Stairway in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, circa 1910

About this postcard

The card shows the interior staircase hall of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, with a broad flight of wooden steps rising to a landing, a turned-baluster railing, and an arched window with fanlight above. A large framed painting hangs on the left wall and a portrait figure stands in a doorway at the lower right. Independence Hall, completed in 1753 as the Pennsylvania State House, is where the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were debated and adopted; the building's upper floors were long used by the American Philosophical Society and other bodies before the structure became a national shrine.