University of the Arts: The Community and The Collection

University of the Arts: The Community and The Collection

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania is honored to announce the acquisition of the University of the Arts (UArts) institutional records, ensuring the preservation of nearly 150 years of creative, academic, and cultural history. The acquisition follows the closure of UArts in June 2024, a sudden and painful loss for Philadelphia’s cultural and educational landscape. It is now the single largest collection in HSP’s 200-year history.
The UArts archives include administrative records, such as meeting minutes and accreditation files, exhibition programs, slides, photographs, negatives, A/V materials (cassettes, VHS tapes, CDs, and digital files), architectural drawings, admissions, catalogs, annual reports, and other original creative and scholarly works by students, faculty, staff, visiting artists, and affiliated scholars.