Drexel Students Put Pennsylvania History on Display at the National Constitution Center
At the National Constitution Center, a new, free exhibition at curated by Drexel University’s Lenfest Center for Cultural Partnerships and the Atwater Kent Collection features a catalog, website and interactive displays designed by Drexel students.
Pennsylvania’s Founding: How a City and a Colony Shaped America’s Civic DNA, which will be on display through Jan. 3, 2027, highlights an earlier era of American history while the country is celebrating its 250th anniversary. The origin story, key events and founding principles of Pennsylvania are highlighted through historical artifacts, with many being shown together for the first time. For a colony founded nearly 350 years ago, that’s a momentous occasion.
Of those 29 items showing Pennsylvania’s beginnings, 16 are from the Atwater Kent Collection. These include the first printed plans of Philadelphia, both as a colony after its 1682 founding and as the nation’s capital (1790–1800), as well as a wampum belt said to have been given to Pennsylvania founder William Penn by the Lenape tribe to mark the 1682 Treaty of Shackamaxon. Other items — such as the Pennsylvania charter from King Charles II of England, the charter of the City of Philadelphia and two copies of the Magna Carta (one published by Penn and one owned by Benjamin Franklin) — are on loan from the City of Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, Library Company of Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Haverford College and a private lender.
The exhibition was developed through a partnership between Drexel and the National Constitution Center and curated by professional staff members from the Lenfest Center and Atwater Kent Collection: Rosalind Remer, PhD, senior vice provost for Libraries, Collections & Archives and founding director of the Lenfest Center; Page Talbott, PhD, director of museum outreach; Stacey Swigart, director of the Atwater Kent Collection; and Melissa Clemmer, executive director of the Lenfest Center.
“The opportunity to create this exhibition came to us from area funders who were interested in highlighting not just the United States’ past in this 250th year, but the antecedents of it in William Penn’s colony,” said Remer. “Being able to include students in this work was a joy, and whenever we do, we are always so impressed by their creativity and passion for hands-on learning.”
They were instrumental in hiring and overseeing the work of three graduate students and one undergraduate student from the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design who created essential supplementary material for the exhibition. All students were recommended by their professors and gained professional development and experience in their individual roles with the exhibition. During a short three-month period, they built on the skills formed through past academic and professional experiences gained through Drexel courses and experiential and co-op opportunities to successfully complete their own projects.
Learn more about three of the students below:
Jenna Gilley standing near the interactive display for her timeline of key events of Philadelphia’s founding and William Penn’s life.
Jenna Gilley
MS arts administration ’26
For Jenna Gilley, this experience was the culmination of a graduate student education filled with professional experiences at various Drexel collections — a key reason why she applied to Drexel in the first place.
She started as a graduate assistant at the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, where she helped manage daily operations at the University art space. Then, she completed her first practicum at the Robert and Penny Fox Historic Costume Collection, where she helped reorganize some of their collection and learned about conservation.
This final practicum experience working with the Atwater Kent Collection was her “jump into history,” she said, because she wanted to research the broader cultural and historical aspects of art. She developed content for two interactive projects that are part of the exhibition: a timeline detailing key events from William Penn and the founding of Pennsylvania, and “Mapping Pennsylvania,” which presents historic maps and illustrations to show the state’s history and development.
“This project really made me love not only history, but specifically Philadelphia and its history being kind of the birthplace of America,” said Gilley, who is now the development coordinator at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
Gilley chose to develop the timeline on a platform she first learned about in a “Tech Tools” class at Drexel and drafted the “Mapping Pennsylvania” interactive in Canva. She researched and wrote about important events related to the life of William Penn and key elements of the story of Pennsylvania's founding. Both the timeline and “Mapping Pennsylvania” serve as an introduction to the exhibit, she said, and can be found on digital displays near its entryway.
“I wanted a mixture of images and information for people viewing the exhibit,” she said. “Some like to just jump right in and others like more of a monological look at what's going on to help contextualize things.”
Gilley, who is originally from Indiana and came to Pennsylvania as a Drexel graduate student, said she learned a lot about her new state through this project. She was most struck by the realization that Penn and other early Pennsylvania residents “laid the groundwork for a lot of principles in America, like freedom of speech and freedom of religion.”
“Everyone talks about the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, but it really started over 100 years earlier with Quakers and Quaker ideology, which was very different in many ways from how we operate today but has a lot of overlaps,” she said.
Casey Kovarick
BS graphic design ’27 with a UXID minor
Casey Kovarick created the exhibition’s official catalog using the skills she developed through Drexel classes. A course teaching Adobe InDesign equipped her with foundational tools in her discipline, while a branding class helped her learn how to create design systems across a large project like this.
“This was my first time creating an exhibition catalog and my first time completing a book from start to finish as the sole designer,” she said. “Designing the catalog gave me the opportunity to apply my graphic design skills to a real-world project.”
She found inspiration for the catalog’s visual direction from the era the exhibition explores: 18th century ornamental embellishments found in a book produced by a prominent 19th century Philadelphia type foundry. That kind of organization, design system and visual communication can be found across the catalog, which has a mix of historical portraits, maps and other images; captions and blocks of text; and a timeline of Penn and Pennsylvania key events. The exhibition catalog is available for purchase at the National Constitution Center’s museum store, both online and on site.
Kovarick lives close to Valley Forge National Historic Park, “a place with history connected to Philadelphia and the founding of our country.” Working on this exhibition helped her learn more about her state’s founding.
“I was surprised William Penn’s second wife, Hannah Callowhill Penn, was the first and only woman to govern Pennsylvania. She ran affairs for 14 years from 1712 to 1726!” said Kovarick. “I thought it was interesting to read about a woman holding a position of power during that time and learn more about her role in Pennsylvania’s history.”
Utkarsha Nagtode
MS human-computer interaction and user experience ’26
Utkarsha Nagtode is one of the two graduate students who developed and implemented the display of the interactives and created their online versions as well as an online version of the exhibit. (Brendon Webster, a graduate student in the same program, also contributed to this exhibition.)
Nagtode worked as an user experience (UX) designer and web developer to help implement the museum kiosk interfaces for the timeline and “Mapping Pennsylvania.” She also designed an additional online exhibit page for the Atwater Kent Collection website featuring an overview with selected content from the exhibition, as well as the two interactives. This page will enable the exhibit and interactives to be archived and extend their life beyond the run of the show.
“One of the most exciting parts of the project was having creative freedom to craft an aesthetic that felt authentic, historical and museum-worthy while adhering to institutional brand guidelines,” she said.
She taught herself how to use WordPress during her co-op at MicroSociety (which has hosted multiple Drexel co-ops, some sponsored by the Lenfest Center). Her experience in digital product design and web development also allowed her to “take full ownership of an end-to-end design and build,” just like this project. And she said that Drexel coursework in core UI/UX principles and information architecture had prepared her to structure the content cleanly for public gallery visitors.
Nagtode, who is originally from India and moved to Philadelphia to attend Drexel, said that working on this project made her feel more connected to Philadelphia’s rich heritage.
“A surprising element of this project was discovering just how much history and rare narrative material is preserved within the Atwater Kent Collection and finding ways to translate centuries of history into a smooth digital experience for modern museumgoers,” she said.