Centennial Celebration

International House Philadelphia Celebrates Our Centennial

In 1908 when Edward Cope Wood, Director of the University of Pennsylvania Christian Association and the Reverend A Waldo Stevenson, a missionary, chanced upon a group of Chinese students on the University’s campus. Wood and Stevenson discovered they were the first persons to befriend them since their arrival in the United States. Touched by their evident loneliness and the prejudice and discrimination they and their friends experienced, Wood asked the Reverend and Mrs. Stevenson to open their Larchwood Avenue apartment to foreign students studying in the area.

Two years later in 1910, Wood persuades the Christian Association to sponsor the Stevensons’ work. Thus began International House, a movement started in Philadelphia, now with 22 Houses around the globe. International Houses World Wide is united by one mission: To provide students of different nationalities and diverse cultures with the opportunity to live and learn together in a community of mutual respect, understanding and international friendship.

However, International House Philadelphia is unique among all other Houses. We do not solely provide students the opportunity to live and learn together; for over thirty years, IHP has presented film and performance — from classic to cutting edge — to the Philadelphia region. Our programming fosters the arts as a powerful means of expression and as an avenue for greater cultural, political and social understanding.