Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2021

John S. Trower built one of the most successful catering businesses of his day here in Philadelphia, becoming one of the wealthiest African Americans of the late nineteenth century. He turned his success into service, founding the Downingtown Industrial & Agricultural School and a building-and-loan association to help Black families become homeowners. A devout man, he gave generously to Baptist charities throughout his life.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2025

Wyck sheltered nine generations of a single Quaker family whose interests ranged across science, education, glassmaking, horticulture, and brewing. The oldest part of the house dates to 1690, and in 1824 the noted architect William Strickland reshaped the 1720s dwelling into the home that stands today. In 1821 Jane Bowne Haines laid out a rose garden that grew to hold more than fifty rare cultivars, among the oldest surviving gardens of its kind in its original plan.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2005

On October 30, 1930, the Wyoming Avenue Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia opened its doors as the very last of the public libraries funded by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. Over his lifetime the Pittsburgh industrialist endowed more than 2,500 libraries across the globe, convinced that free access to books was the surest ladder out of poverty—a philosophy he had lived himself as a self-taught immigrant boy.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2007

Founded in 1892 by Isaac Jones Wistar, this Philadelphia institution became the nation's first independent center devoted to biomedical research, growing out of an older anatomical museum. Within its walls scientists developed important vaccines and bred the albino 'Wistar rat,' a standardized laboratory animal that spread to research labs around the world. It marked a turning point in American science, when discovery moved from lecture halls into dedicated research institutions.