Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is a museum and art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is the first and oldest art museum and art school in the United States; the academy's museum is internationally known for its collections of 19th- and 20th-century American paintings and works on paper. Its archives house important materials for the study of American art history and art training; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts was founded in 1805 by painter and scientist Charles Willson Peale, sculptor William Rush, other artists and business leaders. The growth of the Academy of Fine Arts was slow. For many years it held its exhibitions in an 1806 building, designed by John Dorsey with pillars of the Ionic order, it stood on the site of the American Theater at Chestnut and 10th streets. The academy opened as a museum in 1807 and held its first exhibition in 1811, where more than 500 paintings and statues were displayed; the first school classes held in the building were with the Society of Artists in 1810.
The Academy had to be reconstructed after the fire of 1845. Some 23 years leaders of the academy raised funds to construct a building more worthy of its treasures, they commissioned the current Furness-Hewitt building, constructed from 1871. It opened as part of the 1876 Philadelphia Exposition. In 1876, former Academy student and artist Thomas Eakins returned to teach as a volunteer. Fairman Rogers, chairman of the Committee on Instruction from 1878 to 1883, made him a faculty member in 1878, promoted him to director in 1882. Eakins revamped the certificate curriculum to. Students in the certificate program learned fundamentals of drawing, painting and printmaking for two years. For the next two years, they had conducted independent study, guided by frequent critiques from faculty and visiting artists. From 1811 to 1969, the Academy organized important annual art exhibitions, from which the museum made significant acquisitions. Harrison S. Morris, Managing Director from 1892 to 1905, collected contemporary American art for the institution.
Among the many masterpieces acquired during his tenure were works by Cecilia Beaux, William Merritt Chase, Frank Duveneck, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Childe Hassam, Edmund Tarbell. Work by The Eight, which included former Academy students Robert Henri and John Sloan, is well represented in the collection, it provides a transition between 19th- and 20th- century art movements. From 1890 to 1906, Edward Hornor Coates served as the tenth president of the Academy. In 1915, Coates was awarded the Academy's gold medal. Painter John McLure Hamilton, who began his art education at the Academy under Thomas Eakins, in 1921 described the contributions Coates made during his tenure: The reign of Mr. Coates at the Academy marked the period of its greatest prosperity. Rich endowments were made to the schools, a gallery of national portraiture was formed, some of the best examples of Gilbert Stuart's work acquired; the annual exhibitions attained a brilliancy and éclat hitherto unknown... Mr. Coates wisely established the schools upon a conservative basis, building unconsciously the dykes high against the oncoming flow of insane novelties in art patterns...
In this last struggle against modernism the President was ably supported by Eakins, Grafly, Thouron and Chase... His unfailing courtesy, his disinterested thoughtfulness, his tactfulness, his modesty endeared him to scholars and masters alike. No sacrifice of time or of means was too great, if he thought he could accomplish the end he always had in view—the honour and the glory of the Academy, it was under Mr. Coates' enlightened direction, fulfilled the expressed wish of Benjamin West, the first honorary Academician, that "Philadelphia may be as much celebrated for her galleries of paintings by the native genius of the country, as she is distinguished by the virtues of her people. During World War I, Academy students were involved in war work. "About sixty percent of the young men enlisted or entered Government service, all of the young women and all the rest of the young men were directly or indirectly engaged in war work." A war service club was formed by students and a monthly publication, The Academy Fling, was sent to service members.
George Harding, a former PAFA student, was commissioned captain during the war and created official combat sketches for the American Expeditionary Forces. The 1844 Board of Directors' declaration that women artists "would have exclusive use of the statue gallery for professional purposes" and study time in the museum on Monday and Friday mornings signified a significant advance towards formal training in art for women. Prior to the founding of the Academy, there were limited opportunities for women to receive professional art training in the United States; this period between the mid-19th and early 20th centuries shows a remarkable growth of formally trained women artists. Sarah Miriam Peale was an American portrait painter, considered the first American woman to succeed as a professional artist. Sarah Miriam Peale was accepted to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1824 along with her sister Anna Claypoole Peale, the first women to achieve this distinction. Peale exhibited her first full-size portrait at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1818.
