Rudolph Koenig’s full “Philosophical Apparatus” demonstrated
at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition.
The Philadelphia Science Festival and Philly Tech Week 2013 presented by AT&T both return this week, for their coinciding 10-day-long homage to the thriving science and technology communities in Philadelphia. But Philadelphia’s excitement about new, sometimes oddball technology has precedent that reaches at least as far back as Ben Franklin and includes staples of our daily lives like the wired telephone.
So in honor of the more than 200 events taking place through the end of April, we decided to think back on who we might resurrect from the annals of history to attend these events and decided on a pretty unconventional figure; a Parisian, no less: (Karl) Rudolph Koenig (1832-1901).
Koenig, who is no Philadelphian, certainly seems an unlikely candidate. Originally from Koenigsburg, Prussia (now part of Russia), he made his career in Paris inventing musical oddities and theorizing about the science of acoustics. In addition to his acoustical research contributions, Koenig was best known for his finely crafted tuning forks and for creating a manometric flame and rotating mirror which proved that fire would follow the rise and fall of musical sound waves.
The siren “Telephone” component of the Koenig’s exhibit.
Koenig first came to Philadelphia for the international Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876. There, Rudolph Koenig showed off a strange acoustical item called the “Philosophical Apparatus” (top). Part of the machine, a siren, was dubbed the “Telephone” and is pictured at left.
Another piece of the apparatus was a tonometer made of more than 600 tuning forks. While the object in the picture doesn’t look like anything most of us would call a phone, the jury was reportedly so taken with entirety of his creation, that one judge commented:
Koenig claimed a gold medal at the Exhibition for his work.
Some reports indicate that the University of Pennsylvania might have been interested in purchasing the entire apparatus Koenig exhibited, however most sources note he struggled to sell his work in the United States and returned to Paris after the Centennial a bit put off. He did eventually sell the tonometer to the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Incidentally, Alexander Graham Bell was also at the international Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition that year, exhibiting his recently patented and ultimately more famous telephone.
With his passion for audio and penchant for invention, it seems like Koenig could make a strong showing at a PTW mobile hackathon, were it not for more than 100 years of technological advances in the way we record and transmit sound. Still, given the plethora of audio-oriented applications that will undoubtedly be demonstrated throughout the course of PTW, it seems likely that Koenig and his accoustic apparati could quickly fit right in.
The first public tree goes up in Independence Square in 1913.
Lists reflecting on the bests and worsts of the waning year are nearly as abundant as egg nog and cardboard-flavored cookies in the weeks leading up to the holidays. But unlike the transience of yearly in memoriams, Philadelphia’s rich tradition of holiday decorations is long and vibrant.
We hope you’ll think of this collection of holiday photos in Philadelphia not as a list, but as ongoing documentation of the persistence of cheer and lights and, sure, brotherly love, in a city that has kept the holiday spirit alive even in times of hardship.
As PhillyHistory and PlanPhilly have explained, the tree pictured right in front of Independence Square marked the city’s first public Christmas tree and seems to have heralded a tradition of “civic Christmas trees” that has subsequently lit the city during the darkest winter days.
But everyone knows the city doesn’t just celebrate with trees. A collection of carolers gathered in Reyburn Plaza in 1958, with two children sitting, apparently enchanted, in the foreground. In 1956, the city installed a live Santa and a child-sized train set in Reyburn Plaza, but according to the St. Joseph Gazette, no children arrived to ride the train or convey their Christmas lists to Santa. Our guess is that they were relying on the “real” Santa at the Wanamaker Building.
Today we know the holiday seasons would be incomplete without the audiovisual familiarity of jingling bells and red kettles from the Salvation Army. That was true in 1962, too. Below, volunteers celebrate the unveiling of the Salvation Army Christmas billboard that year.
William Warren Gibbs arrived in Philadelphia around 1880 with little more than a smooth tongue and gas-making equipment for sale. Born in 1846 in the small town of Hope, New Jersey, Gibbs dropped out of school to work in a local store, and then married Frances Ayres Johnson, the daughter of a prominent Hackettstown merchant. Not content with a life in central New Jersey farm country, he wanted to move to the thriving “Workshop of the World “and become a wealthy entrepreneur.
Soon after arriving in Philadelphia, Gibbs quickly gained a reputation as one of the most persuasive men in the city, able to sell anything to anyone, especially influential men with money. Those around him realized that Gibbs had a real knack at setting up companies and issuing securities. He teamed up with another up-and-coming Philadelphia businessman — Peter Arrell Brown Widener — and formed the United Gas Improvement Company, a massive trust that sought control over the city’s gas mains. Another vested interest in UGI was W.G. Warden of John D. Rockefeller’s powerful Standard Oil Company. The arrangement worked well for Widener, who parlayed the fortune he gained supplying meat to the Union Army into trolley lines and new real estate development in North Philadelphia. By the 1890s, UGI had helped make Widener and his cronies extremely wealthy. According to contemporary reports, UGI was “the most successful enterprise of its kind in the country, already owning and controlling the gas works of about fifty important towns and cities.” That year, the outstanding stock of the United Gas Improvement Company was worth $5 million and sold “at a high premium, while the actual assets will aggregate at a much larger sum.” Eventually, the United Gas Improvement Company solidified its position by getting a 30 year lease on Philadelphia’s entire gas lighting system. It also had a reputation for political corruption. In 1903, for example, UGI was accused of making an illegal $20 million profit on the sale of stock in the United Electric Company of New Jersey.
The United Gas Improvement Company headquarters at 1401 Arch Street…conveniently close to City Hall.
