Skip to content
News
Link copied to clipboard

Independence Park’s longest-tenured staffer has personal connections to history | We the People

What's left him in awe, what he won't talk about and how his relatives knew Thomas Jefferson.

Bob Giannini stands next to a bust of Benjamin Franklin inside the portrait gallery at the Second Bank of the United States. Decades ago, Giannini helped transport the bust, a gift to the museum, from the Main Line in the back of a station wagon.
Bob Giannini stands next to a bust of Benjamin Franklin inside the portrait gallery at the Second Bank of the United States. Decades ago, Giannini helped transport the bust, a gift to the museum, from the Main Line in the back of a station wagon.Read moreTIM TAI / Staff Photographer

When Bob Giannini slid down the hills in Yorktown, Va., on pieces of cardboard as a young boy, history would come up and sting him right in the keister.

"Something would hit you in the butt, and it'd turn out to be a piece of a bayonet from the Revolutionary or Civil War," he said. "It just fascinated the heck out of me."

Instead of avoiding those bayonet-laden hills, Giannini kept sliding down them and continued searching for new frontiers in which to explore our nation's past. He worked at Colonial National Historical Park in Virginia while attending college. In June 1971, he joined the staff at Philadelphia's Independence National Historical Park.

Today, Giannini, 74, of Holmesburg — a father of three and grandfather to nine — is the longest-serving employee at Independence Park. In June, the museum curator will have 47 years on staff.

He's still got a slight Southern accent, and his tie with tiny desert islands and palm trees might be an indication of which way he's leaning when he talks about possibly retiring this year. But Giannini's blue eyes are clear and his mind is sharp.

As one of three curators for the park, Giannini is responsible for researching, protecting, and restoring the 4.15 million artifacts in the park's collection. Those objects, many of which are not on display, range from the small — like broken pottery pieces — to the large, like the Liberty Bell.

"We take care of the dead, in the sense that we're taking care of stuff that once belonged to the living," Giannini said of museum curators.

And he's keeping the secrets of the dead safe. When asked, Giannini refused to talk on the record about the most unusual items in the park's collection.

"We can't go there," he said.

What Giannini will talk about is the most memorable moment he's experienced at the park. On July 4, 2001, the television writer and producer Norman Lear filmed a cast of Hollywood celebrities — including Michael Douglas, Whoopi Goldberg, and Benicio Del Toro — reading the Declaration of Independence in the Assembly Room at Independence Hall.

"That was amazing," Giannini said. "I was in awe."

The film was eventually shown as part of a traveling exhibition that included a printed Dunlap Broadside copy of the Declaration of Independence, purchased by Lear — one of only 26 copies known to exist.

At one point while filming in Independence Hall, Lear approached Giannini and asked if he could pump smoke into the room "to give more of an effect," Giannini said.

"I told him point-blank, 'Mr. Lear, I'm sorry, but we don't allow that,' " he recalled. "I said, 'Not to dishonor you, sir, in any way, but this is not a prop. This is the real deal, where you are.' "

For all the history Giannini has witnessed and experienced over nearly five decades at Independence Park, what's moved him the most has been the personal connections he's discovered between his family and the park.

His grandfather was the foreman at the soapstone plant in Schuyler, Va., when architects traveled there from Philadelphia in the 1960s to get stone to replace the front and back steps at Independence Hall.

In the portrait gallery at the Second Bank of the United States, which is part of the park, hangs a painting of engineer and inventor Robert Fulton, Giannini's distant relative.

And perhaps closest to Giannini's heart is his family's connection to Thomas Jefferson, who authored the Declaration of Independence and helped craft the country's government.

Giannini's fourth great-grandfather, Antonio Giannini, and his family came to the colonies from Italy in 1773 as indentured servants. Once they'd worked off their debt after five years, Jefferson hired Antonio Giannini to be a gardener at Monticello.

"Jefferson actually helped my ancestor break his indenture," Giannini said.

