We know Philadelphia real estate inside and out. How did we get so smart you ask? We partner with local folks to help us discover the secrets of the city. On a recent hot July afternoon, Rebecca, co-founder of Beyond the Bell Tours, escorted our whole team on the “Badass Women of Philadelphia” tour.
The tour started at the very bustling corner of 6th and Walnut, just up from Washington Square. Surrounded by the standard hullaballoo: horse and carriages, Independence Hall, and the Liberty Bell we weren’t expecting to learn anything we didn’t already know. However, Rebecca surprised us by bringing our attention to a plaque memorializing the Gay Rights Demonstrations that took place every 4th of July until the 1969 Stonewall Riots in NYC. Barbara Gittings a pivotal leader and activist, organized participants all over the northeast to collectively transform a small national campaign into a civil rights movement. In her honor, a section of Spruce St near 19th is dedicated as Barbara Gittings Way. Inspirational isn’t it?
Speaking of streets, we learned Callowhill St. is named for Hannah Callowhill Penn, Wiliam Penn’s wife who somewhat unofficially governed the country by Acting Proprietor of Pennsylvania which meant she protected the original British colony from Lord Baltimore. Without her, Philadelphia might be part of Maryland today.
Moving along in the list of inspirational women in history, Rebecca brought us to meet Ona Judge by way of the only federally funded memorial dedicated to the victims of slavery. The memorial is a portrait hung on the implied walls of the first president’s home which formerly stood on Independence Mall. The basement is visible through a glass window in the ground. This is where George Washington’s slaves lived, including one Ona Judge who escaped to the north where she lived out her life as a free woman but not without being hunted by George Washington until his death.
Philadelphia is where the first women’s medical college was located, the first women medical doctors achieved their designations, and the first time a women doctor ever conducted a surgery. Even more interesting, three of the first women medical students ever were minorities one from India, one Native American graduated and practiced in her home state of Minnesota, and one Rebeca Cole, the first black female doctor in America. Licensed in 1867, Dr. Cole became a prolific activist and feminist facing off with literary giant W.E.B. Dubois in a fight against racism. Although her memorial is tiny, it does exist in a collection of figures on a sculpture at city all.
There’s so much more to know and learn, but you’ll have to do your own educational and fun tour with Rebecca from Beyond the Bell. We highly recommend it as a great experience for your visiting family, friends, neighbors, clients, coworkers, date, everyone, and anyone!