The business and social bonds between Peter Widener and William Warren Gibbs probably explain why they owned neighboring mansions on North Broad Street during the 1880s– Widener at 1200 and Gibbs at 1216.
In 1888, Gibbs struck pay dirt again when he trotted out the Electric Storage Battery Company, which made batteries for industrial uses. According to business historian Alfred Chandler, Gibbs “quickly worked out an agreement with leading Philadelphia capitalists to raise $4.0 million” in 1893, much of it from Widener and Elkins, who needed batteries to power their electric streetcars. With this money, Gibbs purchased several smaller companies and bought out patents belonging to Brush Electric, Edison Electric, and other American electric manufacturers.” He then supervised the creation of a network of factories and distributers to manufacture and sell these electric batteries to big clients such as General Electric and Westinghouse. The company proved to be a great success, bolstering its organizer’s reputation and enriching him further.
The Widener mansion at 1200 N. Broad Street. The Gibbs mansion is a few houses to the north at 1216 N. Broad Street. It may have had interiors designed by architect Frank Furness.
Yet Widener and Gibbs’s paths diverged by the early 1900s. Widener invested in companies for the long term, branching out into steel, oil, and steamships (including his friend Clement Griscom’s International Mercantile Marine — owner of Britain’s White Star Line ). By 1912, when Widener lost both his son George and grandson Harry in the Titanic disaster, he had a highly-diversified portfolio worth over $100 million. William Warren Gibbs, on the other hand, remained a serial entrepreneur, and had little interest in active management in his start up’s affairs after it went public. He became known — perhaps somewhat mockingly — as the man who sat on more boards of directors than any other man in America. One his more far-fetched schemes was financing the construction of a massive bridge across the Hudson River at Poughkeepsie. Although the structure was a wonder of engineering, the bridge company itself went into receivership and left Gibbs $100,000 poorer, and had “cost lots of big men big fortunes.” This misadventure probably deepened Gibbs’s lack of respect for engineers.
The Drexel-Gibbs mansion at 1733 Walnut Street, when it was one of the grandest homes in the Rittenhouse Square area. It was torn down in 1913 and replaced by an apartment building.
By 1900, William Warren Gibbs had amassed enough clout (and a $15 million fortune) to purchase a mansion from banker Anthony Drexel Jr. at 1733 Walnut Street, on the northeast corner of Rittenhouse Square. The house, built in 1847 when Rittenhouse Square was on the edge of the countryside, was now surrounded by some of the finest homes in the city, Gibbs and his made their own lavish improvements to the house, which already boasted ceiling frescos, plaster moulding, solid walnut doors, and gold and silver leaf stenciling. They also added a high iron fence, gate, and a new stone port-cochere at the rear of the house, and a raised portico at the Walnut Street front door. Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs, as well as their five children still living at home, enjoyed the most modern amenities: electronic service bells to summon five live-in servants, steam heat, hot and cold running water, and gas lighting. He joined the Union League, his wife threw lavish parties at hotels, and his young boys William Francis and Frederic Herbert learned how to play tennis at prestigious suburban country clubs. Their eldest daughter Augusta May married the son of a prominent banker in 1899, and a local paper described her as “a splendid musician [who] paints beautifully and rides and drives well.”
Yet Gibbs’s inability to invest in a company for the long-term finally caught up with him. He invested in more and more peculiar ventures — dye, gunpowder, and cellulose battleship insulation — and seemed more interested in playing the market than creating sustainable companies that actually made things. The Philadelphia Inquirer observed in 1901 that, “the days of skylarking for these stocks are over, and lacking the support of Mr. Gibbs, each issue is heavy in the market. Not, so far as is known, are they likely to receive any support which will make them attractive as speculative issues, stocks which a person may buy and sell quickly at a handsome profit…” The same article also noted due to some suspect financial activities, “It is quite likely that some of the shareholders of record of the Alkali Company unite in a defense and make a test case.”
In 1902, Gibbs’s wheeling-dealing caught up with him, when one of his companies, the American Alkali Company, was found out to be little more than a stock-jobbing scheme in possession of worthless patents. The company went bankrupt, and Gibbs was accused of concocting a “fraudulent scheme,” in which he illegally pocketed over $350,000 in cash.
The 2100 block of Pine Street. The Gibbs family lived in the building on the right during the late 1910s.
It took another eight years for the downfall of William Warren Gibbs to reach its tragic finale. The Philadelphia Inquirer noted snarkily a few years after the Alkali scandal in its “Clubs and Clubmen” section that, “W.W. Gibbs is said to have made half a million in diamonds. He collected a big bag of them, laid them aside in his safe until the price went up 50 per cent, and then sold them out.” In 1910, the family suddenly deserted their enormous house and retreated to a small cottage on the Main Line. Creditors swiftly foreclosed on the house for nonpayment of two mortgages. Three years later, the deteriorating mansion was torn down and replaced by a luxury apartment building.
The Gladstone Hotel, just prior to demolition in 1971.
The Widener family does not appear to have offered assistance following this very public downfall. The Gibbs family kept on the move, taking up residence at an apartment building at 21st and Pine, and then in the Gladstone Hotel at 11th and Pine. Despite his best efforts, William Warren Gibbs never made a come-back. The once-wealthy and powerful financier died in abject poverty in 1925 while residing in a North Philadelphia sanitarium.
His son William Francis Gibbs (1886-1967) dropped out of Harvard following his father’s financial ruin. He moved to New York and rose to became America’s greatest naval architect, even though his father considered engineers inarticulate and financially inept. The man who designed the fastest, safest, most beautiful ocean liner in history — the SS United States — said that he “never would have amounted to anything” had his father not gone bankrupt.
