Rawle, beginning in 1819.  It was also known as Randolph House after it was acquired by Dr. Jacob Randolph and his wife Sarah, in 1837.  It was purchased by the city, along with other estates, in 1869 when Fairmount Park was established.  It is now a historic home museum and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

Laurel Hill Mansion

On November 29, 1832 (on her father's thirty-third birthday),
Louisa May Alcott was born at Pine Place, in the Germantown neighborhood of
Pennsylvania [2; 4]. The family left Germantown to live in Massachusetts when
Louisa was two years old, where her abolitionist father, Amos Bronson Alcott, began
a progressive school and educated his daughters along with the students. Louisa
grew up to become an abolitionist in her own right, as well as a suffragist,
Civil War nurse, and authoress (under the pen name A. M. Bernard) of Gothic
thrillers and children's literature including Little Women [2; 3]. Pine Place is now home to the Cunningham Piano
Company [2].

About Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott's father, Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888), was an educator
in Boston who moved to Philadelphia in 1830. He had been invited to the city by
the Quaker Rueben Haines to help establish a progressive school at Pine Place,
affiliated with Germantown Academy. The school promoted discussion and
self-analysis over the more typical memorization and repetition of the day [3].
Louisa's mother, Abigail May, who kept extensive journals all her life, assisted
at the school. The Alcotts also lived at Pine Place, and on Amos' thirty-third
birthday, Louisa was born there on November 29, 1832 [2; 3]. Her elder sister
Anna had been born a year earlier at a nearby boarding house [2]. After Rueben
Haines' death, the school eventually failed, and Amos opened Alcott's School.
However, only a year later the family moved back to Boston, and Louisa was
raised primarily in Boston and Concord, along with her sisters, Anna,
Elizabeth, and May [2; 3; 4]. The Alcotts were friends with transcendentalists Ralph
Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, and worked with them as part of the
Underground Railroad. Amos helped found William Lloyd Garrison’s Preliminary
Anti-Slavery Society and allowed an African American girl to attend his school
in Massachusetts, despite white parents' objections [3; 4]. Abigail was also an
active abolitionist, and had been a member of Philadelphia's Female Anti-Slavery
Committee [3].

The family struggled with poverty, and at 15 years old, Louisa (already
passionately involved in writing) swore to help her family and achieve wealth
and fame before her death. She worked as a teacher, seamstress, governess, and
household servant—the only acceptable employments for a woman at the time—while
writing and publishing poetry and short stories in magazines under the pen name
A. M. Bernard [4]. She used her mother's initials and a masculine-sounding last
name because women's writing was not considered serious at the time [3]. When
she was 22 years old, her first book, Flower
Fables (1854), was published; she went on to write nearly 300 stories,
novels, poems, and articles, including writing anti-slavery articles for The Atlantic and publishing her most
famous novel, Little Women (1868),
which she wrote when her publisher asked her to write "a book for
girls," [4]. During the Civil War, she served the Union as a nurse in
Washington, D.C., though she would have preferred to fight alongside the men,
according to her journals. On the basis of her experience, she published Hospital Sketches in 1863 [3; 4]. While
working as a nurse, she became ill herself and got mercury poisoning during
treatment. Permanent damage to her nervous system resulted, and may have
contributed to her death. Louisa never married, though she had offers, and
spent her life helping her family, the cause of abolition, and the women's suffrage
movement. After the death of her sister, she also raised her niece [3].

Around 1880, Louisa spent a week in her hometown of Philadelphia, where she
visited Germantown Academy to the delight of the girls attending. Louisa's
father died on March 4, 1888, and, at age 55, Louisa died two days later, on
March 6. She is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, near Emerson and
Thoreau's graves [3; 4]. She had written up to the day of her death. <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.germantownhistory.org/">The
Germantown Historical Society</a> at 5501 Germantown Avenue holds books and other
materials related to her life and works [3].

Historic
Marker Inscription:

Louisa May Alcott

The author of “Little Women” was born here at “Pine Place,”
Nov. 29, 1832, to the educator Bronson Alcott and his wife Abigail. An
abolitionist, Civil War nurse, and suffragist, she wrote children’s books and Gothic thrillers. The Alcotts lived in this county, 1830-34 [1].