Six years she and her sister Anna Claypoole Peale, a miniaturist, became the first two female members of the Academy, an enormously inf
Public Ledger (Philadelphia)
The Public Ledger was a daily newspaper in Philadelphia, published from March 25, 1836 to January 1942. Its motto was "Virtue Liberty and Independence". For a time, it was Philadelphia's most popular newspaper, it operated a syndicate, the Ledger Syndicate, from 1915 until 1946. Founded by William Moseley Swain, Arunah S. Abell, Azariah H. Simmons, edited by Swain, the Public Ledger was the first penny paper in Philadelphia. At that time most papers sold for five cents or more, a high price which limited their appeal to only the reasonably well-off. Swain and Abell drew on the success of the New York Herald, one of the first penny papers and decided to use a one cent cover price to appeal to a broad audience, they mimicked the Herald's use of bold headlines to draw sales. The formula was a success and the Ledger posted a circulation of 15,000 in 1840, growing to 40,000 a decade later. To put this into perspective, the entire circulation of all newspapers in Philadelphia was estimated at only 8,000 when the Ledger was founded.
The Ledger was a technological innovator as well. It was the first daily to make use of a pony express, among the first papers to use the electromagnetic telegraph. From 1846, it was printed on the first rotary printing press. By the early 1860s, The Ledger was a money-losing operation, squeezed by rising paper and printing costs, it had lost circulation by supporting the Copperhead Policy of opposing the American Civil War and advocating an immediate peace settlement with the Confederate States of America. Most readers in Philadelphia at the time supported the Union, although there was a strong contingent of Southern sympathizers and families with ties to the South, as Southerners had long had second homes in Philadelphia and sent their daughters to finishing schools there. In the face of declining circulation, publishers were reluctant to increase the one-cent subscription cost, although it was needed to cover the costs of production. In December 1864, the paper was sold to George William Childs and Anthony J. Drexel for a reported $20,000.
Upon buying the paper, Childs changed its policy and methods. He changed the editorial policy to the Loyalist line, raised advertising rates, doubled the cover price to two cents. After an initial drop, circulation rebounded and the paper resumed profitability. Childs was involved in all operations of the paper, from the press room to the composing room, he intentionally upgraded the quality of advertisements appearing in the publication to suit a higher-end readership. Childs's efforts bore fruit and the Ledger became one of the most influential journals in the country. Circulation growth led the firm to outgrow its facilities. Designed by architect John McArthur, Jr. the building had at its corner a larger-than-life-sized statue of Benjamin Franklin by Joseph A. Bailly, which Childs had commissioned; the quality and profitability of the Ledger improved dramatically. By 1894, The New York Times described it as "...the finest newspaper office in the country." Toward the end of Child's leadership, the Ledger was estimated to generate profits of $500,000 per year.
In 1870, Mark Twain mocked the Ledger for its rhyming obituaries, in a piece entitled "Post-Mortem Poetry", in his column for The Galaxy: There is an element about some poetry, able to make physical suffering and death cheerful things to contemplate and consummations to be desired. In 1902, Adolph Ochs, owner of The New York Times, bought the paper from Drexel's estate for a reported $2.25 million. He merged it with the Philadelphia Times, installed his brother George as editor. Oakes served as editor until 1914. In 1913, Cyrus H. K. Curtis purchased the paper from Ochs for $2 million and hired his step son-in-law John Charles Martin as editor. Curtis was owner of Ladies' Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post, his intention was to establish the Ledger as Philadelphia's premier newspaper, which he achieved by buying and closing several competing papers: the Philadelphia Evening Telegraph, the Philadelphia North American, The Philadelphia Press among them. Philadelphia went from a peak of 13 papers in 1900 to seven in 1920, a time when the newspaper industry in the United States was consolidating in general.
Under Curtis' ownership, the conservative appearance of the Ledger was increased: it avoided bold headlines and printed photographs on the front page. Its conservative format has been compared by scholars to the Wall Street Journal or New York Times of the twentieth century. Curtis built the Ledger's foreign news service and syndicated it to other papers via his Ledger Syndicate. From 1918 to 1921, former President William Howard Taft was on staff as an editorial contributor. To broaden the market, compete against The Evening Bulletin, in 1914 Curtis began publishing the Evening Public Ledger, a bolder paper designed to appeal to a broader public; the Ledger suffered by competition from an ascendant The Evening Bulletin, which under publisher William L. McLean grew in size from 12 pages in 1900 to 28 pages in 1920, from circulation of 6,000 to a leadership position of over 500,000 readers in the same time; the Bulletin's bolder and more commercial approach attracted additional advertising, which in turn drew more readers.