Note: Steven Ujifusa is the author of A Man and His Ship: America’s Greatest Naval Architect and His Quest to Build the SS United States, published in July 2012 by Simon & Schuster. To learn more, click here.
Sources:
“Allege $20,000,000 Fraud,” The New York Times, October 4, 1903.
Philadelphia and Popular Philadelphians (Philadelphia, PA: The North American, 1891), p.166.
“Elegant Wedding at St. James: Miss Augusta M. Gibbs Becomes the Wife of Mr. W.H.T. Huhn,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 9, 1899.
“New Suit Against Alkali,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 12, 1902.
“Now Seeking a Receiver,” The New York Times, October 29, 1891.
“Skylarking Over; Now for Business,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 9, 1901.
“Suit Against W.W. Gibbs,” The New York Times, April 20, 1902.
Alfred Dupont Chandler, Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 1990, p.403.
Winthrop Sergeant, “Profiles: The Best I Know How,” The New Yorker, June 6, 1964, p.73.
Stuart Wells, “The Residence at 1733 Walnut Street,” HSTVP 600 Documentation and Archival Research, Dr. Roger Moss, December 12, 1986, Collection of the Philadelphia Athenaeum, HR 86.4., p. 8.
John Russell Young, Memorial history of the city of Philadelphia from its first settlement to the year 1895 (New York: New York History Company), 1895-1898, pp.457-58.
Joseph Wharton (1826-1909). Source: Wikipedia Commons.
During the winter months, drivers along the Schuylkill Expressway may notice the broken shell of a house near the Girard Avenue Bridge. Its battered, honey-colored walls are marred by bright graffiti. Its roof is gone, windows vacant.
This forlorn ruin, once known as “The Cliffs,” was long ago the childhood home of one of America’s great industrialists, whose name is known throughout the world today.
Joseph Wharton was born in 1826, the scion of a wealthy Quaker family. Despite his privilege, his parents put a damper on extravagance. They were members of the progressive Hicksite Quaker sect, founded by itinerant preacher Elias Hicks. Along with a strict doctrine of simplicity, Hicks preached the abolition of slavery, and argued that the guidance from “Inner Light” was more important that strict adherence scripture. Hicks wrote that, “the Scriptures can only direct to the fountain from whence they originated – the spirit of truth: as saith the apostle, ‘The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God;’ therefore when the Scriptures have directed and pointed us to this light within, or Spirit of Truth, there they must stop – it is their ultimatum – the top stone of what they can do. And no other external testimony of men or books can do any more.”
Hicks’s radical theology lead to a split between conservative “Orthodox” and progressive “Hicksite” Philadelphia Quakers in the 1820s. Among the leaders of the Philadelphia Hicksite community was Lucretia Mott (1793-1880), who worked closely with 19th century civil rights activists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass.
As a child, Wharton was deeply shaped by the Quaker faith, especially its doctrines of simplicity and practicality. His boyhood summers were divided “The Cliffs,” his mother Deborah Fisher Wharton’s family country house on the Schuykill River, and “Bellevue,” the Wharton river estate to the west. Built by his great-grandfather Joshua Fisher in 1745, “The Cliffs” was a Georgian house in the classic “Quaker plain” vein, an informal retreat where the Fishers escaped the city’s miserable, disease-ridden summers. “Bellevue” was a somewhat more spacious and elaborate structure, compete with a ballroom that, according Wharton’s daughter Joanna Wharton Lippincott, “served the young Quakers as a delightful place for games of various kinds.”
Fireplace at “The Cliffs,” 1971.
Yet a life of leisure was not for Joseph Wharton. Choosing not to go to college, he apprenticed himself to an accountant to learn the basics of business. After marrying fellow Quaker Anna Corbit Lovering in 1854, he struggled in his early ventures. Then, working with master craftsmen, Wharton learned the new science of metallurgy, and prospered forging zinc, nickel, and iron.
Wharton didn’t stop there. He kept his eyes peeled for the next big thing, which was the metal of the future: steel: Under his management, Bethlehem Steel became one of America’s largest integrated steel and mining ventures. Wharton crisscrossed Europe looking for the newest and best technologies, and built personal relationships with his managers. Supplying steel for skyscrapers, ships, and bridges made Joseph Wharton a millionaire many times over, on par with Rockefeller and Carnegie.
Something of an amateur scientist, Wharton also published a number of well-received articles — including ones on the Doppler effect and another on the global spread of volcanic pumice from the eruption of Mount Krakatoa near Manila. He also tried his hand at verse. His daughter Joanna claimed that Ralph Waldo Emerson once praised his poem “Ichabod” (written in honor of Daniel Webster) at a dinner for Atlantic Monthly contributors:
So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore;
The glory from his gray hairs gone,
For evermore.
Like many self-taught businessmen, he remained intensely interested in the day-to-day workings of his enterprises. As an old man, he led a canoe trip down the Colorado River to inspect one of his Nevada silver mines, and insisted on being lowered down the mineshaft in a bucket to inspect it.
A good Quaker to the end, Wharton believed that wealth was not just an end in itself, but should be used as a force for good in the world. In 1881, he set aside $100,000 to start a school that would be the first of its kind — a business school — and chose his native city’s University of Pennsylvania as the beneficiary. Wharton realized that America’s corporations needed trained professionals to guide them through the complex industrial economy that he had helped create. As Penn’s medical faculty trained future doctors, business scholars could train future business executives.