On November 29, 1832 (on her father's thirty-third birthday), Louisa May Alcott was born at Pine Place, in the Germantown neighborhood of Pennsylvania [2; 4]. The family left Germantown to live in Massachusetts when Louisa was two years old, where her abolitionist father, Amos Bronson Alcott, began a progressive school and educated his daughters along with the students. Louisa grew up to become an abolitionist in her own right, as well as a suffragist, Civil War nurse, and authoress (under the pen name A. M. Bernard) of Gothic thrillers and children's literature including Little Women [2; 3]. Pine Place is now home to the Cunningham Piano Company [2].

Louisa May Alcott - Pine Place Historic Marker

Born
in 1793, Lucretia Mott became a Quaker abolitionist and strong supporter of
women’s rights. Mott not only believed that slavery was wrong, she also used the wealth of her family to support a nascent boycott movement by Quakers and other abolitionists against&nbsp;any merchant or manufacturer whose products were&nbsp;derived from slave labor. Mott’s home, “Roadside,” served
as part of the Underground Railroad for runaway slaves. Following the Civil War, many of Mott’s’
fellow abolitionists considered their movement to have concluded. However, Mott continued to advocate for equality and joined efforts designed to help former slaves secure their economic and political rights. She was especially active in educational efforts and a staunch supporter of the right of former slaves to participate in elections along with other citizens of the republic. In 1866, Mott was elected to lead the American Equal Rights
Association.

In 1833, Mott assisted in the creation
of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society and later served as the&nbsp;president of that organization. Thanks largely to her own efforts&nbsp;to secure greater opportunities for women's leadership in abolitionist organizations, Mott also became a leading speaker and voice inside the growing abolitionist societies of the North. Mott joined her friend&nbsp;Elizabeth Cady Stanton initiated the
discussion that started the American women’s rights movement in 1848 in Seneca
Falls, New York. In 1850, Mott&nbsp;wrote Discourse
on Women in which she explained her beliefs on women’s rights. She believed
that women should have the same economic and political liberties as men.

The
La Mott Historic District was named in honor of its famed resident, Lucretia Mott, in
1885. The district was largely designed by Mott's son-in-law, Edward M. Davis, who like Mott, was a strong abolitionist. When the Civil War started, Davis allowed part
of the land in the community to serve as a military training camp for Black troops for
the Union army. Open from 1863 to 1865, the camp was named Camp William Penn
and was the first place in the nation built to strictly train Black troops.
Following the Civil War, homes were built by Thomas Keenan from the wood that
was part of Camp William Penn’s quarters; the village was called Camptown.
Originally, members of the white working class lived in the town, but
eventually members of the Black working class started to move in as well. &nbsp;La Mott, then Camptown, became one of the
original racially integrated rural neighborhoods.

Lucretia Mott lived in the community until she passed away in
1880. Her home was destroyed in
1911, but the history of her activism and influence has been commemorated by this marker outside the gate to&nbsp;the Latham Park neighborhood.&nbsp;

Lucretia Mott was a Quaker abolitionist and feminist who dedicated the majority of her life to the abolition of slavery and the equality of women. After the Civil War, Mott fought for economic and political equality for women and African Americans. Throughout her life she supported organizations such as the American Equal Rights Association, the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, and other groups associated with the American women’s rights movement. Her home in Pennsylvania also served as part of the Underground Railroad. In honor of her efforts, a historical marker was placed close to the former location of Mott’s home in May 1974. The location is within the La Mott Historic District, a community named after Mott in 1885.

Lucretia Mott Historical Marker

Miss Baldwin’s School for Girls was founded in Bryn Mawr, in a much humbler location than the stately Bryn Mawr Hotel that serves as its facilities today.&nbsp; Miss Florence Baldwin began the school in the house owned by her mother with just thirteen students. Five of the thirteen would go on to graduate from the school two years later, and four of those five proceeded to attend the illustrious Bryn Mawr College.

As the number of attendees grew, more space was needed to continue classes.&nbsp; Baldwin first chose to purchase a home across the street from her mother’s home as an extension of the school.&nbsp; Soon after, however, the continued growth of the school demanded a large-scale reorganization. For this, Florence Baldwin turned to the nearby Bryn Mawr Hotel.

