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Introduction

The Philadelphia Commercial Museum was a museum dedicated to instructing businessmen, students, and the general public on international culture and commerce. Opened in 1897 at 34th and South Streets in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Commercial Museum was the turn of the century United States’ greatest resource for international trade information, essentially serving the role of the not-yet-existent federal International Trade Administration. Despite its enormous contributions to early 20th century history, the museum faded from the public memory, overshadowed by the adjacent Civic Center, and eventually surrendering its role in history by taking the name “Civic Center Museum.” In its waning years, the museum closed to the general public, reaching audiences solely composed of schoolchildren, teaching them about local and global culture and commerce.

Formation/Early Years

The Philadelphia Cultural Museum came into existence during the era of the great World’s Fair celebrations. Designed as displays of mankind’s triumphs of engineering, design, architecture, and ingenuity, the World’s Fairs ran for months on end and showcased machinery, textiles, and engineering marvels, such as the first Ferris Wheel. At the height of America’s industrialization, these fairs served as the major demonstrator of progress for many individuals, with millions crossing the ticket gate to see for themselves just how far technology had advanced since the previous fair. Among these many visitors was Dr. William P. Wilson, a botanist employed by the University of Pennsylvania, who visited Chicago's 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and was struck by the importance and potential of the exhibits surrounding him.

The Philadelphia Commercial Museum.

At this time in American history, businesses in the United States was beginning to realize the importance of competing in the global marketplace; however, they found themselves painfully shorthanded in their ability to do so. In the late 19th century, there was no federal agency devoted to international trade; any individual wishing to sell goods overseas had to do all the groundwork independently, an insurmountable challenge to most. Industries seeking to sell products had no knowledge of foreign markets, and were lagging far behind the European and Asian nations that had been exchanging goods for centuries. Surveying the exhibits of raw materials and goods displayed before him, Dr. Wilson felt that the World’s Fairs contained the root of the solution to America’s problem. He saw the exhibits as a traveling classroom on world commerce, and theorized that with such a resource permanently kept in one place, anchored by an authoritative commercial library, Americans would be able to catch up with the rest of the world and become a major force in international trade. With this goal in mind, Dr. Wilson, with the assistance of University of Pennsylvania Provost Dr. William Pepper, purchased nearly every exhibit held at the Chicago World’s Fair. These materials were loaded onto a line of twenty-four railroad cars, and shipped back to Philadelphia, where it would form an institution that quickly and significantly impacted American international entrepreneurship . Opening its doors to the public in 1897 and formally dedicated in 1899 (in conjunction with the Philadelphia-hosted National Export Exposition), the Philadelphia Commercial Museum immediately became the pre-eminent source of international trade information for enterprising individuals. Writing in 1900, economics specialist W. Colgrove Betts passionately expounded upon the usefulness of the museum:

"Where else in the United States could you learn at the shortest notice what shape of butcher’s knife was preferred in Servia, or how tenpenny nails had to be wrapped up in order to suit the requirements of Beyrouth; whose brand of condensed milk was in favor in Colombo, or whose make of agricultural forks were being used in Argentina...? Was there any demand for oilcloth in Brazil? What would be the freight on forty brass bedsteads ordered from Rangoon? How would you write 'Handle with care' in Russian?"

The Commercial Museum's Height of Influence

To the turn-of-the-century globally-minded entrepreneur, the Philadelphia Commercial Museum, with its collection of raw and manufactured goods and vast library of international trade and market reports, represented a unique and essential resource in getting the information they needed to expand their business. Working with over forty international governments, and offering the rare luxury of an in-house translation department to decipher critical foreign trade reports, the museum and its library –known as the Bureau of Information—helped many Americans expand their business. However, the scope of the museum’s assistance was not limited to aiding domestic capitalists. The museum also offered free information to foreign industries hoping to gain a footing in the United States, and published a monthly magazine on American goods, Commercial America, for the international markets. The museum expanded quickly over the next twenty years, growing to eventually reside within a sprawling, five-building campus that included longtime Philadelphia landmark Convention Hall. (Additionally, admission to the museum was always free, quickly making it a popular destination for school groups.) As World’s Fairs came and went, the exhibitions were shuttled back to the Commercial Museum, which came to be considered the unofficial museum of the World’s Fair. As the museum became internationally renowned for its role in trade, foreign countries began seeking to connect with the institution, recognizing its importance as the liaison between their own countries and American commerce. The museum received numerous gifts from these countries, including musical instruments, works of art, weaponry, sculpture, and clothing, which were displayed alongside commercial materials in large galleries grouped by country. In a telling example of the Commercial Museum’s presumed authority on commerce and World’s Fairs, museum director Dr. Wilson was commissioned to create a massive exhibit on Filipino life and industry for the 1909 Fair. The “Philippine Exhibit” proved to be the largest-drawing attraction of the Fair, due no doubt in large part to the inclusion of a living diorama of tribal society, put on by over 1,200 live Filipinos. The inanimate pieces of the exhibit returned and comprised the Philippine collection of the museum.

