Title
Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the Temple University Urban Archives and honoring the essential role that the Urban Archives have played in preserving a record of Philadelphia's history and culture.
Body
WHEREAS, Temple University Urban Archives are a collection of primary resources that document and illuminate the social, political, economic, and geographic development in the City of Philadelphia during the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries; and
WHEREAS, The Urban Archives is one of the oldest and most expansive collections of documents and resources dedicated to local history, and represents the fruit of a pioneering genre of social history that prioritized documenting and studying the development of grassroots organizations and the lives of neighborhood-based actors in order to comprehensively understand urban American life. Therefore, the creation, development, and curation of this repository is historical in and of itself; and
WHEREAS, The Urban Archives are composed of a collection of records, documents, letters, meeting notes, newspapers, pictures, and videos that feature events related to social welfare, social work, urban development, community politics, and other urban affairs-related activity in the City of Philadelphia and across Southeastern Pennsylvania; and
WHEREAS, Department of History Professor Herbert Bass, later joined by Professors Allen Davis, Morris Vogel, Fredric Miller, developed the archives in 1967 as an effort to examine history from the "bottom up" and to preserve resources that shed light on the rich history of communities across the City of Philadelphia; and
WHEREAS, The Urban Archives are nationally recognized for their meticulous documentation of neighborhood institutions and ethnic organizations, creating a historical record of the diverse set of civic-minded groups that have weaved the sociopolitical and economic fabric in communities across the City of Philadelphia. The documentatio...
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