A TIME FOR HISTORY

HISTORIC PENN CENTER MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION

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BECOMING A MEMBER of historic Penn Center is a commitment and investment in maintaining an important history that inform, educate, and provide meaning to key historical events and time frames. Founded in 1862, Penn Center is a non-profit organization that cares about history and culture. As a member, your support helps to maintain a history and culture that informs our world today. Your membership dollars helps Penn Center to maintain a museum, preserve collections and artifacts, and provide free and low-cost programs to the public both locally and nationally.

MEMBER CATEGORIES AND BENEFITS:

Dr. York Bailey was a Doctor and Penn School graduate who put himself through the Medical School at Howard University and returned to his own people.

Member Benefits:

• A personalized Dr. York W.  Bailey membership card

• Unlimited free admission for family and friends accompanied by member

• 15% discount on all purchase items

• Free admission to museum events and programs for two people (RSVP required)

• Complimentary York W. Bailey bookmark

• One time copy of Penn Center A History

• Invitations to premiere members-only exhibit previews and events

• One event sponsored in your name per membership year

• Listing recognizing your support installed in the museum’s entry foyer

• One time complementary 8x10 matted print color of York Bailey by famous German artist Winold Reiss from the Penn Center Collection

• Advance notice of events and tickets presale opportunities

The Hastings Gantt Society

$500.00 annually

Hastings Gantt was a hero of the Reconstruction era, an example of what could come of freedom as he bought land, raised cotton, made money, bought more land, was repeatedly elected to the state House of Representatives, and became a philanthropist, giving 50 acres to the Penn School so it could grow from its meager beginnings in 1862 as one of America’s first schools for freedmen.

Member Benefits:

• Penn Center Welcome Packet

• A personalized Hastings Gantt membership card

• Unlimited free admission for family and friends accompanied by member

• 15% discount on all purchase items

• Free admission to museum events and programs for two people (RSVP required)

• Complimentary Hastings Gantt bookmark

• Free admission to the annual Hastings Gantt Lecture Series

• One time copy of Penn Center A History

• Invitations to premiere members-only exhibit previews and events

• One event sponsored in your name per membership year

• Listing recognizing your support installed in the museum’s entry foyer

• One complementary 8x10 matted photograph of Hastings Gantt from the Penn Center Collection per membership year

• Advance notice of events and tickets presale opportunity

The Laura Towne and Ellen Murray Society

$500.00 annually

Laura Towne and Ellen Murray were the founders of Penn School in 1862.

Member Benefits:

• Penn Center Welcome Packet

• A personalized Laura Towne and Ellen Murray membership card

• Unlimited free admission for family and friends accompanied by member

• 15% discount on all purchases

• Free admission to museum events and programs for two people (RSVP required)

• Complimentary Towne and Murray bookmark

• One time copy of Laura Towne’s Diary

• Invitations to premiere members-only exhibit previews and events

• One event sponsored in your name per membership year

• Listing recognizing your support installed in the museum’s entry foyer

• One complementary 8x10 matted photograph of Towne and Murray from the Penn Center Collection per membership year

• Advance notice of events and tickets presale opportunities

The Charlotte Forten SocietY

$500.00 annually

Charlotte Forten was a member of the abolitionist movement and became the first African American teacher at Penn School in 1862. In 1863 she volunteered as a nurse caring for wounded soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment of the United States Colored Infantry.

Member Benefits:

• Penn Center Welcome Packet

• A personalized Charlotte Forten membership card

• Unlimited free admission for family and friends accompanied by member

• 15% discount on all purchase items

• Free admission to museum events and programs for two people (RSVP required)

• Complimentary Charlotte Forten bookmark

• One time copy of Charlotte Forten’s Journal

• Invitations to premiere members-only exhibit previews and events

• One event sponsored in your name per membership year

• Listing recognizing your support installed in the museum’s entry foyer

• One complementary 8x10 matted photograph of Towne and Murray from the NY Public Library Collection per membership year

• Advance notice of events and tickets presale opportunity

The Watch Night Society

$2,500.00 annually

*On December 31,1862 also known as “Freedom’s Eve” Black slaves and free blacks came together in churches and private homes all across the nation awaiting news that the Emancipation Proclamation actually had become law. President Lincoln used the occasion of the Union victory at Antietam to issue a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves in the rebellious states after January 1, 1863. At the stroke of midnight, all slaves in the Confederate States were declared legally free. When the news was received, there were prayers, shouts and songs of joy as many people fell to their knees and thanked God. Some 186,000 black soldiers would join the Union Army by the time the war ended in 1865, and 38,000 lost their lives.

Blacks have gathered in churches annually on New Year’s Eve ever since, praising God for bringing us safely through another year. Since the first Freedom’s Eve, tradition still brings African Americana together on New Years Eve to celebrate “freedom.” This celebration carries many African American descendants of slaves into a new year with praise and worship. The service usually begins anywhere from 7 p.m. To 10 p.m. And ends at midnight with the entrance of the New Year. For many, church is the only New Year’s Eve event. There is a reason for the importance of New Year’s Eve services in the Black experience in America. The night symbolizes not only freedom, but also real hope and change.

Members of the the historic Penn Center Watch Night Society honors this tradition and will be linked together by a scholarly interest in the humanities. The Watch Night Society will advance historical study among academic and nonacademic scholars by engaging in conversation, research, writing, and teaching about African American history and culture.

Members who join the Watch Night Society will receive Watch Night the annual electronic scholarly journal featuring writings from national scholars across a range of disciplines. The Watch Night Journal is an opportunity for scholars interested in Reconstruction and Civil Rights history to share and be exposed to content on a national platform. The Watch Night Journal will focus on public history essays, book reviews, and works broadly relating to Reconstruction and Civil Rights history. We will maintain a broad definition of the humanities by including within our purview African American Literature, Southern Literature, Music, Museum Studies, Theater, History,  Art History, photography, film, Religion, Peace and Social Justice Studies and regional studies, as well as papers from associated disciplines that engage in forms of inquiry in the humanities. The Journal has an editorial board of nationally recognized historians, authors, and scholars. The editor of Watch Night is an accomplished executive book editor, Alexis Gargagliano, who also serves as the Editor of the New York Lincoln Center Theater Review Journal. The Editorial Advisers for Watch Night are Valarie Babb PhD, the Andrew H. Mellon Endowed professor in African American History at Emory University and the former editor of the Langston Hughes Literary Review at the University of Georgia Athens and Barbara McCaskill PhD, Co-Director of the Civil Rights Digital Library at the University of Georgia.

Military MembershipS:

Historic Penn Center Membership Sign Up

To sign up for a membership, please fill out the form below and submit payment directly online. If you would prefer to pay with a check, please download, print, and fill out the application form and mail the form along with the check to:

Historic Penn Center Inc.

16 Penn Center Circle West, St Helena Island, South Carolina 29920