With winter business being considerably slower in business for the Hotel, Miss Baldwin was able to work out a deal with the owners; during the winter months, the Hotel would house classes for the Baldwin School. Less than 20 years later, a year-round lease would be negotiated between the Baldwin School and the Bryn Mawr Hotel which would lay the groundwork for the full purchase of the hotel by the school in 1922.

The Bryn Mawr Hotel itself is architecturally and historically significant. The building was designed by Frank Furness, a well-recognized American architect who designed a number of other notable hotels in other cities.&nbsp; The Bryn Mawr Hotel is the last of Furness' remaining buildings and serves as a stately reminder of the best works of an iconic architect.&nbsp; Furness’ works dot the cityscape of the Greater Philadelphia area, but the Bryn Mawr Hotel best displays the Chateau Style he was best known for.

The resilient and open design of the Hotel has been credited for the longevity of its use, a claim which is supported by the fact that it is still in use by the school as of the creation of this entry.&nbsp; Throughout the 1900s the leadership of the Baldwin School organized the purchase of new land and the construction of new buildings and extensions to existing structures.&nbsp; This&nbsp;process included the building of the Elizabeth Frost Johnson Schoolhouse, the Red Gym, and a swimming pool for use by the students.

The 1960s and 70s brought many changes to the Baldwin School including the closure of the boarding program at the school.&nbsp; The Bryn Mawr Hotel (previously referred to by the school as “the Residence”) was converted into a faculty residence, and a new building was built for younger students.&nbsp; 1978 was the year that “the Residence,” and the school it contained for so many years, was listed on the National Park Service’ss National Register of Historic Places.&nbsp;

Since 1978, the Baldwin School has constructed a science building, computer lab, an athletic center and more.&nbsp; It celebrated its 100th year in 1988 and proceeded to gain significant recognition throughout the 90s and early 2000s.&nbsp;

The Baldwin School is the alma mater of an impressive list of accomplished women, including Kinney Zalesne, the Manager of Corporate Strategy at Microsoft; Jody Gerson, the CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group who recruited and signed pop artist Lady Gaga; and Anne Cabot Wyman, Pulitzer prize winner and two-time finalist who became the first female editorial editor of the Boston Globe.

The Baldwin School of Bryn Mawr is one of the United States’ most prestigious all-girls schools.  Since 1888, the Baldwin School has served the Greater Philadelphia area and it has been located here in the former Bryn Mawr Hotel for most of those years. While the building has undergone some modifications since its original construction in 1890, the school still calls this building home and has overseen and contributed significantly to its preservation as a historical landmark.  

The Baldwin School of Bryn Mawr / The Bryn Mawr Hotel

Most of the library's books and other materials were transferred to the Miriam Coffin Canaday Library in 1970. In recognition of Thomas' appreciation for art, this building continues to house the books and materials related to art and art history, as well as archaeology. After the books were removed, the former stack areas were converted to offices and classrooms. The Great Hall and other architectural features were not altered.&nbsp;

This structure, completed in 1907, served as the campus library until 1970. In 1991, the building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Not only is this architecturally significant building one of the most visible places on the historic Bryn Mawr campus, it continues to serve a gathering place. The building's Great Hall hosts performances and lectures, as well as campus and public events throughout the year. Quita Woodward Memorial Room for recreational reading with recent books on literature, art, religion, current affairs, as well as many classics.
  
The building is named in honor of  M. Carey Thomas, the first dean of the school and it's second President. The building and its signature Great Hall were inspired by campus buildings at Oxford University. 

