A Few Firsts

The First Bank. You can see its very tiny label in the bottom

left corner of the window to the right of the front door.

The First Bank of the United States

The First Bank of the United States acted as an early commercial bank and regulated of currency. The bank also served as the US government’s fiscal agent during its chartered life (1791-1811). It was an integral part of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton’s overarching plan to stimulate the struggling US economy. During its first years of operation, Carpenter’s Hall housed the bank. In 1797, the bank moved to its own, permanent location nearby at 116 South Third Street. The building is currently a part of the Independence National Historical Park (INHP). Though its textbook name is First Bank, the distinction of ‘first’ came long after the bank had ceased operations to differentiate from the nearby ‘second’ bank of the same name.

After the Bank of the United States’ charter expired in 1811, local merchant Stephen Girard bought the property and opened his own bank. The building remained a bank until the Girard National Bank moved to a new building in center city in 1926. The original interior of the Bank of the United States is largely unknown because the bank has few surviving records to work with. Documentation is especially between the years of 1800 and 1901. From the few photographs and written accounts, the NPS knows the first floor originally contained a barrel vaulted ceiling running east-west that was held by a series of Corinthian columns. All banking took place on the first floor. The original layout of the second floor and third floor are unknown.

With the sole exception of the basement, the entire interior of the bank was gutted for renovations in 1901. James H. Windrim is credited with redesigning the interior of the bank. The center of the first floor was opened up into a rotunda and topped by a massive skylight. Series of Corinthian columns hold up the rotunda and skylight on the first and second floors. Also, a large winding staircase and elevator were added to the back (west) end of the bank. The NPS acquired the Bank of the United States from the City of Philadelphia in 1954 and it is currently not in use.

The First Project of a CRM Intern

Lucky for you, I’m not just posting on random historic buildings because it’s the trendy thing to do. In my semester-long quest to do what work has been sitting around for ages, I am preparing exhibit panels for the Bank of the United States. The above is a very diluted version of the bank building outline I made using the park’s collection of Historic Structure Reports as preliminary reading. To supplement the reports, I am currently in between a small mountain of books concerning Finance and Classical architectural themes in the early United States. Hopefully, I'll gain a bit of fluency in both. Alongside reading, I’ve also located images of the bank and related records within the park's collections. There are also a few local collections I need to look into that are not affiliated with the National Park Service, but seem promising. Reading books about commerce and porticoes isn’t all there is in the Cultural Resources Management (CRM) department. There are also statues, ceramic shards, historic wallpapers, government bureaucracy, and all sorts of fantastic museum professionals! There are a ton of fascinating things I am excited to have the opportunity to take part in, but I think I’ll take this blogging business one thing at a time.

My search for a general understanding of the Bank of the United States isn’t entirely random, either. From my office window, I can see a steady stream of park visitors wander past the bank. People take pictures of the façade, try to decipher the roman numerals on the entablature, and generally look very confused. To many, the building stands as a point of interest in part because it isn’t labeled very well. Though it’s rare for uniformed park staff to not be nearby, I often walk by the bank building and overhear someone curious as to what they are looking at. Closed to the public and somewhat isolated, the bank building doesn’t provide much in the way of context all by its lonesome self.

National Park Service staff have used the Bank of the United States building as the park welcome center, storage, offices, and then storage again. The bank's days as storage will (hopefully) soon draw to close. Despite setbacks, the staff are hoping to open the first floor of the bank building to the public as the new site of the Independence Living History Center (archaeology lab). If their plan pans out, the second and third floors would remain split between storage and office space and the basement would remain somewhat creepy and totally awesome.

Along with doing research and preparing exhibit materials, CRM staff also look after the maintenance, management, and preservation of the Independence National Historical Park’s cultural resources. The CRM staff are overall very dedicated to their work and I'm thankful to have the chance to work with them this fall. Below are some links that have to do with CRM and a reference to the historic structures report I derived the First Bank summary from.

• Blog of the INHP Archives and Library.
• Info on the Independence Living History Center (archaeology lab).
• Info on the Cultural Resources Management Department.
• The short First Bank outline derives information from Historic Structure Report: First Bank of the United States, Historical and Architectural Data April, 1981 pages 7-24.