Shanna Chandler and her daughters figure out their plans for a morning spent in Independence National Historical Park on the map in the Independence Visitor Center. From left are Lora, 20; Shanna; Lenna, 17; and Indigo, 29,Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
I got my first camera in seventh grade. Social interactions were not my strong suit, so I mostly focused on scenery, animals, and buildings.
There are so many other things in the world to take pictures of. Growing up I found that photography gave me a way to interact with people. It also gave me a sense of purpose that eventually led to a career in the people business.
I met so many people this week while working on stories in Independence National Historical Park on the dozen displays that share historical information about slavery. Many have have been flagged for a content review in connection with an executive order from President Trump.
Panel at the President’s House shows Presidents Washington and Adams and Ona (Oney) Judge, George Washington’s 22 year-old enslaved seamstress. She fled the household on May 21, 1796 for New Hampshire, “where she married, raised a family and lived to old age.” Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Mijuel Johnson with The Black Journey: African-American Walking Tour of Philadelphia, leads visitors from Charlotte, North Carolina in the President’s House July 23, 2025.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Johnson discusses the names of nine enslaved people who lived and worked at the House are engraved in stone on the site. Visible are: Austin and Paris, horsemen and stable hands; Hercules, the chief cook; Christopher Sheels, Washington's personal attendant; Richmond, Hercules’ son and kitchen worker; and Giles, a driver and stable hand.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Visitors view a panel titled, “The Dirty Business of Slavery” at the President’s House in Independence National Historical Park.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Detail of a President’s House panel on the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
A panel titled, “The House of the People Who Worked and Lived in It.” Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
A panel titled “Intoning Inspiration” in front of Independence Hall shows three Americans who spoke at the Hall and Liberty Bell. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass (left) gave a speech against slaveholding in 1844; President-elect Abraham Lincoln (right) stopped on his inaugural journey to Washington D.C. in 1861 and pondered the meaning of “all men are created equal; ” and Suffragette Susan B. Anthony (not shown) and others disrupted the nation's centennial celebration on July 4, 1876 to read the “Declaration of the Rights of Women of the United States.”Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Visitors at the Liberty Bell Center.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
A Liberty Bell exhibit that discusses the Bell’s travels across the country during the era of Reconstruction.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
A Liberty Bell exhibit on the many symbolic uses of the bell throughout history. The Quakers were the first to make the explicit connection between the Liberty Bell, the scandal of slavery, and the need for abolition. The first reference to the Liberty Bell in print was published by the Boston Anti-Slavery Society in 1835.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Visitors at the Liberty Bell pass an exhibit that discusses the Bell’s travels across the country during the post-Reconstruction period. The image below is of Jefferson Davis, the former president of the Confederacy who visited the bell as it traveled near his home on its way to New Orleans in 1885 for the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition, an event that symbolized national reconciliation following the Civil War. The panel reads Davis, “represented many Americans who revered the Liberty Bell, but whose vision of human rights excluded African Americans.”Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Empty panels (left) in the West Wing of Independence Hall's West Wing.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
An iPad exhibit that gives a virtual tour of the second floor in Independence Hall and the room when men, women, and children accused as "fugitive slaves" stood to lose their liberty in a courtroom set up after passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
The Benjamin Franklin Museum gift shop.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
The words of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution are engraved in a monument in Independence National Historical Park Wednesday, July 23, 2025. Park employees have flagged descriptions and displays for review in response to President Trump’s executive order to remove or cover up materials that “inappropriately disparage Americans.” Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
I noticed the Chandler women in the Visitor Center. They were interacting with the small exhibits - and seemed more interested than the usual tourists headed to the information desk (with very knowledgeable staffs) or restrooms (some of the nicest/cleanest in the city).
We talked briefly as they planned their morning in the Historic District. They were stopping on their way home to Richmond, Va., after vacationing in Maine.
On their way out of town Shanna said she planned to drive through Fairmount Park and see Boathouse Row. “I used to come to race in regattas there in high school and college so wanted to show my girls where.”
The last time they were all in Philadelphia, Shanna was pregnant with Lenna.
Besides the people I meet, I love to learn, so every photo assignment is like a mini-fellowship.
Like the replica chair Indigo is seated in. I learned on one of my very first visits to Independence Hall George Washington used the real chair for nearly three months of the Constitutional Convention.
It replaced the chair John Hancock sat in when he signed the Declaration of Independence. The British likely destroyed it during their occupation of Philadelphia
Benjamin Franklin immortalized the chair at the close of the convention, observing: “I have often looked at that picture behind the president without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun.”
In 2017, during President Trump’s first term, with proposed budget cuts in federal funding of the arts, I looked at the programs and constituencies of some of Philadelphia’s community-focused groups that received National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) funding. Each group received less than $25,000 each.
I like what Kathy Ryan, the longtime director of photography at the New York Times Magazine, said about photojournalists: “They call our attention to the things we miss in our everyday lives... When they direct our eyes and hearts with precision and honesty, we know what we know differently and better. Photographers teach us to look again, look harder. Look through their eyes.”
Since 1998 a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in the print editions of The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color:
