Digitizing Philadelphia's Historic Congregations

A groundbreaking archival initiative that digitizes and preserves historic congregational records from Philadelphia's oldest religious institutions, providing unprecedented access to colonial and early American religious, social, and political history.

Much of Philadelphia's historic congregational information remained 'hidden' and inaccessible due to technological and funding limitations, despite containing invaluable records that function as transcripts of life before census takers and city directories.

Secured a $385,205 grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) to digitize over 41,000 records, implementing advanced scanning technology and metadata tagging systems to enhance searchability and accessibility through multiple digital portals.

Created the most comprehensive digital collection of early American congregational records, offering over 80,000 pages of historical documents that illuminate topics from Civil War activities to the African American experience in colonial Philadelphia, all made freely accessible to researchers worldwide.