Philadelphia Students Bring 17th-Century Civic Roots to the National Constitution Center
As the United States nears its milestone 250th anniversary, a new exhibition at the National Constitution Center asks visitors to look past 1776 and consider the colonial machinery that laid the groundwork for American democracy. Pennsylvania’s Founding: How a City and a Colony Shaped America’s Civic DNA opened to the public as a free exhibition curated by Drexel University’s Lenfest Center for Cultural Partnerships and the Atwater Kent Collection, featuring catalog design, websites, and interactive displays designed by Drexel students.
Running through January 3, 2027, the exhibition gathers 29 rare artifacts detailing the origin story of William Penn’s colony. Among them, 16 pieces come directly from the Atwater Kent Collection. Visitors can examine the first printed plans of Philadelphia from its 1682 establishment, the original 1790–1800 plans designating the city as the nation’s capital, and a wampum belt said to have been given to William Penn by the Lenape tribe to mark the 1682 Treaty of Shackamaxon.
Borrowed materials additionally featured in the exhibition comprise the Pennsylvania charter granted by King Charles II, the charter belonging to the City of Philadelphia, alongside a pair of Magna Carta editions—one printed by Penn himself and a second formerly owned by Benjamin Franklin. These documents are on loan from institutions including the City of Philadelphia, the American Philosophical Society, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Haverford College, and a private lender.
From Campus Labs to Museum Galleries
Key academic and museum figures united for this institutional partnership, including Rosalind Remer, PhD, senior vice provost for Libraries, Collections & Archives and founding director of the Lenfest Center; Page Talbott, PhD, director of museum outreach; Stacey Swigart, director of the Atwater Kent Collection; and Melissa Clemmer, executive director of the Lenfest Center. Behind the scenes, three graduate students and one undergraduate student from the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design turned academic training into public-facing museum infrastructure.
The opportunity to create this exhibition came to us from area funders who were interested in highlighting not just the United States’ past in this 250th year, but the antecedents of it in William Penn’s colony,
Remer said, noting the educational value of student involvement in high-profile cultural projects.
Graduate and undergraduate student contributors stepped into professional roles across a condensed three-month development window. Jenna Gilley, pursuing a Master of Science in arts administration, built an interactive display for her timeline of key events of Philadelphia’s founding and William Penn’s life and a visual digital experience.
Everyone talks about the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, but it really started over 100 years earlier with Quakers and Quaker ideology, which was very different in many ways from how we operate today but has a lot of overlaps.
Meanwhile, Casey Kovarick, a graphic design undergraduate with a user experience minor, designed the official exhibition catalog from start to finish as the sole designer. Drawing aesthetic inspiration from 18th-century ornamental elements found in historical foundry books, Kovarick produced a comprehensive printed volume available at the National Constitution Center store. Working on the project also offered a personal archival surprise for Kovarick, who lives near the Valley Forge National Historic Park.
I was surprised William Penn’s second wife, Hannah Callowhill Penn, was the first and only woman to govern Pennsylvania. She ran affairs for 14 years from 1712 to 1726!
Kovarick said.
Digital Architecture for Permanent Access
The exhibition remains open to the public at the National Constitution Center through January 3, 2027, offering a direct view into the foundational documents that shaped early American civic life.
