America250: Daily Life Materials

These are materials from the collections of the State library of Pennsylvania digitized as part of the State Library's contribution to the America250 celebration. Most of the materials are newly-digitized items, now freely available to the public for the first time. Visit the individual America250 theme pages on this site to view all utilized digitized materials, both newly-digitized by the State Library of Pennsylvania and other materials held by the State Library of Pennsylvania but already freely-available.

The broadsides and newspapers in this collection, including an extensive run of Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette, give a sense of the concerns and routines of people in Colonial America and the early republic, both through reported news and through advertisements. The advertisements for jobs, lost or found livestock, goods and real estate for sale, or enslavers and masters seeking the return of escaped enslaved people and indentured servants illustrate the similarities and differences between their world and ours.