Exhibits & Events

This year marks the 80^th anniversary of the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen, the PGC, the PA Guild!  Eighty years is a LONG time for anything, but especially for an organization!  We have members that are 85 years old now AND members who were BORN in 1985.  This organization is OLDER than Alaska (65 years), but YOUNGER than the Eiffel Tower (135 years)!  We are one of the country’s oldest craft-based organizations, and as I am reminded by our members, one of the few that exists to help promote fine craft and those who create and appreciate it.  In 1979 we had the distinction of being one of the oldest American societies of designer-craftsmen organized on a statewide basis.  Thank you for your support and continued membership!

Our story began in 1939 when a group of educators and the head of the Pennsylvania State Planning Board came together to formulate a way to promote wider awareness of the contributions that the crafts can bring to the community and to the lives of individuals through the stimulation of achievement, and through the enrichment of cultural, aesthetic, and educational interests.

Five years later in 1944, the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen was officially founded, one of the first to follow a recommendation of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to find ways to transfer wartime skills to peacetime work. As can best be determined, the journey to formalize the organization began in February of that year when Burl N. Osburn from Millersville State Teachers College (now University) composed a response letter to Mr. Roy Helton of the PA State Planning Board, Harrisburg.  Mr. Helton had apparently requested that Burl read his proposal for a State Craft Guild and make any organizational suggestions. After filing the required documentation with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen was recognized as an organization on June 2^nd, 1944.