and then a nation contributor talks about her recent investigation and article on the resentencing of juveniles facing life in prison. join the discussion. here on c-span 3, american history tv continues with more american artifacts. coming up next a visit to arch street meeting house in philadelphia. and later a look at some of the items that'll be displayed in the national law enforcement museum, which is set to open next year in washington, d.c. the state of pngs was founded by quaker william penne. many quakers have lived and worship ever since. next a visit to arch street meeting house constructed in 1804 to learn the story of

philadelphia's society of friends and to learn about the history and practices of quakers. >> welcome to arch street meeting house. i'm the director here. today i'm going to talk a little bit about the building we're standing in, arch street meeting house and also a little bit about quakers. a lot of our visitors don't know much about the religion before they get here, which is an interesting issue. when you go on tour of perhaps a catholic church, one of those historic cathedrals people usually have background knowledge. so typically on our tours we answer question about whether or not they're amish people, puritans. so we do a little bit of that basic education. the arch street meeting house is the largest quaker meeting house in the united states and maybe the world. but we're look into it.

it was built in 1804, and the land that it was -- the property it's built on was deeded in 1701. at the beginning of our tours that we normally do with visitors and school groups, we have them look around this space. and we do a comparing of this site to other sites people are used to visiting because it is a little outside the norm. and we have people look around and say what's different here versus other religious sites they've been to. and a lot of times they notice there aren't large stained windows or candles or even a place for a deacon or priest to stand and give a sermon. and that's because quakers worship in a way different than most folks do. it is a christian religion, so

on a typical sunday this is still -- an active congregation meet here for worship. what happens here now and what happened 200 years ago is pretty similar. so people gather and sit in silence for an hour. quakers you've heard in history like susan b. anthony and william penne, they would meet in buildings similar to this and sit in silence for an hour. if anybody in the group or congregation felt the desire to stand up and share a message, if they felt moved to speak, they could rise from in the silence and share what they had to share. and a question we get often is what would the quakers have said during worship. and we like to throw it back to history because it's easier in a sight like this that susan b. anthony had when she had a message, it probably related to

human rights and rumen suffrage. we have records of some of the sermons and talks she was doing given worship, and they relate to abolition and urging other quakers to feel the same way she did about freeing slaves. and today it can vary. so back to the thing i said earlier about equality, adults and children are treated with equality as well. so i've been to a few meetings where children will stand up and give messages. so it can be moving to hear what they have to say about their experiences. in 1814 we know that there are about 600 members that worshipped here. and we can tell by the average number that they would have had children bhch so this room would have been filled with 600 or so adults sitting down here. and they probably had two kids

each. you can sort of extrapolate that. and it would have been filled to the rafters with quakers. nowadays when we have worship there's about 60 to 70 people who meet. back in 1814 when the children did worship, they were seated up stairs. and the boys would have been sat on that side of the room on those benches. and the girls would have been on the opposite side. they were separated by a big piece of wood, sort of -- it's not up there any longer. but it would have been in the center and it would have separated them. there were also adults up there making sure they were behaving appropriately in the space. another thing that is really interesting, quakers they say they're the original recyclers. if it wasn't broke, they didn't fix it. so we have a lautof the original components of this building

including on this staircase the girls would have walked up, it's called the mausy panel. so it's an extra piece of wood that would have shielded the view of their ankles as they would have walked up the steps to go to their area of worship. one thing i like to tell the visitors that they don't get to see a lot because they're not invited up stairs at this point, is there's grufitty on the benches. it's not spray paint, obviously. it's just carved into the wood. and it's predominantly on this side where the little boys would have been worshipping. it dates back from what i've seen 1819, and it appears it be in times new roman font. so time changes but not everything changes. a lot of things people ask us about are the benches in general. so you can see this room is filled with benches, and they don't all look the same. so some of them have the wide

slats at the back. other ones are a lot more narrow, basically just this part and not this part. and we've done a lot of work looking at the benches and the construction. and what we've learned is most of them were built with just the top slat and the bottom panel was atted for comfort later. so when the building was built in 1804, they had to sell-off other quaker meeting houses in order to afford to create such a large building that they did. so they just took the benches from other quaker meeting houses and brought them here. so other benches you're seeing in the background here, they predate the construction of the building. the earliest one we have is thought to be from 1685, and that's in a space where quakerscurrently can go worship. and they sit there on sundays if they so desire. and you also see the cushions.

so these are the original cushions that were here in 1804. however, they have been recovered. this pattern is not the original material on the outside. they just sort of keep zippering something over it. so we have the last version of the covering and pieces of the one before that. what's really exciting for visitors to here is the original horsehair is inside of these. so when you touch them, we ask the children sort of guess what's in there because it feels like hay and sounds like hay when you squish it. and you should hear the guesses. thore magnificent and creative but it's usually an adult who says horsehair. another thing we like to point out when talking about the architecture of the space, as i mentioned earlier is it's basically silence and everyone's equal. so everyone seated in this

entire space can stand and give a message. and it became obvious that hearing is an issue. if you're in a large meeting house like this one, a lot of meeting houses are smaller and probably not big a deal. but here it's so big they want everyone to hear everyone's message. so the person back there needs to be able to hear what that person was saying, and you needed to figure out how to do that. and this was before microphones existed. so they had to use letters between members of the meeting. and benjamin metrobe, they were discussing this issue. how do we improve the acoustics of the space? and he came up with what is at the front of this room. i read dissertations that scholars have written about this

particular feature because some other sites have it as well. and it's either called a sounding board or sounding panel. and the curved nature of the piece is supposed to make it so that the voices sort of just shoots the voices out throughout the entire building and makes it easier to hear. it also -- i've heard other people describe it that it sort of gathers voices as well, so that it works in two ways. but we need to do a lot more research on this particular piece. so this room, which we know as the west room, was used as the joint place where men and women had worship. there's also another space identically as large that used be outfitted with benches. but the benches were taken out in the 1930s when men and women started to meet together for all the functions of this building. they no longer needed two separate spaces. and that now is used as a

multipurpose space, and it's currently used for exhibits which are under construction. so now we're headed and now it used as a multi purpose space. this space is currently set up for a event that we had last weekend with the mayor's office. here the stones that were outside ounce on the ground. and you'll see later, the property's here, it's the first -- here as i mentioned. but what's visual is the iron headstones on the property. a lot of time people just walk through this beautiful park not realizing there's 20,000 bodies buried underneath their feet. the way that it works, the

burial grounds that was developed in 1950s they didn't use headstones. there's an actual quicker ruin that was set up and it says that brave souls were super serious which was a great word. and so, some peep still wanted headstones and you might see a few at some quaker burial brounds. what they i think up doing is taking existing headstones and laying them down and covering them with dirt. they're still out there on the property. we have come across a few of them, some of them -- in for safer keeping. here's a few of them, and one thing that i fine to be incredibly interesting is that, we've all been to the semiters where you can -- the person's name and -- but these look like

they were cut yesterday, and that's because this ruin that was passed about the headstones that happened in about the mid-1700s. it wouldn't out in the rain or in the weather before very long before it was covered over for completely side of a building. another interesting artifact that we have on sight is this wooden sled here and it's a -- sled and it would have been used on the property to bring the -- to their final resting place. and we've had some -- and they've said that it looks like it's from the great 1700s or 1800s. what we're standing in front of now was created in 1976. there were a lot of people coming to see and -- and tell them that founding of the city

and other things about history. so these here are the story of william penn. and right now they were being replaced and they're not finished but it's an interesting story to tell. so the first guy around the -- william penn really start to think about quaker as -- he learned about it and he's been -- for worship. he had some friends that are quaker and know that it's -- his father whose seated at the end of this table whose an admiral in the navy. by him becoming a quaker he was basically going against what his family and his father. so, it was a really difficult choice for him to make. -- his father that -- through religion that he could no longer