What wisdom did Wharton want to impart to his new school’s graduates? Business to him did not mean routine, but turbulence and change, and he hoped that his school would prepare them for, as he said, “immense swings upward or downward that await the competent or the incompetent soldier in this modern strife.” The best schools, he observed, “have endeavored to do more than keep up the respectable standard of a recent past; they have labored to supply the needs of an advancing and exacting world…”
Yet it appears that Wharton became disappointed with the business school he founded. As he grew older, Wharton became more involved with Swarthmore College, a Hicksite Quaker liberal arts school that he co-founded in 1869 Unlike the Wharton School, Swarthmore College was a coeducational institution and was not strictly vocational. It’s possible that Wharton, who did not receive a college education himself, lived vicariously through this school, frequently addressing the student body at commencement. “Not only, therefore, will you by obediently following your inward guide find for yourselves the right path,” he addressed one graduating Swarthmore class. “Each of you may thus be the grain of wheat or the dock seed, corn, or weed, to bless or ban future generations. Therefore, as George Fox said, ‘Friends, mind the light.'”
Wharton died in 1909. The two schools he founded continue to thrive, but the two country houses where Wharton spent his childhood summers did not fare as well. In the 1870s, the city of Philadelphia confiscated “Bellevue” and “The Cliffs” and integrated them into Fairmount Park as part of the plan to protect the Schuylkill River from pollution. “Bellevue” was demolished around 1900 and replaced by rowhouses. “The Cliffs” remained intact until the 1960s, and then suffered from neglect and vandalism. In 1986, fire gutted it.
Today, the stone ruins of “The Cliffs,”still poke above the trees on the east bank of the Schuylkill River, just north of Girard Avenue.
Two women in front of “The Cliffs,” 1971.The burned-out shell of “The Cliffs,” 2006. Source: Wikipedia.
References:
Joanna Wharton Lippincott, Biographical Memoranda Concerning Joseph Wharton, 1826-1909. (Philadelphia, PA: J.P. Lippincott Company, 1910). Collection of the Pennsylvania Historical Society.
Samuel M. Janney, “The Doctrines of Elias Hicks,” The History of the Religious Society of Friends, from Its Rise to the Year 1828. (Quaker Heron Press, 2008, originally published 1869. http://www.quaker.org/pamphlets/hicks.pdf
“Wharton School of Business: A Brief History.” http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/features/schools/wharton.html
Jimmy Carter stops off in a classroom in pursuit of a re-election bid.
Although Philadelphia’s days as the nation’s capital were glorious, but short-lived, that hasn’t stopped commanders in chief from stopping off in a city that practically oozes with symbols of democracy. As election day and all the associated controversy approaches (make sure to vote!), we wanted to give you a look at a few of the former Presidents who have come to Philadelphia — to campaign, rally support, sign legislation, and otherwise attempt to harness the force of Philadelphia’s great political history — and a reminder of what they said.
Technically, President Jimmy Carter isn’t campaigning in this 1980 photo, but he might as well be. Here, Carter is on a trip to Philly which took him to the Italian Market and beyond in his effort to drum up support for his re-election bid. Things didn’t work out for Carter, who lost out to President Ronald Reagan that year. Still, it’s nice to know that picture perfect visits to elementary schools are not a new thing.
President Gerald Ford shared a table with then-Mayor Frank Rizzo [Photo], likely during or after the dinner celebrating the reconvening of the first Continental Congress on September 6, 1974. Ford celebrated the city in his remarks that day, saying “Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, was the cradle of American liberty. “Love” and “liberty” are two pretty good words with which to start a nation.”
Nixon looks out his car window onto Independence National Mall.
About three years after President Richard Nixon took office in 1969, the president of privatization and Watergate infamy came to Philadelphia to sign a revenue-sharing bill — the State and Local Fiscal Assistance Act of 1972 — at Independence Hall. The bill redirected tax revenue to states and municipal governments who could manage the money as they needed. Nixon, in his remarks given at Independence Square, said:
“The signing today of the State and Local Fiscal Assistance Act of 1972–the legislation known as general revenue sharing-means that this new American revolution is truly underway. And it is appropriate that we launch this new American revolution in the same place where the first American Revolution was launched by our Founding Fathers 196 years ago-Independence Square in Philadelphia. It is appropriate that we meet in this historic place to help enunciate a new declaration of independence for our State and local governments.”
President Lyndon B. Johnson came to Philadelphia in 1967 [Photo] to visit the Philadelphia Opportunities Industrial Center at 19th and Oxford St., which had recently been opened by Reverend Leon H. Sullivan in 1964 to offer job training and educational support to minority groups in the city.
President John F. Kennedy at Independence Hall in 1962.
In his remarks at the POIC, Johnson lauded the work of the institution to lift up Philadelpia’s African American and minority population during a time when discrimination and inequality were destroying the fabric of cities across the country:
“Now when you really talk about what is right, you don’t appear to be nearly as interesting as you are when you talk about what is wrong. But I have seen so many things that are right here this morning that I wish everyone in America could not only see them, but emulate them–and follow them … What I have seen here with Reverend Sullivan is not just an institution–it is a unique training program. I have seen men and women whose self-respect is beginning to burn inside them like a flame–like a furnace that will fire them all their lives.”
On July 4, 1962 President John F. Kennedy was celebrating Independence Day in arguably the most important place to celebrate the holiday — Independence Hall. In an address to Philadelphia city leadership and the 54th National Governors Conference Kennedy remarked:
“Our task–your task in the State House and my task in the White House–is to weave from all these tangled threads a fabric of law and progress. We are not permitted the luxury of irresolution. Others may confine themselves to debate, discussion, and that ultimate luxury-free advice. Our responsibility is one of decision–for to govern is to choose.
