Elfreth's Alley Museum
Of Mysteries and Muntins: Historic Windows in ...

Historic houses contain layered stories from the people who have lived there over decades and centuries. Historic house museums often also have additional layers of meaning and mystery created by the process of preservation and restoration. Recently Board Member Emily Taggart Schricker looked back over Elfreth’s Alley Association minutes and the logbook of the restoration of house #126 to learn more about the layers in our museum today.

Elfreth's Alley Museum
Symposium: Rowhouse City: History and ...
Elfreth's Alley Museum
On Display Now: "The Power of Experimentation ...
Elfreth's Alley Museum
Season 2 of 'The Alley Cast' is Underway!

TheAlleyCast

Season 2 of 'The Alley Cast' is Underway!

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We’re three weeks into the new season of The Alley Cast and it’s exciting!

The first episode of this season introduces the theme of this new batch of episodes—work!—and also tells the story of Andrew Adgate (aka Absalom Aimwell), a choral teacher and small-scale manufacturer who published an ode to workers in 1789 just about a block away from Elfreth’s Alley!

The next two episodes tackle the story of house construction in the city over three centuries, from the early impact of the Carpenters’ Company of Philadelphia to 19th and 20th century cycles of speculation, and the enduring legacy of systemic racism.

Yet to come in this season: episodes about working children, boarding house operation, cabinetmaking, the food service industry, and common laborers. Find the podcast here on our website or subscribe to it on your favorite podcatcher (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc.) to get each episode when it is released!

Revisiting Season 1 of the Alley Cast

In anticipation of Season 2 of The Alley Cast, which premieres June 23rd, we will be revisiting Season 1 in weekly installments over on our Facebook page. Each week we will listen to one or two episodes and provide a little more context through research that we began as we worked on the show and which has continued since then. We hope you’ll follow along!

Elfreth's Alley in 'The Public Historian' and on 'Tales from Old Houses'

The Alley Cast is now a scholarly-reviewed podcast! In the most recent edition of The Public Historian, available (but paywalled) online now and headed to National Council on Public History (NCPH) members soon is a lovely review of our podcast by Lydia Mattice Brandt.

In an incredible coincidence, I reached out to Stacy Grinsfelder of True Tales from Old Houses a few weeks ago to share my admiration for her show, and our conversation led to an episode, out today, featuring our museum as well as two of our neighbors on Elfreth’s Alley, Sue and Rob Kettell.

Decking the Alley Differently in 2020

Deck the Alley, our annual holiday open house, will not occur as usual this year. The event simply involves too many people at too close quarters to be safe during an ongoing pandemic. We will, however, be channeling our festive spirits into a kind of digital festival over the next few months. Whereas we held our Fete Day via one longer video, Deck the Alley will be spread over a longer period. Elements will make their way to our social media accounts, but the best way to be sure you see all of our holiday programming is to sign up for our mailing list here.

We are so grateful for the many people who count Deck the Alley among their holiday traditions and we hope you will tune in to this unorthodox version of our classic event. Look forward to house tours, festive songs, history lectures, and a special edition of The Alley Cast!

Find all of our digital gifts at elfrethsalley.org/deckthealley!

Centennial or Bust

During the process of writing Episode 7 of The Alley Cast, I got really interested in this monument to Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, leaders of the AME denomination petitioned the organizers of the Centennial celebration (1876) to have a display at the fair—the only exhibit by Black Americans in the whole thing. They commissioned a monument of Richard Allen and the various marble sections were en route by train when they were lost as the train car they were in plunged off a bridge into a river. Only the bust of Allen, which was in a separate train car, survived, and made it onto display at the Centennial.

What I Learned About Shovels!

In research for episode 5 of The Alley Cast, I came across a seemingly simple piece of information:

Robert Morton and Charles Wilson, residents of house #135 in 1930 worked at a shovel factory.

This single fact took me down a few serious rabbit holes, and I learned some really interesting stuff, but the episode ultimately wasn’t about the shovel factory and I couldn’t ever nail down any more specifics of Morton’s and Wilson’s employment. But I wanted to share my little research journey here, because I think it’s interesting!

I started with a simple question: where was the factory?