Advertising, which comprised only 1/3 of the Bulletin in 1900, grew to nearly 3/4 of its pages in 1920. At the same time, the circulation at the Ledger stagnated. Curtis built a new Public Ledger
George Washington (Bailly)
George Washington is a statue of George Washington, by Joseph A. Bailly at Independence Hall, Philadelphia on Chestnut street between 5th and 6th streets; the white marble original, installed on the north side of Independence Hall, was dedicated on July 2, 1869, by mayor Daniel M. Fox, it is now located in Philadelphia City Hall. A bronze replica replaced the original, was dedicated in October 1910. List of monuments dedicated to George Washington List of public art in Philadelphia
Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Smithsonian American Art Museum is a museum in Washington, D. C. part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's largest and most inclusive collections of art, from the colonial period to the present, made in the United States; the museum has more than 7,000 artists represented in the collection. Most exhibitions take place in the museum's main building, the old Patent Office Building, while craft-focused exhibitions are shown in the Renwick Gallery; the museum provides electronic resources to schools and the public through its national education program. It maintains seven online research databases with more than 500,000 records, including the Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture that document more than 400,000 artworks in public and private collections worldwide. Since 1951, the museum has maintained a traveling exhibition program; the Smithsonian American Art Museum has had many names over the years—Smithsonian Art Collection, National Gallery of Art, National Collection of Fine Arts, National Museum of American Art.
The museum adopted its current name in October 2000. The collection, begun in 1829, was first on display in the original Smithsonian Building, now nicknamed the "Castle"; the collection grew as the Smithsonian buildings grew, the collection was housed in one or more Smithsonian buildings on the National Mall. By the 1920s, space had become critical: "Collections to the value of several millions of dollars are in storage or temporarily on exhibition and are crowding out important exhibits and producing a congested condition in the Natural History, Industrial Arts, Smithsonian Buildings". In 1924, architect Charles A. Platt – who designed the 1918 Freer Gallery for the Smithsonian – drew up preliminary plans for a National Gallery of Art to be built on the block next to the Natural History Museum. However, this building was never constructed; the Smithsonian American Art Museum first opened to the public in its current location in 1968 when the Smithsonian renovated the Old Patent Office Building in order to display its collection of fine art.
American Art's main building, the Old Patent Office Building, is a National Historic Landmark located in Washington, D. C.'s downtown cultural district. It is considered an example of Greek Revival architecture in the United States, it was designed by architects Robert Mills, Thomas U. Walter. During the 1990s, the Smithsonian Institution worked on restoring the building; the Smithsonian completed another renovation of the building in July 1, 2006. The 2000-2006 renovation restored many of the building’s exceptional architectural features: restoring the porticos modeled after the Parthenon in Athens, a curving double staircase, vaulted galleries, large windows, skylights as long as a city block. During the renovation, the Lunder Conservation Center, the Luce Foundation Center for American Art, Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium, the Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard were added to the building. In 2008, the American Alliance of Museums awarded reaccreditation to the Smithsonian American Art Museum; the Smithsonian American Art Museum shares the historic Old Patent Office building with the National Portrait Gallery, another Smithsonian museum.
Although the two museums' names have not changed, they are collectively known as the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture. Under the auspices of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Renwick Gallery is a smaller, historic building on Pennsylvania Avenue across the street from the White House; the building housed the collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. In addition to displaying a large collection of American contemporary craft, several hundred paintings from the museum’s permanent collection — hung salon style: one-atop-another and side-by-side — are featured in special installations in the Grand Salon. Part of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum has a broad variety of American art, with more than 7,000 artists represented, that covers all regions and art movements found in the United States. SAAM contains the world's largest collection of New Deal art. Among the significant artists represented in its collection are Nam June Paik, Jenny Holzer, David Hockney, Georgia O'Keeffe, John Singer Sargent, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Albert Bierstadt, Edmonia Lewis, Thomas Moran, James Gill, Edward Hopper, John William "Uncle Jack" Dey, Karen LaMonte and Winslow Homer.
