A 650-piece exhibit on Philly history features items from a sunken British ship and a World Series ring

At an exhibit opening Thursday, visitors can get a snapshot of Philadelphia history from its 17th century beginnings to its more recent baseball victories. 

"Philadelphia Revealed: Unpacking the Attic" will tell the story of the city through 650 items. Some, like the teapot fragments recovered from a British ship in the Delaware River, nod to Philadelphia's colonial origins. Others highlight its bygone department stores, such as two enormous murals that hung in the flagship Gimbels on 9th and Market streets. Still more reflect Philly's sports mania. An old turnstile from Veterans Stadium and a Phillies uniform worn by third baseman Mike Schmidt are featured, along with a 2008 Phillies World Series championship ring. (No one stole it off Chase Utley; it was donated by former Mayor Michael Nutter, who received it while in office.)

The exhibit will be on display at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts through Sunday, Dec. 1, but the items come from the Atwater Kent Collection at Drexel University. The college became the steward of the 130,000-plus pieces in the collection in 2019, after the museum that once housed them permanently closed. Through the exhibit, Drexel hopes to properly introduce the public to collection, which it sees as a "museum without walls."

"As you walk through the exhibition, you will get a sense of the breadth and depth of this collection," said Page Talbott, director of museum outreach for cultural partnerships and university collections and exhibitions at Drexel. "Now the collection has 130,000 objects, and we're only displaying 650, but believe me, 650 is a lot. So it will certainly give people an idea of what we have."

Some of the items have never been exhibited due to their sheer scale. Talbott points to a watchman's box that once stood at 4th and Arch streets. In the days before organized police forces, night watchmen patrolled the streets in all seasons, and sought shelter in freestanding "boxes" on chilly evenings. Another massive relic is a wheel from an ice-breaking boat, which cleared passageways when the Delaware River froze over.

The exhibit will encourage interaction through an Instagram filter that lets users try on hats from the collection, including a Stetson and a velvet pillbox hat. Visitors can also jot down comments or personal histories on a card as they move through the space. Those who submit their cards might become part of the exhibit, as Drexel plans to publish excerpts online.

The university is also hoping the public can help fill in some gaps in the record. One of the items in the display's salvaged materials and relics section is a photo album featuring pictures of Black soldiers in the 389th Engineer General Service Regiment during World War II. It was recovered from the trash on a street in Norristown, making its creator a mystery.

"There are some significant clues as to who this person is," Talbott said. "But we don't actually know who he is. We can recognize or identify some of the pictures. And we know what unit he was with. So one of the things we're hoping is that by displaying the album that somebody might come forward and say, 'I know who that is.'"

This collaborative spirit speaks to the long-term vision for the Atwater Kent Collection. By early next year, Drexel hopes to launch a lending program that will allow historic houses, community centers and other organizations to borrow items from the collection. The university has already built six display cases with custom climate controls that would go out with certain objects. Reproductions will also be available. 

If the program does launch by 2025, it'll arrive just in time for the semiquincentennial, the 250th celebration of America's founding. Appropriately, the Atwater Kent Collection has items from some of the country's past birthday blowouts, including centennial and bicentennial banners, booklets, photos and souvenir ashtrays.

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