Necessary Research

While O'Brien and Anderson dealt with property negotiations, Riley and Peterson were laying the groundwork for the necessary research in their respective fields. Riley's first task was to become familiar with the many public and private repositories where documents might be found: the city and state archives, institutions such as the American Philosophical Society, the city's long-established fire insurance companies, and the title insurance companies. He found helpful guides among the park's early supporters. Lewis knew where many of the relevant public records were and used his influence to make them readily accessible. The state historian, S. K. Stevens, with his thorough knowledge of the state's holdings, suggested numerous shortcuts through the maze of the Pennsylvania archives. Riley's chief mentor, however, was Dr. William Lingelbach of the American Philosophical Society. Lingelbach was, in many ways, the eminence grise of the early research program at Independence. He was one of the handful of people to whom Lewis assigned a share of credit for the creation of the park. Roy Appleman had depended heavily on his guidance during his 1947 sojourn in Philadelphia. Lingelbach knew not only the holdings of his own institution, but also those of the city's other repositories.

One of the first objects of research at Independence was to establish historic ownership patterns. During his first year in Philadelphia, Riley pre-pared preliminary chains-of-title for all properties in Project B and deter-mined the boundaries of property owned by Benjamin Franklin in Project C. However, the demands of research for a historical area as large and complex as Independence would obviously go far beyond the background of proper-ties and buildings. It might well be beyond the resources of the National Park Service to carry out the multifaceted research that should be done. Riley saw a possible solution in encouraging graduate students to work on subjects relevant to Independence. His idea appealed to Dr. Roy F. Nichols, an early member of the Independence Hall Association and professor of history and dean at the University of Pennsylvania. They set up a cooperative program to accomplish the purpose.

While Riley was familiarizing himself with Philadelphia's libraries and record centers, and tracing chains-of-title, Peterson was also engaged in research. Since he believed that the understanding of an educated public was essential if important buildings were to be preserved and restored, he hastened to get the preliminary results of his work into print. Peterson seems to have set his own priorities. He first turned his attention to two mid-nineteenth-century buildings that had attracted him during his 1947 visits to Philadelphia. His brief article on the Jayne Building appeared in the October 1950 issue of the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians; an article on the cast-iron Penn Mutual Life Insurance Building was in the December 1950 issue of the same publication. Peterson next dealt with the other buildings enumerated in Public Law 795, publishing an essay identifying them and describing some of the planning problems associated with the park in the July 1950 issue of the American-German Review. During the year he explored Philadelphia's pictorial resources and collected reproductions of views, photographs, and measured drawings of historic buildings in the projected park, especially those on Independence Square. By year's end he had also completed research on Library Hall, which the American Philosophical Society remained interested in reconstructing.