Pride Month Walking Tour and Special Objects Display

The Museum of the American Revolution will feature a new outdoor walking tour, as well as special artifact display and programming, to mark Pride Month this June.

From 10-11 a.m. on Saturday, June 7 and Saturday, June 21, the Museum will hold 60-minute walking tours in our Old City Philadelphia neighborhood exploring the revolutionary story of the self-proclaimed Public Universal Friend, a nonbinary leader of a new religion in the 1770s.

Jemima Wilkinson was born in Rhode Island in 1752 and lived an unremarkable young life until 1776, when she nearly died from a serious illness. After recovering, Wilkinson claimed to be a genderless divine spirit named the Public Universal Friend who had been reincarnated by God to serve as his messenger. The Friend became an evangelist for a new faith, preaching in nearby New England neighborhoods and eventually growing a larger congregation, which led to the formation of The Society of Universal Friends. The Friend continued to preach through New York and New Jersey en route to Philadelphia – hoping the message would do well amongst the city’s Quaker population. However, many remained skeptical, including Elizabeth Drinker, whose diary of life in the Museum’s Revolutionary neighborhood gives a glimpse into a moment of the Friend’s time in Philadelphia.

This new walking tour covers about a mile and stops at iconic places like Elfreth’s Alley, Carpenters’ Hall, and the site of Drinker's home to discuss how the Revolution in Philadelphia provided people like the Public Universal Friend opportunities to test boundaries and challenge the social norms of a rapidly changing society.

Throughout the month in the Museum’s second-floor Oneida Indian Nation Atrium and Core Exhibition, special object displays will call attention to Baron von Steuben, whom many historians believe might have been gay, and Deborah Sampson, a woman who challenged traditional gender roles of the era by dressing in men’s clothes to enlist and fight in the Revolutionary War using the name Robert Shurtliff. A highlight of the displays will be Philadelphia artist John Y. Wind’s sculpture of Steuben, which explores issues of masculinity, heroism, diversity, and the very notion of commemoration through a 21st century lens.