Philadelphia History Museum

Closed

19106 Philadelphia, PA, United States of America (USA) (Pennsylvania)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
The Philadelphia History Museum was a public history museum located in Center City, Philadelphia from 1938 until 2018.
From 1938 until 2010, the museum was known as the Atwater Kent Museum. The museum occupied architect John Haviland's landmark Greek Revival structure built in 1824–1826 for the Franklin Institute. The Museum operated as a city agency as part of Philadelphia's Department of Recreation. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 1, 1979.

History

The museum was established through the efforts of Philadelphia Mayor S. Davis Wilson, Frances Wistar, president of the Philadelphia Society for the Preservation of Landmarks, and A. Atwater Kent, radio pioneer and inventor. In 1938 Kent purchased the former Franklin Institute building, which the Institute had vacated in 1933, and gifted the building to the city for use as a public history museum. Following renovations carried out by the Works Progress Administration, the Museum opened in 1941.

After years of declining attendance and financial shortfalls, the museum closed its doors in 2018.

In September 2019, the city approved a plan to transfer the museum's collections to Drexel University who would preserve the collections and offer them out for loan. Drexel was granted control of the collection in April of 2022.
Drexel University has reverted the name of the collection to refer to Atwater Kent as the Atwater Kent Collection at Drexel.

Drexel University:
Welcome to the Atwater Kent Collection at Drexel.

This site is a work in progress as we navigate the inventory and evaluation of the collection of the former Philadelphia History Museum at the Atwater Kent. Check back regularly for updates - you can discover history through a searchable Online Collection portal. Learn more About the project and discover the history of Philadelphia as you dig into the objects and archives that make up the Atwater Kent Collection at Drexel.

Brief Timeline of the Atwater Kent Collection: 

1938: Atwater Kent Museum founded, as the city history museum of Philadelphia.
1941: Atwater Kent Museum opened to the public.
2009-12: Museum closed for major renovations; renamed Philadelphia History Museum at the Atwater Kent in 2010; reopened in 2012.
2018: Philadelphia History Museum at the Atwater Kent permanently closed.
2019: Drexel University began evaluation the Museum’s collection.
2022: Drexel became steward of the collection, the Atwater Kent Collection at Drexel University; shared Digital Preview of 501 objects online.
2023: Drexel launched the Online Collection

A. Atwater Kent and the Atwater Kent Manufacturing Company

Born in Vermont in 1873, A. Atwater Kent dropped out of Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts in 1896 to start a business in his father's machine shop manufacturing and selling small electrical items. Relocated in 1902 to a rented loft at 48 North Sixth Street, not far from the Philadelphia History Museum’s current location, the Atwater Kent Manufacturing Works scored its first major success with the Unisparker, an ignition system for automobiles that quickly became the industry standard.

By the late 1910s the company — sited at a larger facility on Stenton Avenue in Germantown, Philadelphia — focused on electrical parts for automobiles, although government contracts in World War I saw it expand production into optical gun sights and fuse setters.

After it received an order for 10,000 headsets in 1921, the company capitalized on a growing market for radios, retooling its operations to produce radio components and then complete sets. By 1925 the Atwater Kent Manufacturing Company was the largest maker of radios in the nation, employing 12,000 people manufacturing nearly one million radio sets at its peak in 1929. Its $2 million plant on Wissahickon Avenue was an architectural sensation, receiving hundreds of visitors annually and eventually covering over 30 acres. The popular "Atwater Kent Hour," a nationwide broadcast featuring the top entertainers of the time, was one of the most listened to and acclaimed radio programs of the 1920s.

The Great Depression hit the company hard, the average cost of a radio falling from $128 in 1929 to $78 in 1931, and consumers favored lesser priced models made by competitors. Faced with declining sales, the Atwater Kent Manufacturing Company closed in 1936.

By the time of his death in 1949, A. Atwater Kent held 93 patents for improvements in automobile ignition systems and electronics. He was married to Mabel Lucas Kent, with whom he had had four children. Their oldest son, A. Atwater Kent, Jr., served as president of the Atwater Kent Museum Board of Trustees from 1938 to 1983. His son, A. Atwater Kent III, continues as a member of the Board of Trustees.

• Imprint
• Privacy
• Terms of Use
• Copyright
• FAQ

• About Radiomuseum.org
• Contact
• Press
• Logos
• send2friend