carry the sword. the next die rama is an image of william penn in jail. a lot of people are shocked when they hear that early quaker, even modern quakers do end up being jailed for their beliefs. here he's in prison, you can hear from other folks that there's women. and one of other folks we want to tell with this -- quaker who has been such as alice paul. she was in prison for speaking outside the white house for women suffrage. she wanted the right to vote and she was standing outside and she got -- there. and this is also sort of these experiences in prison also got quakers involved in prison reform movement. the penitentiary which is in pennsylvania, that was founded with help from wakers who had

these sort of experiences firsthand. the dye rama is william penn making a treaty. back to the -- william penn and other quakers viewed native americans as equal where other europeans in the united states may not have taken the same approach. this here is to tell that story of fair dealing with native americans and how that was different in pennsylvania versus other plays. this diagram tell the story of the family in pennsylvania. penn had a big -- in designer supervision f century. quakers would have preferred to have the may knotty of the treats after themselves but --

close to names. so in philadelphia you see there's -- and chestnut, the main roads are named after trees instead of people. now, walking around the other street tar named after quaker such as carrol street which is named after his first wife. pim bl ton street, one you start getting involved in history you can point them out. the original that we have right now star over here with this cloak. this cloak was created by a group of women of the houses industry. they were activists in philadelphia. they -- pick up arms, quaker arms after the yellow season epidemic. they notice there were a lot of women who are left widowed and had children to tack care of and how to help those women by surviving clothing and -- but

also to give women an opportunity to work. so the industry was active and the quilt that we have it's an emerald even though it's just a quilt but each individual thread is fined by a woman who was working with the industry and they were dealing with signature quilt. they were given it to the head matron what they called her when she was retiring. and in this next case, we have -- we're highlighting the work of a quaker artist, his nape was edward hip. some people might familiar with the network. what some people know about the quakers they were srch l and plain. edwin learned his passion for

life was art. it was in direct contrast with his religion. people saw that he was doing this work which -- it was dormant, it within just useful and that's what quakers were sort of in the habit of having. she was -- people sort of suggested that he become a farmer instead. these are people who were you know his mentors and elders in his worship community. he knew he still wanted to be a painter though. so, here's some examples, we were painting -- and you could see that he was self-trained but not extra flambeau yan. the -- that we saw -- other quakers but these we have the children's blocks that were hand

painted by -- and there was probably the beginning of the 1830s. as heard that there's only one other set that xis. so it's exactly rare and great that we have those. this brown-up image here is outside the meeting house on the bricks that pave the way out there. and this door is the door right next to us here. you'll see that there's a group of men here and they're standing outside the meeting house. one thing i'd like to point out to visitors is the difference. this must have been a pivotal moment in fashion history where some men were wearing rounded hats and then there were also these flat top hats. it's interesting to see the dynamic and to think about why he chose the round and why he chose the flat. i think with more research we'll share fashion historians know we

heard -- probably was from the early 1920s that these images were taken. in this case we have silhouettes. i think a lot of people are familiar with the silhouettes that a lot of children go to -- and get your silhouette made. quakers really embraced this art farm versus portrait chur. so this would have been seen as -- it takes time when you have to sit through a portrait. you're seated for a long amount of time which shows you have the time and -- so it was a -- of wealth and quakers they had a simple publicity and playing things and doing this which was useful. so silhouettes was more simple way of having a likeness of yourself created. these were a few examples that we chose to explain to tell that story.

