Here at 1681 N. Sixth St., you face the Pennsylvania State Archives, the official archives for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Administered as part of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, the Archives sits here in the state capital of Harrisburg as a part of the Pennsylvania State Capitol Complex. Its mission is plain and steady: to acquire, preserve, and make available for study the permanently valuable public records of the Commonwealth, with special attention to the records of state government.
It also collects private papers relevant to Pennsylvania history, so the building guards both public and personal memory. The institution you face was created in 1903 as the Division of Public Records in the State Library; in 1945 it was combined with the State Museum and the Pennsylvania Historical Commission to form what became the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. When you stand here, imagine the steady work of catalogers and archivists preserving documents that tell the state’s story.
Catalogers and archivists work behind these walls, keeping the Commonwealth's permanently valuable public records alongside private papers relevant to Pennsylvania history.