Honoring Philly’s health care champions and making an impact
Earlier in the week, Penn Medicine leaders, staff and donors, as well as city leaders and officials, got a preview of the new museum.
One of the guests, Katherine Gilmore Richardson, City Council majority leader, spoke about her personal connection to this space. Not only was she born at Pennsylvania Hospital and later worked there after college, but both her father and mother used to work in the hospital’s blood bank and laboratory, respectively.
“I’m honored to be here,” she said. “And because I’m just so used to being here and this place is like home, it’s so amazing to see it looking so wonderful and so refreshed, but still have the same aesthetic and character.”
Katherine Gilmore Richardson, City Council majority leader, holds photos of her father, James W. Gilmore, and mother, Lorraine Jenkins Gilmore, taken over 40 years ago in the gardens of the Pine Building on the Pennsylvania Hospital campus, where they worked in the hospital’s blood bank and laboratory. Gilmore Richardson was born at the hospital and later worked there herself. (Nicole Leonard/WHYY)
Inside the Pine Building, Rev. Carolyn Clarene Cavaness, of the Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, stood before a display featuring former hospital staff and the roles that women, people of color and indentured servants played.
The display also highlighted the work of Black Philadelphians like Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, who in 1787 founded the Free African Society, the first Black mutual aid organization of its time.
Allen would establish Mother Bethel AME Church in 1793.
“We are recognizing the many different ways in which independence is embodied and manifested,” Cavaness said. “Also, that we celebrate the collective contribution of the many faces of independence, and so to stop and pay homage and celebrate.”
Rev. Carolyn Cavaness (right) of the Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church took pictures of a display about Black Philadelphia health care champions at the new Pennsylvania Hospital Museum. (Nicole Leonard/WHYY)
During the early days of the museum opening, Peeples said she and her team will continue to work behind the scenes to fine-tune the exhibits and make sure visitors are easily able to participate in interactive activities like performing a digitally replicated surgical procedure in the amphitheater.
Launching a new museum at one of the most historic sites in the city is certainly a memorable achievement in her career so far, but Peeples said it’s the smaller moments over the years that have made being a curator and archivist at the hospital so precious.
“I have had teachers and others, professors, who bring in groups every single year,” she said. “And now, because I’ve been here for so long, I have had people who were students in those classes come back and say to me, ‘You gave me a tour when I was here in nursing school’ or ‘my class from such-and-such school used to come here every [year].’”
“When you have people who come back who not just remember that I did the tour, they could tell me something that I told them … that’s incredible,” Peeples said. “And it makes you feel good about the fact that what you’re doing does have an impact on people. To me, if one person can walk away with a different appreciation for history, that’s great.”
People pose with a Benjamin Franklin impersonator outside the Pine Building, which is the site of the new Pennsylvania Hospital Museum in Pennsylvania, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (Nicole Leonard/WHYY)
More information about the Pennsylvania Hospital Museum and tickets can be found online.