Thus, in a very real sense, you and I are the executors of the testament handed down by those who gathered in this historic hall 186 years ago today.”
President Herbert Hoover addresses a crowd in Reyburn Plaza.
It’s not possible to see President Herbert Hoover in this picture taken in Reyburn Plaza at City Hall in October of 1932, but the scene is impressive. Hoover was stopping off in Philadelphia that day as part of a campaign tour through the mid-Atlantic region on his way to New York City and drew what looks to be a sizable crowd. Hoover, however, was not to be reelected.
This somewhat famous photo of President Abraham Lincoln [Photo] (JFK referenced it in the speech mentioned above) raising the American flag in front of Independence Hall could only be made better if you could actually see the man whom nearly every American could recognize with hesitation. Here, on February 22, 1861, Lincoln came to Philadelphia to welcome the state of Kansas to the Union in front of a crowd on the ground and in the trees.
November 1983: Guion Bluford speaks at a press conference in City Hall upon his homecoming
after his first successful space mission.
By Yael Borofsky for PhillyHistory.org
Guion Bluford — he goes by Guy — is the man at the center of all that attention in the photo to the left. Nearly thirty years after becoming the first African American to go to space, he doesn’t exactly remember what he said in that City Hall press conference, but given that the event marked his homecoming, he probably doesn’t need to.
“It was so long ago,” Bluford told PhillyHistory. “I do remember it was exciting and I was happy to be home.”
Bluford also remembers that being in Philadelphia was a whirlwind. After completing the successful STS 8 mission in September of 1983 and spending a whole month on the road doing public relations events all over the country, Bluford was finally back home for four days, though he was staying at the Four Seasons downtown, not his childhood home in West Philly.
In addition to the City Hall press conference, then-Mayor Bill Green, III, presented him with the Philadelphia bowl (Bluford still prizes it in his trophy case, he says), he met with then-Governor of Pennsylvania Dick Thornburgh, and soon-to-be Mayor Wilson Goode. He visited with sick children at the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania, and he’s not entirely certain, but thinks he may have also spoken one other time in Society Hill. To cap it all off, Bluford served as grand marshal of the 64th annual Thanksgiving Day parade.
The city had every reason to celebrate the man. Bluford would go on to complete three more successful space missions — the STS 61-A, STS-39 and STS-53. But the city could have treated him as a public hero and role model even before that. After graduating from the Air Force ROTC with a degree in aeronautical engineering from Penn State University in 1964 — his dream since at least high school — Bluford decided to join the U.S. Air Force as a pilot.
“I was going to go into the Air Force as an engineer and spend three to five years and decide, at that point, if I was going to stay in the Air Force or go work in industry,” Bluford recalled. “Between my junior and senior years, I went to ROTC summer camp… and at the end of the four weeks I took a physical and the doctor asked me why I didn’t want to be a pilot. So I decided to go in as a pilot. I thought I’d be a better engineer if I knew how to fly airplanes.”
According to Bluford’s NASA biography, he flew a total of 144 combat missions, including 65 over North Vietnam.
While in the Air Force he received two degrees from the Air Force Institute of Technology and eventually became a NASA astronaut in 1979. As if space flight was not enough, during his time working for NASA he also received his MBA from the University of Houston, Clear Lake.
Bluford says that when he began working for NASA in 1979 he was aware that an African American had never before traveled to space, he just wasn’t focused on being the one to do it. When it turned out that he was the man to assume that role, he says he was both honored and humbled by the privilege.
“I realized I was setting an example not only for African Americans, but also African American astronauts, and letting people know that African Americans can be astronauts and do just a good a job as everyone else,” Bluford said. “When I went into the astronaut program my goal was to make a contribution and I’m proud of the one I made.”
During his NASA career, Bluford confirmed that he logged 688 hours in space.
Today Bluford lives in Cleveland, Ohio and is the President of the Aerospace Technology group, having begun what he considers to be his “third career” in “industry” after retiring from NASA and the Air Force in 1993.
Though he and his family currently have no plans to move back to Philadelphia, Bluford says that then as now, he will always think of Philadelphia as home.
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Station During Flood – Flooded Train Shed.
With the recent record levels of rainfall in Philadelphia, images such as these two photos have unfortunately become a familiar sight in our area. Though most Philadelphians do not remember another time when there seemed to be so much water everywhere, the city is actually no stranger to disastrous flooding.
The combination of a particular harsh winter that led to above-average amounts of melting snow plus the occurrence of a severe rainstorm on the night of February 28, 1902 led to so much water flowing into the Schuylkill River that it “broadened to twice its normal width.” As the sun rose on the morning of March 1, people were able to see just how bad the overnight devastation was. The sight of the swollen river full of debris set against a perfect blue-sky morning was one of such “ruinous grandeur” that it brought “thousands of spectators to bridges and points of vantage.”
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Station During Flood – Flooded Waiting Room.
The two photos here show the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Station located on the east bank of the Schuylkill at 24th and Chestnut Streets. Designed by Frank Furness and opened in 1888, the station was constructed so that the main entrance was level with the Chestnut Street Bridge with passenger waiting areas and tracks 30 feet below. While this design allowed for better flow of passengers by providing for both upper and lower waiting areas, it also meant that the lower areas were particularly vulnerable to flooding. On the morning of March 1, it was reported that the lower levels of the station had taken in five feet of water. By the afternoon, the level was reported to have lowered to a foot and a half, which would appear to be when the photos were taken. B&O had suspended service the night before as water slowly crept into the station, but by the next day the flooding had wreaked havoc on other rail lines as well. Both the Pennsylvania and Philadelphia & Reading Railroads also suspended service.
