Pennsylvania's Founding: How a City and a Colony Shaped America's Civic DNA

Around 1718, Peter Cooper painted Philadelphia from the southeast, and that canvas, lent by the Library Company, is the oldest surviving painting of a North American city. In the same show is Thomas Holme's 1683 plan, which laid the town out as America's first planned community.

Drexel's curators split the story into three sections, from Penn's "Holy Experiment" to the fights over who held authority. You can read the 1681 charter that handed Penn his colony, King Charles II's seal attached, then Franklin's 1556 Magna Carta and a 1696 Quaker protest against slavery. A portrait of Hannah Callowhill Penn is captioned as the first woman to govern Pennsylvania "(and only, so far)". Three centuries on, Harrisburg is still working on the sequel.

It doesn't flatter Penn: it covers his own involvement in slavery, Indigenous displacement and the Walking Purchase. Two interactives built with Drexel students, a Penn timeline and "Pennsylvania Mapped", fill in the context. It's free, and runs until 3 January 2027.