The Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides (APT) has arranged an outing to see the Independence Seaport Museum‘s new exhibit: Seeking Profit and Power: Philadelphia, China Trade, and the Making of America on Tuesday, July 28 at 10 am. This will be a two-hour visit with a guided tour for $5.

Have you ever wondered what happened after the United States achieved independence from Britain and lost its dominant trading partner? Independence Seaport Museum’s major new exhibition, Seeking Profit and Power: Philadelphia, China Trade, and the Making of America, showcases how as a young country we avoided economic isolation by creating a new foreign trade partner in China. It was lucrative. It was risky. And as a newly created nation, our economic survival depended on it.

Seeking profit and power, merchants saw dramatic opportunities to make money from Americans’ desire for Chinese goods like tea, silk, and porcelain. The fortunes they built helped expand Philadelphia’s role as a major port and city. Seeking Profit and Power is comprised of roughly 150 objects that have rarely been seen, many from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Through exploring these artifacts with a museum guide, APT visitors will learn how early trade relationships with China helped build America into a global economic power.

Highlights include the rise of wealthy Philadelphia merchants like Stephen Girard, whose China-trade fortunes turned early Philadelphia into a global port, yet also launched us into the moral complexities of opium smuggling and the use of enslaved labor on merchant ships.

You can purchase your ticket in the APT store, ‘field trip: tour or site visit.’ Contact APT Director-at-Large vpmccafferty@msn.com with any questions. Please join us!

Photo courtesy of the Independence Seaport Museum.