In 1848, the Girls' Normal School was established as the first secondary public school for women in Pennsylvania. It was also the first municipally supported teachers' school in the U.S. The first instructional session was held on February 1, 1848. By June 1848, there were 149 enrolled students, an incredibly large enrollment for a school at that time. The school continued to grow, forcing a move in 1854 to Sergeant Street between Ninth and Tenth Streets.

In April 1854, the name of the school was changed to the Girls' High School of Philadelphia. By June 1860, 65 graduates had received diplomas bearing the Girls' High School name. In 1860, the name of the school was again changed to The Girls' High and Normal School to better define the "design of the institution" as a school for an education confined to academic subjects and for future teachers.

In October 1876, a new school which "for convenience and comfort will probably have no superior" was constructed at Seventeenth and Spring Garden Streets. At the time it was surpassed in size only by Girard College and the University of Pennsylvania.

In 1893, the High School and Normal School were separated into two distinct institutions. It was at this time that the institution became known as the Philadelphia High School for Girls. The school offered three parallel courses: a general course of three years with a possible postgraduate year, a classical course of four years, and a business course of three years. In 1898, a Latin-Scientific course "was designed to prepare students for the Women's Medical College, Cornell, Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, Barnard, or such courses in the University of Pennsylvania as were open to women."

In the early 1930s, the school survived attempts to merge it with William Penn High School. Alumnae, faculty and friends of the school dedicated themselves to its preservation.

In 1933, a new school was erected at Seventeenth and Spring Garden Streets to replace the one which had stood on the site since 1876. This historic building, now the site of Julia R. Masterman School, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

In May 1976, Vice Principal Dr. Florence Snite sued Katherine Day for libel because she had organized a demonstration protesting the administration's policy which barred lesbian alumnae from attending the prom.^[2]

In 1958, the school again outgrew its location and moved to its current site at Broad Street and Olney Avenue. Located down the street at Ogontz and Olney Avenue is Central High School, which, until 1983, was an all-male school. Prior to Central turning co-educational, the two schools had a partnership.

• Big Sister, Little Sister – Seniors are paired with incoming freshmen and act as their "big sisters". The "big sisters" provide transitional support to their "little sisters".
• Freshman Day, Sophomore Day, Junior Day – Each class is given a day to honor it. Students of the honored class generally sport flowers in their class color, host an auditorium show, and have a tea or other social gathering.
• Senior Day – Graduating seniors are given awards for their academic and extracurricular achievements. After the awards ceremony, they have lunch, often on the Spirit of Philadelphia or at the Chart House.
• Contest – started in 1913 and has evolved over the years. The seniors and freshmen team up to compete against the sophomores and juniors in a variety of competitions that span a few weeks.
• County Fair – A schoolwide all-afternoon fair in which each advisory class contributes food, games, and entertainment. All the money earned during county fair is given to a charity of choice by the winning advisory.
• Songs of the Season – The school's holiday show. The program begins with the procession of members of the school's Treble Clef Choir through a completely dark auditorium. Each choir member carries a single lit candle and chants "Hodie Christus Natus Est" by Benjamin Britten. The show continues with holiday performances by the school's various extracurricular groups and ethnic clubs. Jill Scott (a Girls' High alumna) made an appearance at Songs of the Season in 2006.
• Graduation – ceremony at the Academy of Music, and now at the Kimmel Center. All graduates wear white dresses and carry a bouquet of red carnations.

School song edit

The school song has two parts. Alma Mater was written by Grade Gordon (1906) with music by F. Edna Davis (1906). Fidelitas was written by Emily Loman in June 1915.^[3]

School seals edit

•  
  Tree of Knowledge, Original School Seal
•  
  Nike of Samothrace or Winged Victory, School Seal
•  
  Tree of Knowledge, School Seal

