Philadelphia+Side+Trips

**Places In and Around Philly to Visit During Your Free Time at Midwinter 2014** toc
 * media type="custom" key="27690023"Philadelphia Side Trips **


 * ** Google Map for Philadelphia Side Trips **

=Female Medical College of Pennsylvania= Founded in 1850, the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania was the first medical institution in the world established to train women in medicine and offer them the M.D. degree (the college changed its name to Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1867, merged with Hahnemann Medical School in 1993, and the two institutions were absorbed by Drexel University in 2003). The first graduation in December of 1851 (medical schools demanded only two years then) saw eight women receive degrees, including Hannah Longshore, who became Philadelphia's first active woman doctor, and Ann Preston who stayed with the College and in 1866 became the first female dean in an American medical school. Following European training, another graduate, Emeline Horton Cleveland (class of 1855), taught at the College and became one of the first American women to perform major surgery.
 * Historical Marker, 3300 Henry Avenue**

=Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society Historical Marker= Organized in 1833 by abolitionists such as Lucretia Mott and Margaretta Forten, the society headquartered here originally consisted of sixty women who sought to end slavery. After the Civil War, the society worked to help freed slaves. Lucretia Mott worked with the Underground Railroad and spoke to the U.S. Congress and President John Tyler against slavery in 1845. Margaretta Forten decided to co-found the society after full membership to the American Anti-Slavery Society was denied to women. She also founded a school for black children in 1850. Another member included Sarah Mapps Douglas who opened an academy for black children and challenged racial segregation in Philadelphia.
 * 5th & Arch Streets**

=African American Museum in Philadelphia= Founded in 1976 in celebration of the nation's Bicentennial, the African American Museum in Philadelphia (AAMP) is the first institution funded and built by a major municipality to preserve, interpret and exhibit the heritage of African Americans. Throughout its evolution, the museum has objectively interpreted and presented the achievements and aspirations of African Americans from pre-colonial times to the current day. A current exhibition, //The Unflinching Eye: Works from the Tiberino Family Circle// focuses on the art and artistic legacy of Philadelphia artist Ellen Powell Tiberino, her family, and several artists associated with them.
 * 701 Arch Street, (215) 574-0380, $14 adults, Wednesday-Saturday 10:00am-5:00pm, Sunday noon-5:00pm **

= Marian Anderson Historical Residence & Museum = With the purchase of the Martin Street home in 1924, Marian Anderson settled in her childhood neighborhood and owned the property for 69 years. Born in 1897 in Philadelphia, she became in 1924 the first African-American concert artist to record for RCA Victor, a major American recording company. In 1939 she became an important figure in the struggle for black artists to overcome racial prejudice in the United States when the Daughters of the American Revolution refused permission for her to sing to an integrated audience at Constitution Hall. With the aid of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Anderson performed a critically acclaimed open-air concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939. Anderson continued to break barriers for black artists in the United States, becoming the first black person to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on January 7, 1955. = = =Fair Hill Burial Ground= Although the land on which the Fair Hill Burial Ground is situated was willed by George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, in 1691, to American Quakers for a meeting house, school house, burial ground, playground, and garden, the first interment did not take place until 1843. While not all those buried at Fair Hill are Quakers, the historic rules of the burial ground included guidelines for funerals and headstones, in keeping with the Quaker tradition of simplicity. Many well known abolitionists and women's rights activists are buried at Fair Hill, including Lucretia Mott, Mary Ann McClintock, Ann Preston, Sarah Pugh, and Harriet Forten Purvis. = = =Francis E.W. Harper Home= Abolitionist, poet, and author Francis Ellen Watkins Harper was born to a free African-American family in Baltimore in 1825. She had a long and prolific career, publishing her first book of poetry at age 20 and her first novel, Iola Leroy, at age 67. In 1850, she moved to Ohio, where she was the first female faculty member at Union Seminary, established by the Ohio Conference of the AME Church. With the Pennsylvania Abolition Society she began helping escaped slaves along the Underground Railroad in 1851 and began a career as a public speaker and political activist after joining the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1853. After the Civil War she continued to fight for the rights of women, African Americans, and many other social causes. Harper died in 1911, nine years before women gained the right to vote. Her funeral service was held at the Unitarian Church on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia; she is buried in Eden Cemetery.
 * 762 South Martin Street (Marian Anderson Way), (215) 732-9505, $15 adults, 10:00am-4:00pm Monday-Saturday **
 * 9th and Cambria Streets, open October-June by special arrangement; see web page for July-September hours **
 * 1006 Bainbridge Street (not open to the public)**

=Philadelphia School of Design for Women= Now the Moore College of Art & Design, the Philadelphia School of Design for Women was the first women’s arts college in the nation, founded by Sarah Worthington King Peter, an Ohio-born philanthropist and arts patron, in 1848. Throughout the 19th century, supporters of design training for women assumed that the female mind and hand were suited by nature for artistic pursuits, subject of course to proper guidance. Practical reasons for supporting a school of design for women included local industry's need for trained native designers of household goods. Supporters also shared a widespread concern in Philadelphia and other growing cities about the increasing number of women in urban areas who were either supporting themselves or helping to support their families. Read more about the history of the Philadelphia School of Design for Women in Nina de Angeli Walls's paper Art and Industry in Philadelphia: Origins of the Philadelphia School of Design for Women reprinted from The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. Two exhibitions of interest open on January 21 at The Galleries at Moore -- photographs taken by Philadelphia-based designer Joel Katz during 1964's Freedom Summer, and the annual juried exhibition of recent work created by Moore alumnae.
 * 1916 Race Street**