M. Carey Thomas Library, Bryn Mawr College

<div> Bryn Mawr College, named after the estate upon which it was constructed, was the first college in the United States to offer women a path to graduate education up to the level of the Ph. D.&nbsp; Beginning in 1885, Bryn Mawr staunchly challenged the restrictive gender norms placed on women at the time, giving women access to the arts and sciences that was unprecedented in the United States and had few predecessors in the world as a whole.&nbsp; Bryn Mawr now stands proudly as one of the most storied educational institutions in the United States and as a cornerstone of the Bryn Mawr community.&nbsp;&nbsp; The founding of the College of Bryn Mawr was carried out at the behest of Joseph W. Taylor, a Quaker physician, following his death in 1880. &nbsp;For years prior to his death, Taylor had begun to organize the formation of a school that would provide unique educational opportunities "for the advanced education of females," with the bulk of his efforts occurring in 1879, a year before his death. &nbsp;In his will, he left his plans for the school and a considerable monetary sum with which to establish the institution. &nbsp;His goal was to provide a place that would allow women to perform their own, original research, which was previously available to very few men, let alone women at the time. &nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>Taylor also hoped to inspire strongly in his students the morals and ideals of the Quakers, though it is noted by the College's historians that his trustees prioritized education to faith and chose to make the school non-denominational. &nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>The first dean of the school was a woman by the name of M. Carey Thomas, whose vision for the school would shape its future for decades to come. &nbsp;She was known for her relentless pursuit of knowledge, leaving to study in Europe after being denied from American universities on the basis of gender. &nbsp;Under her leadership, Bryn Mawr became an influence on women's education nationwide and beyond. &nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>Bryn Mawr, though, was not without flaw under the leadership of M. Carey Thomas, and school historians make a point to note that during this era of the school's history, the school leadership, including Thomas herself, held the oddly hypocritical and racially-prejudiced belief that education was reserved for white, wealthy women only. &nbsp;This severe flaw in approach, thankfully, was overcome by subsequent leaders, aided by the school's devotion to student self-government, which allowed incoming students to effectively critique and change policies that were holdovers from previous eras.</div><div> </div><div>Bryn Mawr was, notably, the first school in the United States to offer their students access to a Ph. D. program in social work. &nbsp;The program began following the influence of a previous graduate of Bryn Mawr and would come to be known as the famous Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. &nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>During the Second World War, Byrn Mawr earned further international repute by serving as a sanctuary for scholars fleeing the brutal Nazi persecution of intellectuals and free thinkers that was sweeping Europe. &nbsp;Likewise, during both the McCarthy and Vietnam eras of anti-Communist panic, Bryn Mawr elected to lose federal aid instead of breaching their beliefs in intellectual freedom and student privacy. &nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>The period of time from the late 1970s until the late 1990s, during which the school was led by Mary Patterson McPherson, was one of the most important parts of Bryn Mawr's history. &nbsp;Under McPherson's leadership, the school devoted itself to overcoming bias, growing diversity of viewpoints, backgrounds, and economic class, and reanalyzing its purpose in the greater scope of education as a whole. &nbsp;McPherson was responsible for weighing the possibility of converting Bryn Mawr to a fully co-ed school instead of a single-sex educational institution; she concluded after significant consideration that carrying on the tradition of women's education was still very much relevant to the needs of the country and the world. &nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>The current President, Kimberly Wright Cassidy, earned notoriety for leading the decision to explicitly allow the application of transgender and intersex women in 2015. &nbsp;This decision made Bryn Mawr the fourth women's college in the country to openly protect the application rights of transgender and intersex women. &nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>Bryn Mawr is known for its resume of illustrious alumni and faculty. &nbsp;President Woodrow Wilson taught at the school, as did world-famous chemist Arthur Lindo Patterson. &nbsp;The list of accomplished graduates is at least as impressive, if not considerably more so, counting such influential individuals as Actress Katharine Hepburn, &nbsp;Nobel Prize winner Emily Greene Balch, women's rights activist Agnes E. Wells, and Hanna Holborn Gray, the first woman president of Harvard University.</div><div> </div><div>In the current year of 2018, Bryn Mawr still thrives as one of the nation's foremost educational institutions. &nbsp;It has committed itself continually to modern pursuits of equality, women's education, sustainability, civil rights, and freedom of conscience, keeping in tradition with its long legacy of liberal conviction. &nbsp;As of the creation of this entry, Bryn Mawr's undergraduate program still devotes itself completely to women-only education, though the graduate program has opened its door to the selective admittance of male students. &nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div> </div>

Constructed in 1968, Canaday Library is located at the former site of Bryn Mawr College's Deanery, which was home to college leaders from the time of the college's first dean and second president, Dr. Martha Carey Thomas. Thomas lived at the home from 1885 to 1933, and at that time, the structure held only five rooms but contained works by Louis Comfort Tiffany and other influential designers and artists. The home was also full of items from Dr. Thomas' global travels and the college inherited the home and these items when she passed away in 1935. The home was later expanded significantly for entertaining guests and hosting events but demolished in 1968 above the protests of many students, faculty, and alumni in order to make room for the modern Canaday Library. 