And today, Giannini helps to keep watch over items that once belonged to Jefferson. His favorite is a walking cane that remains atop the desk where Jefferson sat at Independence Hall.

"It's just really strange the way things have worked out for me," Giannini said.

Why Philadelphia?

"Well, it's because I wound up here and my wife's from Philly, and it turned out to be a great city."

What’s been a classic Philly moment for you?

"Classic Philly moment, it just happened … when the Eagles won the Super Bowl. Go Eagles!"

If you had one wish for the city, what would it be?

"I think it would be that more people would come into the city and see what they've been missing at Independence National Historical Park."

Know someone in the Philadelphia area whose story deserves to be told — or someone whose story you'd like to know? Send suggestions for We the People profiles to Stephanie Farr at farrs@phillynews.com or call her at 215-854-4225. Send tips via Twitter to @FarFarrAway.

Want more We the People?

  1. Last week's profile: North Philly dance instructor Roneisha Smith-Davis teaches her students how to "take that song and dance your pain away."

  2. From March 7: Larry Schnell, a butcher who has worked in the Italian Market for 30 years, has a meat-cute story about how he met his wife.

  3. From Feb. 28: For 35 years, Anthony Rodriguez has manned the door at one of Philadelphia's finest hotels.

  4. From Feb. 21: Recovery advocates Jose Ferran Jr. and Eric Sollenberger "live being the City of Brotherly Love as opposed to just using the words."

  5. From Feb. 14: Teacher Matthew Kay founded a slam poetry league for Philly students and he's written the book on talking about race in the classroom.

  6. From Feb. 7: Nakia Maples, who is known online as the "Philly Plant Guy," has more than 200 plants in his South Philly home.

  7. From Jan. 31: Rich Friedrich is in charge of making the 10,000 wings needed for Philly's annual Wing Bowl event.

  8. From Jan. 24: Sunny Bear is a Philly dog with more than 41,000 Twitter followers who channels The Art of War.

  9. From Jan. 17: Brothers Joe and Vince Lattanzio tackle the Eagles' dirty laundry at their South Philly dry-cleaning shop.

  10. From Jan. 10: Every Wednesday for 27 years, Kurt Martin has played the piano at the Lits Building food court.

  11. From Jan. 3: At 88, Elaine Peden, who secured honorary U.S. citizenship for William and Hannah Penn, crashed a VIP event to meet Joe Biden.

  12. From Dec. 27: Bucks County native Tracy Locke is one half of Girls Gone Green, a Philadelphia Eagles song parody duo.

  13. From Dec. 20: Every Christmas season, Benjamin Franklin impersonator Robert DeVitis gets into character to ring the red kettle bell for the Salvation Army.

  14. From Dec. 13: Hip-hop Grandpop Matt Hopkins busts holiday dance moves at City Hall.

  15. From Dec. 6: People pay $1 just to take a photo of Anthony Smith and his dogs, Noodles and Diva. Smith takes his well-dressed dogs to events around the city in his bicycle basket.

  16. From Nov. 29: Danie Ocean, a musician with a rare eye disease that's left her legally blind, is one of the founders of a co-op music studio that requires its members to do community service.

  17. From Nov. 22: Nearly every day for 17 years, oil painter Mark Campana has hauled his easel from his home in South Philadelphia to Rittenhouse Square to paint scenes in and around the park.

  18. From Nov. 15: Haircuts 4 Homeless barber Brennon Jones continues to serve people who are homeless at his new barbershop, which was given to him by a stranger who was inspired by his mission.

  19. From Nov. 8: Street performers Eli Capella and Seraiah Nicole create music in real time that's inspired by the people who pass them on the streets of Philadelphia.

  20. From Nov. 1: John Sebastian, the maintenance director at Reading Terminal Market, was a steel drummer who toured with a Caribbean orchestra and jammed with Jimmy Buffett.