Since Parkway Central Library opened in 1927, patrons have had free and open access to its rich and unique collections, expanding services, and professionally trained and welcoming staff. The robust programs and collections available are impressive, but some patrons may not be familiar with all of them. To promote these resources, we've asked library staff to highlight their subject departments and the patron resources they offer to help shed light on all the benefits of becoming a patron of the Free Library of Philadelphia.

At the top of the Parkway Central Library’s grand staircase, you’ll find the Social Science and History Department (SSH), Philadelphia’s premier public resource for learning about the many topics that fall under the classification of history or social science. One of the most popular areas of research at SSH is the history of Philadelphia and the surrounding region. This post will introduce readers to the many local history resources available to them for free at the library.

The Local History Collection

Walk through the doors into the department, turn left, and you’ll immediately see the Local History Collection in a nook just behind our New Books table. The collection includes guidebooks, from Works Progress Administration guides dating back nearly a century to contemporary guides to the history of our city, or places just a short day trip away. It also encompasses the greater region, from the ghost towns of New Jersey to the trolleys of Erie. That last title is published by the prolific Arcadia Publishing, whose richly illustrated volumes we own hundreds of, covering Philly neighborhoods, suburbs, specific community histories, and so much more.

Whether you’re looking for the canonical history of Philadelphia or its forgotten tales, whether you prefer a title that tops 2,300 pages or one that’s mostly pictures, whether you’re interested in the Lenape before William Penn or the memories of Philadelphia’s quintessential 20th Century Main Line WASP, you’re likely to find what you’re seeking in the Local History Collection. 

The Local History Collection is open for anyone to browse, but SSH also has areas accessible only to librarians where we keep titles that are older, more fragile, or otherwise hard to replace. If, when searching in our catalog, you find a book located in "Closed Reference" or "Office," then you’ll need to ask a librarian to get it for you. To determine this location, scroll down to Holdings in the catalog record and look under Shelf Location. These titles can’t be checked out, but they can be read in the library. 

If under Shelf Location you see "Request Item - Regional Operations Center," that means the book is at our off-site storage location. Click on the “Request Item” link to get it sent to SSH for you. You might be able to check these items out, or you might just get to read them on-site, depending on their condition.

Research File Collection

Not all local history gets published in books, such as the wealth of information in what we call our Research File Collection: folders of news clippings and special reports, organized into four categories. One category is People, covering famous Philadelphians from Ben Franklin to Cecil B. Moore, with scores of less well-known individuals included. Another category is Organizations such as membership clubs, schools, non-profits, religious institutions, and activist groups. A third category is Neighborhoods, where you’ll find information about every region of the city from the far Northeast to the far Southwest. The final category is a catch-all of different topics as they relate to the city, such as museums, taxes, empowerment zones, sports stadiums, political corruption, epidemics, world fairs, public transit, and so much more. To access the Research File Collection, just ask a librarian at the SSH reference desk. 

Sources for Information on Individuals and Families

Researching individuals, whether they’re related to you or not, can be a great entry point into local history. In the biography and genealogy section of our open shelves (Dewey call number 929), you can find books that reproduce and index local marriage records, wills, oaths of allegiance, immigrant service contracts, ship passenger lists, and many more ways to piece together the history of our predecessors in the region. This section is particularly good for learning about southeastern Pennsylvania’s settler history from the colonial period through the early 19th Century. We also have a trove of volumes with titles like Colonial and Revolutionary Families of Philadelphia and Prominent and Progressive Pennsylvanians of the Nineteenth Century, containing short and not-so-short biographies of significant people and families, sometimes accompanied by portraits. For help with this research, ask a librarian to use our Philadelphia Biography Master Index, which collects over 100,000 names that appear in more than sixty collective biographical volumes. 

To research your own family, take a look at our collection of guides, web links, book lists, and resources for Genealogical Research at the Free Library and other important libraries and archives throughout the Philadelphia area.

Other Sources for Local History at Parkway Central Library

In addition to all of the above, many local history resources are adjacent to the Social Science and History Department.

While technically part of the Library’s Special Collections Division, the Map Collection is housed in the SSH room. It includes thousands of maps, many of which cover the city and region, from as far back as the 17th Century, all available to be viewed with a research appointment. 

Just next door to SSH, the Newspapers and Microfilm Center is a treasure trove for local history researchers. You can read the full text of The Philadelphia Inquirer back to 1860, access City and Telephone Directories for the region, and explore over 400 local newspapers on microfilm dating back to 1720. We have many guides to those local papers, including alphabetical, chronological, by neighborhood, by ethnic community, by religion, and by languages other than English. 

Just down the hall, the Print and Pictures Department includes the Philadelphiana Collection, which contains over 20,000 prints, drawings, scrapbooks, watercolors, and photographs of Philadelphia from its founding to the present day.

Anyone interested in the latest updates from the Social Science and History Department can join our e-newsletter and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and X. For any questions, email us at erefssh@freelibrary.org.