and this one here, we have a -- so a lot of people know -- and ablish insist. some of the others is interesting they chose to depict themselves holding plants. this young girl in the center, she is quite hard to make out here but she actually has a crutch. you can see a little piece hanging. that's a crutch. it's really interesting, once you start to look deeper you do see all these details that's what these people really were. the next case here is about the construction of the meeting house. so what i had mentioned, the meeing house is built by a quaker named owen dit ls junior. in 1904 you didn't just do

architecture school, he referred to him as a builder. we have tools he left inside the billing, they have officials on h them. the initials say o. biddle. this image right here shows you it was that top rectangular box, they were doing rest tradition like in the 1960s they sort of fell off on to the restoration workers. we've heard sin then the early builders would leave tools as sort of their calling card saying i was here, this is my work. we have them on display. now, some of the original nails but we also have the plans of the buildings here when is the production of course. it shows -- these look a lot

different than the blueprints you see nowadays but you can see how he laid it out, all the graphs that he bill into the design of the space. down here are some cometicly large keys that goes to different places. this is the front door key originally. another thing that owen biddle is famous for is writing a book called young carpenters. there was a lack of real educational schools for other people to learn how to do this sort of work beyond just a -- so he wrote one of these first reference books to teach people how to do construction work. so, this right here is an example that was taken directly from his book and the pillar looks like the pillars that we

have here. often when people enter this property there is a brick wall above and beyonding it. one they come around this wall they're surprised how large the building is. it's hard to capture with photography because it's so long, it barely fits into the frame. you notice on the front it's really plain out here, it's not fancy, it doesn't have as many stories as some of the other billion dollarings billi buildings in philadelphia. the worship community that meets here on sunday they are known as a monthly meeting. there are monthly meetings all over this area of philadelphia and all over the country and all over the world. these are basically the congregation. so once a year the congregation from this area gets together and

they've been doing this since it was founded for a meeting of everybodying to in one place. and this is all annual session. this buildings is bill large enough to hold all of those people at once in one place. one of the legends that exist here is the story about this brick wall. so, it was originally built back when this was a burial ground and the way it goes is that the wall was originally about four or 5 feet high and you can sort of see the deference in the color of the brick here. so when the yellow fever epidemic swept through philadelphia in 1793 and around those years, the story is that there are 10% of the population of philadelphia died during that time and the city was overwhelmed these bodies of sick people. the story was, there were at night some folks will throw them

over the wall on to the burial ground property and the quakers would take care of them. what we've also heard is there are -- in the property for the yellow fever, victims would have been bureauried. shortly after the yellow season epidemic season ended quakers raised the wall to eight or 9 feet and our entire number of different reasons for why that might have been raised is to assume that had something to do with their experience during the elle fever epidemic. sometimes, you may hear quakers referred to as friends with a capital f because and that's because the former name is usually the society of friends. and the usual society of friends was formed in the 1660s by a number of people but prominently george -- was his name. and these thought leaders back in england were sort of -- they didn't -- the english church and

all the stuff we talk about today about simplicity and plainness the church was in complete opposition of that. it wouldn't all about worship and the quakers wanted to carry that down and only do the thing they thought was useful, the things that were connecting them better to god and they wanted to remove all of the art facts and the middle man. they thought they could communicate directly with god and they saw everything else is being sir purr flous. a lot of early quaker leaders were jealous of their beliefs. for instance the -- are men to be thrown in prison for speaking out the way they were. the quaker believed the persecution they faced -- one of main reasons they started to come to america and they found it -- they originally lived in the new jersey and pennsylvania

area, it's another reason why william penn was motivated to come into pennsylvania to get away from the persecution that was going on in europe at the time. the meeting house is important because it is an emblem of special activism. quakers are well-known for the reasons they have led and involve others. ablish, environmental movement, prison reform, mental health services, quakers have always been active in this kind of work. this meeting house is a place to learn about this history. it happened on the benches in there and it's a great place for us to tell that story to visitors. it's modern quaker history it's all of our history.

the national law enforcement museum is currently under construction and set to open in 2017 in washington, d.c. until then the museum artifact -- we visited with looney the director and -- the story of law enforcement history. >> we are