=Crystal Bird Fauset Historical Marker= Crystal Bird Fauset was the first female African-American state legislator in the United States, elected in 1938 to represent the 18th District of Philadelphia. Fauset's friendship with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt helped her secure the position of Assistant Director and Race Relations Director of The Office of Civil Defense. She advised both the Roosevelt and New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia on race relations, and was a member of President Roosevelt's "Black Cabinet," working to promote civil rights for African Americans. Despite her involvement with the Democratic Party, Fauset became a member of the Republican National Committee's division on Negro Affairs in 1944.
 * 5403 Vine Street **

=Violet Oakley= Violet Oakley is generally acknowledged as one of the greatest American and the greatest female muralist. Oakely painted a series of 43 murals in the Pennsylvania State Capitol Building in Harrisburg. Oakley is known for using her art to convey her socialist, feminist, and pacifist philosophy. For example, in "Washington Marching to Philadelphia," the despairing, angry faces of the Revolutionary soldiers and populace are as much a focal point as is the general. In her mural of Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln ignores the political figures in the background while casting sorrowful eyes on a crippled soldier and grieving family who dominate the foreground, signifying the real heroes and victims of war. In 1906, Oakley moved to "Cogslea" in West Mount Airy, where she lived with three other women artists -- Jessie Wilcox Smith, Henrietta Cozens, and Elizabeth Shipley Green -- in a cottage whose name came from the first letters of their last names. The women formed a self-subsisting household where they could support themselves through gardening and arts and crafts. After Smith, Cozens, and Green moved, Oakley spent the rest of her life with her companion Edith Emerson, director and president of the Woodmere Art Museum.
 * Historical Marker, St. Georges Road off McCallum Street**
 * Work at the Woodmere Art Museum, 9201 Germantown Avenue and the First Presbyterian Church of Germantown, 35 W Chelten Avenue (open to the public by appointment)**

=Progress of Women Mural= New Century Guild Founder Eliza Sproat Turner was a Philadelphia activist, leading the quest for women’s voting rights and social reform. She founded the Pennsylvania Women’s Suffrage Association in 1869 and used her influence and money to support "self-supporting” women. Turner and other forward-thinking Philadelphia women held tea parties to raise money for the 1876 Centennial Exposition, helping fund the Women’s Pavilion, which showcased the importance of women’s work and contributions to society. Inspired and validated by the success of the Pavilion, Turner, Sarah Hallowell, and a group of Philadelphia women leaders founded The New Century Club the following year. While The New Century Club was comprised of affluent women, Turner responded to the challenges faced by middle class women entering new roles in the workforce and society by forming The New Century Guild to provide vocational training and social opportunities for working women. The New Century Trust was incorporated into the Guild in 1893 to handle the finances of running classes and programs for the Guild members. The New Century Trust continued to nourish women’s history, holding women’s suffrage meetings, and providing the “Noon Rest,” a low cost lunch and respite, for thousands of working women until the late 1940s. Today, The New Century Trust continues to work to improve the educational, economic, and social status of women and girls. The richly symbolic mural by Larissa Preston and Cesar Viveros was dedicated on October 12, 2001 and coincided with the Trust hosting the founding meeting for the National Collaborative of Women’s History Sites. There is an explanation of the images in the mural at the Trust website.
 * 1307 Locust Street, west wall of the New Century Trust Building **

=Louisa May Alcott Birthplace= ** Pine Place, 5425 Germantown Avenue (now the site of the Cunningham Piano Company) ** Most people associate Louisa May Alcott with New England; few realize that she was born in Philadelphia.Her father, Amos Bronson Alcott, was an educator who arrived in Philadelphia from Boston in 1830 to work with Rueben Haines, a wealthy Quaker, and start a progressive school that would replace rote learning with spirited discussion and self-analysis. Her mother, Abigail May Alcott, worked as an assistant at the school, which served as both a place of education and the home of the Alcott family. About Pine Place, Abigail Alcott wrote her father, "the grounds and the gardens standing back and including an acre or more all beautifully laid out." Anna, the Alcott’s eldest child, was born in a nearby boarding house on March 19, 1831, and on November 29, 1832, Louisa May Alcott was born at Pine Place. Following the death of Haines, the school lost students and eventually failed. Amos Bronson Alcott opened another school in Philadelphia for just over a year before moving the family back to Massachusetts in 1834. Books and other materials housed at the Germantown Historical Society, 5501 Germantown Avenue, chronicle Louisa May Alcott’s time in Germantown, her contributions to literature, and her life as an outspoken opponent of slavery and strong advocate for women’s rights.

=Betsy Ross House= The Betsy Ross House, the birthplace of the American flag, is alive with the sights and sounds of the 18th century. Tour the house and then stay a while longer to learn more about Betsy and her exciting life and times through our interactive, historical programming. Built more than 250 years ago, the building now known as The Betsy Ross House was home to not just Betsy Ross, but to dozens of artisans and shopkeepers over the years before it was opened to the public as a museum in 1898.
 * 239 Arch Street, (215) 686-1252, $5 adults plus $2 for the optional audio tour, open Tuesday-Sunday**

Sources
 * Women In The Abolition Movement: Historic Sites In Philadelphia
 * ExplorePAhistory.com