Philadelphia Commercial Museum

Its permanent home was a neo-classical building situated at 34th Street and Civic Center Blvd, erected as part of the 1899 National Export Exposition.

[1] The museum's purpose was to promote domestic and foreign commerce, as well as to collect products and information regarding world trade.

The old offices of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company were leased, and exhibits were secured from Latin America, Africa, Australia, Japan, and India, forming the largest permanent collection of raw products in existence.

To this end, the City Councils, in 1896, passed an ordinance giving over to the trustees of the Commercial Museum 16 acres (6.5 ha) of land for the erection of suitable buildings.

Of this amount Congress appropriated $300,000, with the understanding that the permanent buildings were to become, after the Export Exposition, the home of the Commercial Museum.