Decline

By the 1920’s, international trade was thriving in the United States, yet the decade would mark the beginning of the Commercial Museum’s steady decline into irrelevancy, a slide punctuated by three major factors, beginning with the creep of the federal government into its domain. The US Department of Commerce, content in previous years to allow the museum’s Bureau of Information to handle much of the information needs of the public, expanded dramatically under its leader at the time, Herbert Hoover. Heavily patterned from the methods used by the Commercial Museum’s Bureau of Information, the International Trade Administration was developed, and took over many of the duties previously covered by the museum. While the library continued to collect material, it became a less important resource for business professionals both home and abroad. Secondly, public interest had begun to wane in the World’s Fair exhibitions, particularly in the wake of the First World War, which showed many people the more brutal side of technological advancement. Finally, the Commercial Museum was dealt its worst blow in 1926 with the death of founder and director Dr. William Wilson. The museum was his dream, and nobody seemed able to follow in his footsteps with the same enthusiasm and drive he brought to the institution. These factors, combined with the lack of production that followed the arrival of the Great Depression, gradually pushed the museum into obscurity. Collections went untouched by curatorial staff, and the museum slid from the public memory.

Attempts to Reinvent the Museum

An attempt came in the late 1950’s to revitalize the museum and its surrounding area, through the idea of a new public space. This space, dubbed the Civic Center, would incorporate the museum and already-existing Convention Hall and update it with hopes of drawing trade shows, national conferences, and sporting and entertainment events. The museum and its library, fallen into organizational and structural disrepair, was dramatically downsized, then restored and repackaged as part of the Philadelphia Civic Center and renamed the Civic Center Museum. Though some remnants of the international collections continued to be shown, the museum took on a decidedly more local focus, with a large replica of the city designed as a feature exhibit. This display, titled "Philadelphia Panorama," was meant to be updated continuously to show the growth of the city. However, despite these efforts, the panorama and the museum itself would only enjoy fleeting relevancy. While the museum hosted a trio of successful temporary festival-style international showcases between 1958 and 1961, the permanent museum collections remained neglected and static. The completion of the Spectrum in South Philadelphia diverted much of the business from the Civic Center and Convention Hall, a major source of foot traffic to the Civic Center Museum. Interest in the museum gradually tapered off, with the Civic Center Museum finally closing to the public in 1982. Portions of the collection were relocated to the Port of History Museum (current site of the Independence Seaport Museum), where the displays attracted as little as 15,000 visitors per year. Back at the main building, from 1982 to 1994, the Civic Center Museum functioned solely as an educational center, visited by schoolchildren from the surrounding states. The museum was extremely popular with these groups, as it was one of the few museums that allowed and encouraged the visitors to touch and play with many of the materials contained within the collections Philadelphia Inquirer 21 February 1994.. However, the appreciation of schools was not enough to keep the museum going, and in 1999 the city determined that the property was to be razed, and all remaining collection materials stored or dispersed, with most going to Philadelphia-area museums. Using the Orphans' Court Division of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, the land was released from the public trust and sold.

Educational Role in the Community

Even though the Philadelphia Commercial Museum ended its life as an educational center for children, classroom enrichment and student outreach were considered major focuses of the museum from its earliest years. It did not take long for local teachers to realize the boon of having such a museum accessible and free of charge, and they quickly came in droves to visit its halls. By the 1920’s the school crowds became so overwhelming the city appointed two full-time teachers to serve as class instructors for the museum, positions that existed until the last day of operations in 1994. Founder Dr. Wilson encouraged school use of the museum, believing that the early exposure of students to international trade would make for better entrepreneurs in later years. From the museum’s earliest years in the 1890’s, Wilson held evening classes for Philadelphia teachers, instructing them in how to use the museum and its content to better teach their students. Wilson even accommodated rural districts, packaging extra samples of textiles and raw materials in custom-made cabinets for Pennsylvania schools that could not make it to Philadelphia. In the 97 years of its operation, the Commercial Museum was visited by generations of Philadelphia-area students. In its final year, the museum drew over 40,000 schoolchildren to its halls, proving that it had not been forgotten by all.

Further information

History of the site of the Commercial Museum

Commercial Museum photo album, circa 1910

Commercial Museum timeline