SAAM describes itself as being "dedicated to collecting and enjoying American art. The museum celebrates the extraordinary creativity of artists whose works reflect the American experience and global connections." The American Art's main building contains public spaces. The museum has two innovative public spaces; the Luce Foundation Center for American Art is a visible art storage and study center, which allows visitors to browse more than 3,300 works of the collection. The Lunder Conservation Center is "the first art conservation facility to allow the public permanent behind-the-scenes views of the preservation work of museums"; the Luce Foundation Center, which opened in July 2000, is the first visible art storage and study center in Washington, D. C. and the fourth center to bear the Luce Family
Academy of Music (Philadelphia)
The Academy of Music known as American Academy of Music, is a concert hall and opera house located at 240 S. Broad Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, its location is between Manning Streets in the Avenue of the Arts area of Center City. The hall was built in 1855–57 and is the oldest opera house in the United States, still used for its original purpose. Known as the "Grand Old Lady of Locust Street," the venue is the home of the Pennsylvania Ballet and Opera Philadelphia, it was home to the Philadelphia Orchestra from its inception in 1900 until 2001, when the orchestra moved to the new Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. The Philadelphia Orchestra still retains ownership of the Academy; the hall was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962. The Academy of Music held an inaugural ball on January 26, 1857. At the time The New York Times described the theater as "magnificently gorgeous, brilliantly lighted, solidly constructed, finely located, beautifully ornamented" but went on to lament "all that lacks is a few singers to render it'the thing'."
The theatre had its first opera production, what was billed as its formal opening, a month on February 25, 1857, with a performance by the Max Maretzek Italian Opera Company of Verdi's Il trovatore starring Marietta Gazzaniga as Leonora, Alessandro Amodio as Count di Luna, Zoë Aldini as Azucena, Pasquale Brignoli as Manrico, Max Maretzek conducting. Maretzek, presenting operas at the Academy of Music in New York City and at the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia since 1850, brought his company back annually to the Academy of Music in Philadelphia through 1873. Due to his association with both the Philadelphia and New York City Academy of Music venues, his company was sometimes referred to as the Academy of Music Opera Company; the Academy has been in continuous use since 1857, hosting many world-famous performers and composers, a significant number of American premieres of works in the standard operatic and classical repertoire. Noted operas that had their American premieres there include Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos, Gounod's Faust, Wagner's The Flying Dutchman.
In 1916, Leopold Stokowski conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in the American premiere of Mahler's Eighth Symphony. The list of artists who have performed at the Academy of Music, from the 20th century, includes such figures as Marian Anderson, Maria Callas, Enrico Caruso, Aaron Copland, Vladimir Horowitz, Gustav Mahler, Anna Pavlova, Edith Piaf, Luciano Pavarotti, Tony Bennett, Itzhak Perlman, Leontyne Price, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Artur Rubinstein, Isaac Stern, Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky, Joan Sutherland, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, among many others. After the Philadelphia Orchestra moved to the Kimmel Center, the 21st century brought more non-classical artists to the Academy, among them Noel Gallagher who appeared there in 2011. Outside of arts events, it hosted various public meetings including the 1872 Republican National Convention. America's first indoor football game took place here in 1889 between the University of Pennsylvania and a club from Princeton resulting in a 0-0 tie.
In addition, parts of Martin Scorsese's 1993 film The Age of Innocence were filmed in the Academy. Despite its name, the Academy has never contained a music school. Various voice and instrumental competitions have taken place there, including the Pavarotti competition. An architectural competition for the Academy's design was announced in October 1854 and was won by the Philadelphia firm of Napoleon LeBrun and Gustavus Runge. A style of architecture that originated in Runge's native Germany now known as Rundbogenstil was used for the exterior here and in a number of American buildings of the Civil War Era; the groundbreaking ceremony was held on June 18, 1855, with President Franklin Pierce in attendance and the venue opened with a grand ball on January 26, 1857. The first opera performed there was the Western Hemisphere premiere of Giuseppe Verdi's Il Trovatore, on February 25 of the same year. In order to reserve as much of the budget for the interior as possible, the architects designed a plain brick and brownstone exterior that could be clad in marble if funds became available later.
The ornate auditorium has an "open horseshoe" shape and proscenium columns with elliptical cross-sections in order to provide more direct sight lines from the seats in the side balconies. The auditorium is enclosed by a solid three-foot brick wall with studding and pine boards lining the inner sides to prevent echoes and absorb sound; the upper balconies are supported by 14 Corinthian columns. An unusual feature was that the boxes were placed against the rear wall on the second and third levels, they were divided from each other by walls. These have since been removed and boxes created elsewhere; the front of the first balcony is ornamented. The hall has a seating capacity of 2,389 which can be expanded to 2,509 when seats are placed in the orchestra pit and proscenium boxes. An 1860 account by Runge mentioned that the full auditorium nearly 3,000 persons, could be emptied in four minutes in "great calmness and order" owing to the wide corridors and stairways; the auditorium is graced by a large crystal chandelier, which measures 16 ft in diameter, weighs 5,000 lb.