The Deanery (1885-1968) and Canaday Library, Bryn Mawr College

<div>The Harriton House received its modern name after Rowland Ellis sold the farm to Richard Harrison in 1719. &nbsp;Despite Ellis' intense involvement in the local community, the farm on the estate of Bryn Mawr was little more than a subsistence farm. &nbsp;According to letters written by Ellis himself, he was farming only 15 of the 700 acres of the estate as the 1600s drew to a close. &nbsp;The land Ellis did farm persists as a local park that is still maintained as of the creation of this entry.</div><div> </div><div>Richard Harrison, upon purchase of the Bryn Mawr estate, changed the name to reflect his family's name, and the name became permanent. &nbsp;Harrison was himself a Quaker and had sought out the estate as an ideal location to continue the cultivation of tobacco, which he had met some success with previously in the state of Maryland. &nbsp;The climate of Bryn Mawr is remarkably friendly to tobacco cultivation, and Harrison's expertise brought success to the plantation until his death on the 2nd of March, 1745. &nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>Harrison's success was built upon his import of slavery to Harriton, which was an understandably controversial decision among the local community and the state of Pennsylvania. &nbsp;According to the Harriton Association, there is reason to believe that the Harriton Estate was the northernmost plantation to operate on the enslavement of Black Americans. &nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>In 1774, Hannah Harrison, daughter of Richard Harrison, married Charles Thomson who came to manage the Harriton Estate after their marriage. &nbsp;Thomson was by far the most well-known occupant, largely because of his involvement in the politics leading up to the American Revolution. &nbsp;Thomson was the first Secretary to the Continental Congresses, a position that ceased to exist following his retirement and the reorganization of the government of the fledgling United States.</div><div> </div><div>During his tenure as Secretary, he designed the Great Seal of the United States which is still used on all official government documents to this day. &nbsp;He also was the man responsible for traveling to Mt. Vernon, the home of George Washington, to inform him of his election as President of the United States in the year of 1789.</div><div> </div><div>Charles Thompson was a staunch abolitionist and did not carry on the use of slavery at Harriton Estate, instead choosing to employ paid laborers and offer shares in the Estate to his workers. &nbsp;He was known for arguing that "slavery is like a cancer on this great new country" and believing that the persistence of slavery as an institution would lead to bloodshed if it was not resolved by religious, philosophical, and political leaders. &nbsp;He devoted himself to the management of the estate in 1789, after 15 years of service to the United States as Secretary to the Continental and Confederation Congresses. &nbsp;In working the farmland, he found great interest in scientific agriculture, which led him to help found the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture which now represents the oldest surviving agricultural organization in the entirety of the United States. &nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>In the early 1900s, the Harriton Estate became the site of the Harriton Guernsey Dairy, which was, according to the Harriton House Association, owned and operated by Harrison family members descended from Hannah Thompson's (Harrison) brother. &nbsp;The dairy farm succeeded and pedigree descendants of the Glenwood Guernsey cattle bred on the farm are still milked on farms to this day.</div><div> </div><div>In the present day, the Harriton House Association has worked diligently to restore the house to its appearance as of the time of Charles Thompson's residency. &nbsp;In addition to items owned by Charles Thompson, the Harriton House also features a number of other 18th century antiques and works of art. &nbsp;On the land, the Harriton House Association maintains an apiary, community garden, and a strictly decorative plot of cultivated tobacco as well as a number of farm animals who occupy one of the barns on the surrounding land. &nbsp;The stone barn has been converted to serve as an educational center.</div><div> </div><div>The Harriton House Association, in addition to tours, offers various levels of membership donation tiers that allow interested parties to participate and contribute to the preservation of the site and the further research of Bryn Mawr's history.</div>

Bryn Mawr, now known as the Harriton House, was once the home of Rowland Ellis, a Quaker hailing from Wales who was heavily involved in the local community of Quakers.  The borough of Bryn Mawr was named after Ellis' estate, a 700-acre plot which was gifted to Ellis by William Penn himself in the late 1600s.  While much of the original estate of Bryn Mawr is now incorporated into the modern borough, the original house still stands, open to the public by appointment and maintained by the Harriton Association, a non-profit, membership corporation devoted to preserving the history of the estate and local area.  

Philadelphia Women's History Trail

Ora Washington Historic Marker

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information