It took many months and millions of dollars for Philadelphia to recover from the flood. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad reopened the 24th Street Station and used it continuously until April 1956 when B&O suspended all passenger service north of Baltimore. The station was demolished in 1963 and the site is now home to a luxury high-rise apartment building
Sources:
“Schuylkill is a Raging Torrent.” The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 1, 1902.
“Swollen Schuylkill Bursts Its Bounds, Throttling Traffic, Damaging Property.” The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 2, 1902.
With the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton dominating the news, we here at PhillyHistory.org have been reflecting on the historical ties between Philadelphia and Great Britain, many of which are captured in our photo collections. As a former colony of Great Britain, the United States has always maintained a special relationship with its mother country and, in many ways, Philadelphia and Great Britain have their own special relationship as well. A brief survey of writings on Philadelphia and Great Britain shows that historians have explored topics as diverse as trade relationships, the Quaker influence on British abolitionism, architecture, industrialization, and theater and popular culture, just to name a few. Moreover, the historical ties between Philadelphia and Great Britain do not end with the colonial era but rather extend over centuries and have had an enduring impact on the city that Philadelphia was and the city it has become.
From its inception, the connections between Philadelphia and Great Britain were literally laid into the foundations of the city by virtue of the grid system that William Penn and his surveyor Thomas Holme designed. In hopes of staving off the overcrowding, fire, and disease that plagued European cities, Penn envisioned Philadelphia as a city modeled after an English country village, with ample space separating homes and businesses and an abundance of gardens and orchards. Published in 1683, Holme’s A Portraiture of the City of Philadelphia in the Province of Pennsylvania, 1683 brought Penn’s vision to life, laying out the city on a grid system of wide streets intersecting at right angles between the Schuylkill River to the west and the Delaware River to the east. Also visible on the 1683 map is perhaps the best known feature of Penn and Holme’s design, the four squares of dedicated parkland that Holme envisioned as “for the like Uses, as the More-fields in London.” Further proof of the English influence on Philadelphia’s topography, Moorefields was a public garden that notably evoked the “well-ordered spaces” of public recreation that, according to William Penn, would bring a sense of moral discipline and healthful living to the city. Along with Centre Square (later the site of City Hall), the four original squares of dedicated parkland were Northeast Square (now Franklin Square), Northwest Square (now Logan Square/Logan Circle), Southwest Square (now Rittenhouse Square), and Southeast Square (now Washington Square). Notably, while Philadelphia’s five squares have largely endured in one form or another, Penn and Holme’s careful, English-style planning did not; as early settlers began to populate Philadelphia, they largely ignored the grid design and crowded by the Delaware River, which remained the city’s de facto economic and social hub for more than a century.
Even as Philadelphia did not develop according to William Penn’s original vision, the city did emerge as a principal colonial trading port and, as the social and geographic center of the original thirteen colonies, was once the second-largest city in the British Empire. Of course, Philadelphia was also a key site of political and military activity during the American Revolution, including the British occupation of Philadelphia, then the national capital, during the winter of 1777-78. While many historians have highlighted the Philadelphia campaign as a turning point that eventually led to the defeat of the undermanned British forces at Saratoga and France’s entry into the war, the British occupation of Philadelphia also has a more subtle cultural legacy. As it had done in New York City the winter before, the British army staged theatre productions during its occupation of Philadelphia both for general amusement and to benefit the widows and orphans of British army and naval officers. Performed at the Southwark Theatre at Fourth and South Street, productions ran throughout the winter and into the spring and included several Shakespearean dramas, as well as such lesser known works as Duke and No Duke and The Wonder: a Woman Keeps a Secret. Interestingly, the spectacle of British theatre performed in Philadelphia continued even after the Revolution, as the scarcity of American texts in the new nation caused British dramas to dominate Philadelphia theatre productions in the early nineteenth century.
As America established itself as an independent nation, larger cities like New York and Boston increasingly overshadowed Philadelphia, which nonetheless became a popular destination for British tourists. Recounting travelers’ impressions of the United States between 1840 and 1940, historian Richard L. Rapson observes that of the cities along the Eastern seaboard British tourists found Boston more English than other cities, but Philadelphia was often complimented for being pleasant and “clean.” And, with its wealth of historic sites and attractions, Philadelphia has remained a prime destination for tourists and dignitaries alike – from King Hussein of Jordan and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands to Queen Elizabeth II of England.
In 1976, Philadelphia memorably played host as the first stop on a six-day state visit by Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Phillip in celebration of America’s Bicentennial. On July 6th, an estimated 5,000 Philadelphians greeted the British royals at Penn’s Landing, where they arrived aboard the 412-foot royal yacht Britannia. Wearing a dress with white and navy blue stripes, a matching coat, and white straw hat, the Queen was greeted by Mayor Rizzo who then received the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at City Hall. The royal couple also took in a panoramic view of the city from the Penn Mutual Building and hosted a luncheon party aboard the Britannia where 54 V.I.P. guests dined on lobster and eggs, lamb cutlets, and apple caramel.