• Erika Alexander - actress and producer
• Gloria Allred - attorney
• Leslie Esdaile Banks - novelist
• Deborah Batts - Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
• Becky Birtha - poet and author
• Susan Braudy - author, journalist and Pulitzer nominee
• Elaine Brown - first woman head of the Black Panther Party
• Vanessa Lowery Brown - Democratic member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives who was convicted of bribery^[4]
• Blondell Reynolds Brown - politician; only woman to serve as Philadelphia City Councilmember At-Large 1999-2015
• Bebe Moore Campbell - author
• Mary Schmidt Campbell - president of Spelman College
• Barbara Chase-Riboud - artist, sculptor, bestselling novelist and award-winning poet
• Constance Clayton - first woman and first African American Superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia
• Mae Virginia Cowdery - poet
• Maria Donatucci - PA State Representative of the 185th District & current PA Chairwoman of Civil Service Committee (1972)
• Reed Erickson - philanthropist; transgender man who provided early support to the LGBT movement
• Jessie Redmon Fauset - Harlem Renaissance novelist; editor of The Crisis
• Eileen Folson - Grammy-nominated musician, Broadway composer (1974)
• Shirley Clarke Franklin - first woman mayor of Atlanta, GA
• Vanessa Northington Gamble - physician; authority on public health; chaired the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Legacy Committee
• Julie Gold - Grammy-winning songwriter, singer (1974)
• Tina Sloan Green - athlete
• Edith Grossman - translator of modern Latin American literature
• Helene Hanff - author, wrote 84 Charing Cross Road
• Barbara Harris - first woman ordained a bishop of the Episcopal Church
• Lillian Hoban - American illustrator and children's writer; published in over 1,400 publications; Lewis Carroll Shelf and Christopher Award winner
• Minnie Kenny - cryptologist; early NSA employee; former Chief of Language and Linguistics for the Office of Techniques and Standards of the NSA ^[5]
• Milly Koss - computing pioneer
• Virginia Knauer - economic advisor to President Nixon and President Ford; first Director of the Office of Consumer Affairs
• Pinkie Gordon Lane - first African American poet laureate of Louisiana
• Carol Lazzaro-Weis - professor of Italian and French, translator and scholar
• Lisa Lopes - member of the best-selling female American group of all time, TLC
• Frederica Massiah-Jackson - President of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas
• Jeanette DuBois Meech – evangelist and industrial educator
• Pauline Oberdorfer Minor - one of the founders of Delta Sigma Theta sorority
• Wanda Nesbitt - U.S. Ambassador to Namibia (1974)
• Barbara Nissman - pianist in the grand Romantic tradition
• Ann Hobson Pilot - principal harpist, Boston Symphony Orchestra
• Howardena Pindell - artist, first African American curator at MoMA, activist for minorities in the arts, researcher, and author
• Rebecca S. Pringle - president, National Education Association^[6]
• Liza Redfield - American conductor, pianist, and composer; first woman to be the full-time conductor of a Broadway pit orchestra
• Katherine Gilmore Richardson - politician; Philadelphia City Councilmember At-Large
• Lisa Richette - Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas judge, legal pioneer, social activist, and author
• Judith Rodin - first woman President of the University of Pennsylvania; President of the Rockefeller Foundation
• Jill Scott - singer and actress
• Dolores Sloviter - first woman named Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
• Marion Stokes - civil rights activist, founding Board member for the National Organization for Women, and philanthropist. Data and media archivist who recorded every news broadcast for decades. Her 70,000 tapes are being digitized by the Internet Archive.^[7][8][9]
• Zoe Strauss - photographer; nominee member of Magnum Photos
• C. Delores Tucker - politician and civil rights activist
• Mary L. Washington - politician^[10]
• Helen L. Weiss - composer and pianist
• Lisa Yuskavage - artist

Hafsah Abdur-Rahman, a Muslim student, was denied a diploma on stage by the school principal after performing the Griddy dance during the graduation ceremony on June 9, 2023. ^[11]

• Ida Augusta Keller - plant physiologist; taught at the school, 1893–1930^[12][13]

• The Public Schools of Philadelphia: Historical, Biographical, Statistical by John Trevor Custis, Burk & McFetridge Co. Publisher, 1897, Pg. 153&c.: Girls' Normal School, Girl's High School, Girls' High and Normal School

• Official website
  • Girls' High School at the Wayback Machine (archived January 28, 2018);
  • Girls' High School at the Wayback Machine (archived November 2, 2007)
• Alumnae Association Alumnae Association of the Philadelphia High School for Girls