• The Pennsylvania Society has convened at the Waldorf=Astoria for the past 110 years (as of 2009).
• The Society is a non-profit, charitable organization with nearly two thousand members around the Commonwealth, the United States and the world. It is not affiliated with any particular political party, business or profession. Its purpose is to honor achievement, to reward excellence, to promote good will and understanding and to celebrate service to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and to humanity in general.
• In 1899, an historian and native Pennsylvanian named James Barr Ferree, who was living in New York City, invited 55 fellow Pennsylvanians living in New York to join him for dinner at The Waldorf=Astoria Hotel. While feasting on oysters and Delmonico steaks, they decided to form a group known initially as “The Pennsylvania Society of New York.” Their goal was to establish a society “uniting all Pennsylvanians at home and away from home in bonds of friendship and devotion to their native or adopted state.” They also decided to meet for dinner every year, same time, same place. This was the era when The Waldorf=Astoria still occupied the site where the Empire State Building would climb to the clouds thirty years later.
• The event is held in the Grand Ballroom each year on the 2nd Saturday in December.
