Pennsylvania

Founded in the 1870s, the Philadelphia Museum of Art that most visitors are familiar with today was actually constructed in the early 20th century. The original gallery at Memorial Hall was part of the Centennial Exposition of 1876 (the first official World’s Fair) and lies about two miles west from its current location across the Schuylkill River. When it was first built, the intent was to highlight the technical and industrial arts of Pennsylvania with a specific emphasis on educating future generations via their school (thus the original name Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art). It quickly came to garner additional attention as a center of the fine arts as collections and donations to the museum improved.

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On Chestnut Street between 5th and 6th streets sits an amazing United States national landmark that is pictured on the back of the US $100 bill, Independence Hall. Independence Hall is famous for being the place that both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were debated and adopted. It was also the main meeting place for the Second Continental Congress and the site of the Constitution Convention of 1787. The hall is part of Independence National Historical Park and was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Site list in 1979, as it is a bastion of the history and culture of the United States. Independence Hall was also the original home of the Liberty Bell and currently holds in its bell tower a Centennial Bell created for the United States Centennial Exposition in 1876.

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When most people think of going to a museum, they typically have visions of grand paintings, ancient Egyptian artifacts, or perhaps a celebrity wax figure or two. Rarely do they imagine encountering a preserved nine foot long two foot in diameter human colon, a mysterious deceased woman composed of adipocere, and the skeleton of two children born with separate bodies, but one head. No, you will find these unique and somewhat disturbing oddities nowhere else but at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1859 by Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter via his donated collection of medical curiosities to the College of Physicians of Philadelphia; it was originally intended to function as a medical research facility. It got its first permanent home at Locust and 13th Street nearly five years later with close to 1800 one of a kind specimens, skeletons, models, and illustrations. It has since moved to a more befitting and auspicious location between Chestnut and Market on 22nd Street and houses a collection of over 20,000 amazing, wonderful, interesting, and grotesque items that delight and intrigue some 60,000 visitors a year.

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