When installed, the chandelier contained 240 gas jets, which were converted to electricity in 1900, rewired in 1957. That same year, it was fitted with an electric-powered winch, it required 12 people working four-hours to lower it by hand. The fixture was restored to its original form and missing crystals
Independence Hall
Independence Hall is the building where both the United States Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were debated and adopted. It is now the centerpiece of the Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; the building was completed in 1753 as the Pennsylvania State House, served as the capitol for the Province and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania until the state capital moved to Lancaster in 1799. It became the principal meeting place of the Second Continental Congress from 1775 to 1783 and was the site of the Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1787. A convention held in Independence Hall in 1915, presided over by former US president William Howard Taft, marked the formal announcement of the formation of the League to Enforce Peace, which led to the League of Nations and the United Nations; the building is part of Independence National Historical Park and is listed as a World Heritage Site. By the spring of 1729, the citizens of Philadelphia were petitioning to be allowed to build a state house.
2,000 pounds were committed to the endeavor. A committee composed of Thomas Lawrence, Dr. John Kearsley, Andrew Hamilton was charged with the responsibility of selecting a site for construction, acquiring plans for the building, contracting a company for construction of the building. Hamilton and William Allen were named trustees of the purchasing and building fund and authorized to buy the land that would be the site of the state house. By October 1730 they had begun purchasing lots on Chestnut Street. By 1732 though Hamilton had acquired the deed for Lot no. 2 from surveyor David Powell, paid for his work with the lot, tensions were rising among the committee members. Dr. John Kearsley and Hamilton disagreed on a number of issues concerning the state house. Kearsley, credited with the designs of both Christ Church and St. Peter's Church, had plans for the structure of the building, but so did Hamilton; the two men disagreed on the building's site. Lawrence said nothing on the matter. Matters reached a point.
On August 8, 1733, Hamilton brought the matter before the House of Representatives. He explained that Kearsley did not approve of Hamilton's plans for the location and architecture of the state house and went on to insist the House had not agreed to these decisions. In response to this, Hamilton, on August 11, showed his plans for the state house to the House, who accepted them. On August 14, the House sided with Hamilton, granting him full control over the project, the site on the south side of Chestnut Street between Fifth and Sixth Streets was chosen for the location of the state house. Ground was broken for construction soon after. Independence Hall touts a red brick facade, designed in Georgian style, it consists of a central building with belltower and steeple, attached to two smaller wings via arcaded hyphens. The highest point to the tip of the steeple spire is 7 1⁄4 inches above the ground; the State House was built between 1732 and 1751, designed by Edmund Woolley and Andrew Hamilton, built by Woolley.
Its construction was commissioned by the Pennsylvania colonial legislature which paid for construction as funds were available, so it was finished piecemeal. It was inhabited by the colonial government of Pennsylvania as its State House, from 1732 to 1799. In 1752, when Isaac Norris was selecting a man to build the first clock for the State House, today known as Independence Hall, he chose Thomas Stretch, the son of Peter Stretch his old friend and fellow council member, to do the job. In 1753 Thomas Stretch erected a giant clock at the building's west end; the 40-foot-tall limestone base was capped with a 14-foot wooden case surrounding the clock's face, carved by Samuel Harding. The giant clock was removed about 1830; the clock's dials were mounted at the east and west ends of the main building connected by rods to the clock movement in the middle of the building. The acquisition of the original clock and bell by the Pennsylvania Colonial Assembly is related to the acquisition of the Liberty Bell.
By mid-1753, the clock had been installed in the State House attic, but six years were to elapse before Thomas Stretch received any pay for it. While the shell of the central portion of the building is original, the side wings and much of the interior were reconstructed. In 1781, the Pennsylvania Assembly had the wooden steeple removed from the main building; the steeple had rotted and weakened to a dangerous extent by 1773, but it wasn't until 1781 that the Assembly had it removed and had the brick tower covered with a hipped roof. The original steeple was demolished due to structural problems in 1781. A more elaborate steeple, designed by William Strickland, was added in 1828; the original wings and hyphens were demolished and replaced in 1812. In 1898, these were in turn replaced with reconstructions of the original wings; the building was renovated numerous times in the 20th century. The current interior is a mid-20th century reconstruction by the National Park Service with the public rooms restored to their 18th century appearance.
