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Pat Stopper collection on Northeast Philadelphia history
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Held at: Friends of Northeast Philadelphia History [Contact Us]8732 Krewstown Rd, Philadelphia, PA, 19115
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Friends of Northeast Philadelphia History. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Born Patricia Worthington in 1928 into a family whose roots in Northeast Philadelphia go back over 300 years, Pat Worthington Stopper spent many years collecting, preserving, and sharing local history. A longtime resident of the Bustleton neighborhood, she has researched and written extensively about the neighborhoods of Bustleton, Somerton, and Byberry, and has given presentations to schools, libraries, and historical groups.
In the early 1990s Pat Stopper was a founding member of the Northeast Philadelphia History Project. She is the author of the books A Pictorial Glimpse into the Past: Bustleton-Somerton-Byberry (1995) and A Pictorial Glimpse into the Past: Bustleton-Somerton-Byberry II (1999), and a major contributor to Historical Northeast Philadelphia: Stories and Memories (1993) and Take a Trip Through Time: Northeast Philadelphia Revisited (1996). After her books were published, Pat, along with her husband Fred Stopper, began doing speaking engagements and public presentations about the past for schools, libraries, and other educational programs.
Pat Stopper was also very active in researching and preserving the history of Pennepack Baptist Church, the oldest surviving Baptist church in Pennsylvania.
Bibliography:
"Pat Worthington Stopper, NE Philadelphia Historian/Author." Draft biography provided by Friends of Northeast Philadelphia History, June 2014.
This collection consists of scrapbooks assembled by Pat Stopper, as well as maps, audio and video recordings, and photographs she collected.
Scrapbooks compiled by Pat Stopper form the bulk of this collection. Focusing on Northeast Philadelphia history, specifically the neighborhoods of Bustleton, Somerton, and Byberry, the scrapbooks are organized by neighborhood and topic. They consist of newspaper clippings, original and copies of original photographs (late 19th century and early 20th century, as well as some from the 1970s and more recent photos taken by Stopper), pamphlets, ephemera, narrative histories, photocopies of research articles on local history, real photo postcards, and some original documents, such as receipts.
There are 16 audiocassette tapes (1989-1993, 1998). Some of the tapes are of lectures and presentations (with slide scripts) on Northeast Philadelphia history done by Pat Stopper and others, but most of the tapes appear to be interviews conducted as research for Harry Silcox's book Historical Northeast Philadelphia: Stories and Memories (1993).
Also present in the collection are aerial photographs (1985) of Northeast Philadelphia neighborhoods with corresponding film negatives; several photocopied maps, especially atlas plates; and a VHS videocassette tape (probably of a lecture/presentation).
Gift of Pat Stopper, 2013.
Summary descriptive information on this collection was compiled in 2012-2014 as part of a project conducted by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania to make better known and more accessible the largely hidden collections of small, primarily volunteer run repositories in the Philadelphia area. The Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories (HCI-PSAR) was funded by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
This is a preliminary finding aid. No physical processing, rehousing, reorganizing, or folder listing was accomplished during the HCI-PSAR project.
In some cases, more detailed inventories or finding aids may be available on-site at the repository where this collection is held; please contact Friends of Northeast Philadelphia History directly for more information.
People
Organization
Subject
Place
- Publisher
- Friends of Northeast Philadelphia History
- Finding Aid Author
- Finding aid prepared by Celia Caust-Ellenbogen and Sarah Leu through the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories
- Sponsor
- This preliminary finding aid was created as part of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories. The HCI-PSAR project was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
- Access Restrictions
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Contact Friends of Northeast Philadelphia History for information about accessing this collection.