Following the luncheon, the Queen and her husband toured Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell pavilion, but the centerpiece of the Queen’s visit to Philadelphia was the official presentation of the Bicentennial Bell. Cast in London’s Whitechapel Foundry where the original Liberty Bell was cast in 1752, the six-and-one-half ton Bicentennial Bell was a gift from the British people in commemoration of the 200-year anniversary of American independence and bore the inscription “For the people of the United States from the people of Britain 4 July 1976. Let Freedom Ring.” Delivered to Philadelphia in June 1976, the Bicentennial Bell was installed in the bell tower of the Independence National Park Visitor Center where it still resides today. At the ceremony, the Queen signaled for the bell to be rung for the first time and spoke about Independence Day as a day of mutual celebration for America and Great Britain, two nations bonded by the common cause of freedom. An estimated crowd of 75,000 witnessed the afternoon’s festivities, and the royal visit to Philadelphia concluded that evening with a dinner and reception at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
From street design and theatre performances to visits by British tourists and even the royal family, Great Britain has left its mark on Philadelphia and vice versa. The historic ties between our mother country and the City of Brotherly Love add yet another dimension to Philadelphia’s reputation as a city rich with history and tradition, a legacy so vividly captured here in PhillyHistory.org’s photograph collections.
References
“Queen Calls 1776 a Lesson that Aided Britain.” The New York Times, July 7, 1976.
Charlton, Linda. “Queen Gets Rousing Welcome as Visit Begins in Philadelphia.” The New York Times, July 7, 1976.
Milroy, Elizabeth. “‘For the Like Uses, as the Moore-fields:’ The Politics of Penn’s Squares.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 130:3 (July 2006): 257-282.
Pattee, Fred Lewis. “The British Theater in Philadelphia in 1778.” American Literature 6:4 (January 1934): 381-9.
Rapson, Richard L. “British Tourists in the United States, 1840-1940.” History Today 16:8 (August 1966): 519-527.
The photographic archives of the Office of the City Representative document decades of visits to Philadelphia by various dignitaries, diplomats, and VIPs, both domestic and foreign. And of course, no visit to Philadelphia would be complete without a stop at one of the iconic symbols of America, the Liberty Bell. As the photos show, being a VIP afforded one special access to the bell.
In October 1963, Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia (1930-1974), made an official state visit to the United States to meet with President Kennedy to discuss important and pertinent issues such as U.S. aid to Ethiopia, the effect of Soviet-U.S. relations on Ethiopia and other African nations, and the sticky situation of U.S. arms being sold to Somalia, Ethiopia’s neighbor and sometimes opponent. Before getting down to business with Kennedy in Washington however, Selassie made a stop in Philadelphia. Flying directly from Geneva in a United States Air Force jet, Selassie and his entourage were greeted at Philadelphia International Airport by Mayor James Tate, numerous other city officials, a 21-gun salute, and a “bevy of brass” (the police and firemen’s band) which played both the American and Ethiopian national anthems. The first stop in Philadelphia was of course the Liberty Bell, which at this time was still housed in Independence Hall. This is our first instance of “touching liberty.”
Special to The New York Times. “Arms for Somalia Embarrassing U.S. on Eve of Selassie’s Visit: Ethiopian Ruler Is Expected to Raise Issue in Talks With Kennedy This Week.” New York Times (1923-Current file), September 29, 1963, http://www.proquest.com.libproxy.temple.edu/ (accessed August 4, 2010).
LOU POTTER. “Haile Selassie, Lion of Judah, Roars Into Philadelphia: Met by Mayor Tate and Bevy Of City Brass Winds Up Tour With Honorary Citizenship.” Philadelphia Tribune (1912-2001), October 1, 1963, http://www.proquest.com.libproxy.temple.edu/ (accessed August 4, 2010).
Special to The New York Times. “Haile Selassie Is Greeted On Arrival in Philadelphia: MUSIC NOTES.” New York Times (1923-Current file), October 1, 1963, http://www.proquest.com.libproxy.temple.edu/ (accessed August 4, 2010).
In April 1964, King Hussein of Jordan arrived in the Philadelphia for his third official state visit to the United States and his first official state visit with then President Lyndon B. Johnson. Serving as an “unofficial representative of the Arab world”, King Hussein was set to discuss continued U.S. economic aid to Jordan and the delicate Arab-Israeli political climate. Before that though, King Hussein arrived in Philadelphia aboard Air Force One on a rainy afternoon. The rain however did not deter about 100 spectators, including Mayor Tate and his wife Ann, from greeting the King at the airport. King Hussein’s overnight visit to Philadelphia included trips to all the iconic Philadelphia sites – of course, including the liberty bell. Touching liberty instance number two.
“Ruler of Jordan Arrives In U.S. to Begin State Visit.” New York Times (1923-Current file), April 14, 1964, http://www.proquest.com.libproxy.temple.edu/ (accessed August 4, 2010).
HEDRICK SMITH Special to The New York Times. “Hussein Confers With President: HUSSEIN CONFERS WITH PRESIDENT.” New York Times (1923-Current file), April 15, 1964, http://www.proquest.com.libproxy.temple.edu/ (accessed August 4, 2010).
In April 1976, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden embarked on a 27-day, 14-state tour of the United States. After spending the first day of his tour in Washington with President Ford, King Carl was driven to the American Swedish Historical Museum in Philadelphia (in a Volvo, of course). On hand to meet the King at the museum was Mayor Rizzo, who was reported to have incorrectly addressed the King as “Your Eminence”; one of Rizzo’s aides had to politely remind him that the correct way to address a monarch was “Your Majesty.” In addition to a luncheon in his honor at Philadelphia’s iconic Bellevue Stratford Hotel, King Car also toured Independence Park. Here he touches liberty in the bell’s new pavilion built for the 1976 Bicentennial.