During the summer of 1973 a replica of the Thomas Stretch clock was restored to Independence Hall. The second floor Governor's Council Chamber, furnished with important examples of the era by the National Park Service, includes a musical tall case clock made by Peter Stretch, c 1740, one of the most prominent clockmakers in early America and father of Thomas Stretch. Two smaller buildings adjoin the wings of Independence Hall: Old City Hall to the east, Congress Hall to the west; these three buildings are togeth
Fairmount Park
Fairmount Park is the largest municipal park in Philadelphia and the historic name for a group of parks located throughout the city. Fairmount Park consists of two park sections named East Park and West Park, divided by the Schuylkill River, with the two sections together totalling 2,052 acres. Management of Fairmount Park and the entire citywide park system is overseen by Philadelphia Parks & Recreation, a city department created in 2010 from the merger of the Fairmount Park Commission and the Department of Recreation. Many other city parks had been included in the Fairmount Park system prior to 2010, including Wissahickon Valley Park in Northwest Philadelphia, Pennypack Park in Northeast Philadelphia, Cobbs Creek Park in West Philadelphia, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park in South Philadelphia and 58 additional parks, plazas and public golf courses spread throughout the city. Since the 2010 merger, the term "Fairmount Park system" is no longer used by the Parks & Recreation department, the adjacent Wissahickon Valley Park and all other park areas are considered separate entities.
Fairmount Park, Philadelphia's first park, occupies 2,052 acres adjacent to the banks of the Schuylkill River. Since 2010, Philadelphia Parks & Recreation divides the original park into East and West Fairmount parks; the original domain of Fairmount Park consisted of three areas: "South Park" or the South Garden below the Fairmount Water Works extending to the Callowhill Street Bridge. The South Garden predated the establishment of the Park Commission in 1867, while Lemon Hill and Sedgeley were added in 1855–56. After the Civil War, work progressed on laying out West Park. In the 1870s, the Fairmount Park Commission expropriated properties along the Wissahickon Creek to extend Fairmount Park; the Schuylkill River Trail is a modern paved multi-use trail by Kelly Drive in the East Park. The Belmont Plateau Cross Country Course is located in the park; the 1923 and 1976 USA Cross Country Championships were held in the park. The park grew out of the Lemon Hill estate of Henry Pratt, whose land was owned by Robert Morris, signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Purchased by the city in 1844, the estate was dedicated to the public by city council's ordinance on September 15, 1855. A series of state and local legislative acts over the next three years increased the holdings of the city. In 1858, the city held a design competition to re-landscape Lemon Hill and Sedgeley for public use as the best way to better protect the city's water supply; as the site of the 1876 Centennial Exposition and the first zoo in the United States, the Philadelphia Zoo, Fairmount Park was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 7, 1972. The adjacent Wissahickon Valley Park, located to the immediate northwest, was included in the Fairmount Park NRHP registration document. Park properties include the Centennial Arboretum, a Horticulture Center, Fairmount Water Works, Memorial Hall, Shofuso Japanese House and Garden, Boathouse Row, Smith Memorial Playground and Playhouse, recreation centers, reservoirs and other pieces of art. Fairmount Park is home to a large collection of public art due to the efforts of the Association for Public Art, a non-profit organization founded in 1872 to embellish Fairmount Park with outdoor sculpture, including the Florentine Lions installed in 1887.
The Art Association continues to commission and care for a large number of sculptures, in coordination with the park and city. In 2007, the Art Association installed Iroquois by Mark di Suvero near the Philadelphia Museum of Art on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Mount Pleasant, built in 1762–65 for a Scottish ship captain named John Macpherson, is administered by the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Art Museum administers Cedar Grove Mansion, a house built in 1748–50 in what became the Frankford neighborhood of the city. Cedar Grove was relocated to the park in 1926–1928. Other historic houses in the park, listed by year of construction, include Boelson Cottage, The Lilacs, Letitia Street House, Ridgeland Mansion, Belmont Mansion, The Cliffs, Woodford Mansion, Hatfield House, Randolph House, Strawberry Mansion, The Solitude, Sweetbriar Mansion, Ormiston Mansion, Lemon Hill Mansion, Chamounix Mansion, Rockland Mansion, the Ohio House, built for the Centennial Exposition of 1876. Sedgeley Mansion was built in 1799 on Lemon Hill abandoned and demolished after being acquired through eminent domain by the city in 1857.
The Sedgeley property included a servant's cottage constructed of stone which still exists. The cottage was designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe and is presently known as the Sedgeley Porter's House. Philadelphia portal List of parks in Philadelphia Philadelphia Aquarium Subaru Cherry Blossom Festival of Greater Philadelphia Sedgley Woods Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club Fazio, Michael W; the Domestic Architecture of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Johns Hopkins University Press Moss, Roger W..
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