This webpage and collection of documents is an ongoing project to scan and make available the Acts of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Session Laws of the Pennsylvania Legislature. As material is prepared with further chapters and pagination, we will be making it available for free to the public.
Due to the condition of most of the material, we will not be offering full-text searching. In the future, we plan to develop as many finding aids for our collections of state session laws.
How to use this collection
Each volume presented can be browsed by page, and we have made efforts to match the page numbering of the scanned pages to the actual printed page numbers on each page. To this end, we divided the document into sections and maintained the original Arabic or Roman numeration from the publisher. Not every volume has a subject index, but if there is one, it can be found at the end of the volume. So, once you enter a volume, use the navigation tools to jump to the end of that volume and use the index to find page numbers for statutes. Once you have done that, jump to the page.
We are aware that some of the volumes do not have page numbers in their index. They provide chapter numbers, and require you to browse the pages to find your chapter. In those volumes, use the "Go to page" box to browse through the pages, just like you would with the physical book. Note that chapter numbers are listed at the top of each page, making such browsing possible.
Statues at Large of the Province and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1600-1709)
These documents have been scanned by the Pennsylvania Legislative Reference Bureau as part of an ongoing digitization project of theirs. As Rutgers University Law Library does not have access to a volume for these laws as originally published, we are offering some direct links to the material in PDF format from the Pennsylvania Legislative Reference Bureau website. When you click on the link to the file, the PDF will open up in your browser. We thank the Pennsylvania Legislative Reference Bureau for its effort in digitizing, preserving, and making available to the public these historic legal documents.
Statues at Large of the Province and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1700-1809)
These images are scans of the W.S. Hein microfiche from the original published session laws. For some years, Hein pulled original documents from two different published volumes. In those cases, we have labeled the volumes “a” and “b” to maintain original differences in content and pagination.
The first ("a") volumes of the Statues at Large contain all laws, including those that subsequently expired, were repealed, or became obsolete. The second (“b”) volumes of the Statutes at Large were first compiled by Charles Smith and later by Joseph Reed. In these volumes, collectively known as "Smith’s Laws", repealed, expired, and obsolete laws were not included.
Note: Entries were created according to published volumes. Some are separated by 1st and 2nd session, some by appropriation acts, constitutional amendments, and extraordinary sessions. For the years 1701 and 1709, the images are documents that have been scanned by the Pennsylvania Legislative Reference Bureau, as they were not present in the W.S. Hein Microfiche set.
Pamphlet Laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1801-1999)
The pamphlet laws contain the public and private laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania dating from 1801 to the present day, and also include enactments, appropriation acts, Governor’s vetoes, joint resolutions, and other legislation pertaining to the Commonwealth. These images are scans of the W.S. Hein microfiche from the original published session laws for the years of 1801-1999.
Note: Entries were created according to published volumes. Some are separated by 1st and 2nd session, some by appropriation acts, constitutional amendments, and extraordinary sessions. For some years, Hein pulled original documents from two different published volumes. In those cases, we have labeled the volumes “a” and “b” to maintain original differences in content and pagination and to preserve the correct sequencing of laws.
There are 336 volumes, consisting of 140,404 pages in this collection.
Pennsylvania Statutes at Large
These are scans of the W.S. Hein microfiche from the original published session laws.