LABOR COLLECTIONS AT THE URBAN ARCHIVES CENTER, TEMPLE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES.

The Urban Archives Center at Temple University was established in 1967 by a member of the History Department to document the lives of common urban dwellers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Instead of collecting the papers of well-known figures, these new social history archives acquired manuscript collections that represented services provided to working-class people. Typical collections include the records of housing, minority, educational reform, social welfare; and labor organizations. Currently, the Urban Archives Center serves as the research base of the newly established Center for Public History which is jointly administered by the library system of the and the History Department of the Temple University. The Archives is one component of the Center for Public History, which also offers courses in applied history through the History Department, programs with the Philadelphia Board of Education, and conferences on various aspects of public history. One of the Center's most important acquisitions of the last few years is the records of the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. Acquired through the Center's participation in the Penn Central Railroad Appraisal Project, the collection now comprises one of the largest collections of organizational records housed at the Temple University.