February 24, 2026
Provided Image/Penn Medicine
In May, the Pine Building (above) at Pennsylvania Hospital will open as a museum that details the institution's 275-year history.
As Pennsylvania Hospital creates a museum to honor its storied history, lead archivist Stacey Peeples said she hopes to help visitors understand the institution's reputation of caring for people.
"I hope that when people walk out, they feel that they have learned something about compassion," Peeples said.
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This year, the hospital celebrate its 275th anniversary, which coincides with the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. With that in mind, Penn Medicine plans to open the Pennsylvania Hospital Museum in May in the Pine Building, where the hospital accepted its first patients in 1756.
The Pine Building has been available for tours in the past, but Peeples said the museum will offer a more in-depth look at the hospital's history.
"If you've come and you've done a tour at the hospital before, and I've had many people who've come back for several tours, this is going to be completely different, and you should absolutely come back again," Peeples said.
The museum will include eight primary exhibits positioned on three floors. The first floor will trace Penn Hospital's history, beginning with its founding by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Bond, a surgeon who later helped establish the Continental Army's medical department. It will detail the hospital's roles in the the American Revolution, the Spanish-American War and World War I and II, and its response to outbreaks ranging from smallpox and cholera to HIV/AIDS and COVID-19. There also will be a replica of an apothecary that formerly was in the building.
The second floor will showcase the hospital's historic library, which opened in 1807, and will include recreations of the rare texts housed on the shelves. Additional exhibits will focus on Penn Hospital's roles in women's health and behavioral health. The hospital opened the first maternity ward in 1803, and former staffer Benjamin Rush, who signed the Declaration, was hugely influential in American psychiatry.
The third floor will include a surgical amphitheater, with old surgical tools and amputating kits. A computer screen will display various autopsy images, allowing people to click on a certain parts of the body to see how some surgeries work.
Penn Medicine initially sought to create a pop-up museum, but ultimately the health system decided to move offices from the Pine Building and make the museum a permanent attraction.
In researching the hospital's past, Peeples said she's come across stories of the cooks, nurses, laundresses and other workers who contributed to the building's daily upkeep. She said the museum offers an opportunity to recognize people who otherwise might be lost to time.
The history of Penn hospital also is important from a modern standpoint. As the first chartered hospital in the country, Peeples said, it shaped Philadelphia and led to the medical industry playing such a prominent role in the city.
"I honestly think that it is such a Philadelphia story," Peeples said. "Really, the heart of the institution I think is is very much about Philadelphia."
The Pennsylvania Hospital Museum will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Fridays. Admission will be $12, with discounts for students under 12, seniors over 65 and military members.