RONALD SULLIVAN Special to The New York Times. “Swedish Monarch Helps Swedesboro to Celebrate.” New York Times (1923-Current file), April 9, 1976, http://www.proquest.com.libproxy.temple.edu/ (accessed August 16, 2010).
As the official “Bicentennial City”, Philadelphia hosted many dignitaries in 1976. Dr. William R. Tolbert, president of Liberia, and his wife Victoria were invited to the United States as official Bicentennial guests of the U.S. government (the only officially invited head of state from the African continent). This was President Tolbert’s first visit to the United States since taking office as president of Liberia in 1971, having served the 20 years prior as Liberia’s vice-president. Tolbert was descended from a South Carolina slave family who immigrated to Liberia in the 1880s. Arriving first in Washington D.C., Tolbert tackled much more serious tasks, such as addressing a joint session of Congress and the United Nations General Assembly, before coming to Philadelphia to partake of the lighter Bicentennial fare. Here President Tolbert and Mrs. Tolbert get their chance to touch liberty.
“Notes on People: President of Liberia Greeted At the White House by Ford.” New York Times (1923-Current file), September 22, 1976, http://www.proquest.com.libproxy.temple.edu/ (accessed August 16, 2010).
“Liberia’s Tolbert, A Bicen Visitor With Historical Ties to U.S.A.” Philadelphia Tribune (1912-2001), September 25, 1976, http://www.proquest.com.libproxy.temple.edu/ (accessed August 16, 2010).
Of course, having your own country was not a prerequisite to being afforded special access to the Liberty Bell. Here is Bob Hope (with Mayor Rizzo and fellow entertainer Joel Gray) getting his own touch of liberty during the Freedom Week 1975 ceremonies.
Much like the city of Philadelphia itself, the annual college football match-up between the U.S. Military and Naval Academies, colloquially known as the Army-Navy Game, has a storied history that echoes that of the city in which the match has been held more than any other. Since the Army-Navy Game’s inception in 1890, Philadelphia has hosted the match a record 81 times, far surpassing its nearest competitors, New York (11) and Baltimore (4). After the rivalry’s first four matches incited passionate reactions and a near duel between two officers in 1893, the Army-Navy Game was suspended for five years until Philadelphia was selected as a neutral site for the game in 1899. Roughly equidistant from both West Point and Annapolis, Philadelphia was considered a prime location, as organizers hoped relocating the game away from the campuses of either academy would diffuse tensions and encourage good sportsmanship. Throughout the early 20th century, the Army-Navy Game was held at Franklin Field on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania before moving to Municipal Stadium, later John F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, in 1936 and later Lincoln Financial Field in 1980.
Newspaper accounts from the turn of the 20th century describe the Army-Navy Game as a city-wide event, with hotels and homes bedecked in the blue, yellow, and gray of West Point or the blue and gold of Annapolis, while citizens and tourists alike flooded the streets of Philadelphia carrying badges and pennants to show their allegiance to either academy. The players themselves, accompanied by marching bands and their respective mascots, the Navy Goat and Army Mule, processed through the streets up to Franklin Field, which consistently exceeded its seating capacity. Ticket scalpers were common and by 1934 were charging as much as $75 for choice seats, a blemish on the event that later inspired a Congressional investigation. Traditionally, the Secretary of the Navy and Secretary of War attended as representatives of their respective departments and the game also drew many governors, mayors, and other political notables. In addition, the game was also a significant event on the East Coast social calendar, as special luncheons and dinners, including a Naval Academy alumni dance at the Bellevue-Stratford hotel, surrounded the match and the box seats occupied by socialites and dignitaries were chronicled in the New York Times society pages.
Inevitably, Franklin Field struggled to accommodate the sheer number of people who desired to attend the Army-Navy Game and the search for a new location with larger facilities threatened to move the match out of Philadelphia. In 1905, the Army-Navy Game took place at Osborne Field on the campus of Princeton University, but transportation problems involving the local train lines rendered Princeton a less desirable option moving forward. The Army-Navy Game returned to Philadelphia and Franklin Field from 1906-1912 before relocating to the New York Polo Grounds in 1913. The Polo Grounds then became a favored site for the game for the rest of the decade and thereafter the Army-Navy Game was periodically played at other sites as well, including Chicago’s Soldier Field and New York City’s Yankee Stadium. Notably, the variety of venues, which continued into the mid-1930s, was considered more equitable to both sides after representatives from West Point argued that holding the game in Philadelphia every year favored Annapolis, which generally had an easier time commuting to Franklin Field.
In 1936, Philadelphia mayor-elect S. Davis Wilson proposed hosting the Army-Navy Game at Municipal Stadium, a 100,000 seat stadium located at the far southern end of South Broad Street that was originally built for the 1926 Sesquicentennial Exposition. The first Army-Navy Game at Municipal Stadium drew a capacity crowd that included First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Pennsylvania Railroad ran 35 special trains direct to the stadium out of a fleet of 105 locomotives put in service especially for the event. In the years that followed, Municipal Stadium became the favored venue for the Army-Navy Game, which also saw Presidents Truman, Kennedy, and Ford in attendance over the years. President Kennedy especially took an active part in the game, conducting the coin toss at the start of each match and parading across the field at halftime. Following President Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, officials considered canceling the Army-Navy Game, but the match was eventually held on December 7 at the express request of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. The following year, Municipal Stadium was renamed John F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in honor of the late President and the President’s brother, Bobby Kennedy, attended the Army-Navy Game with his family to mark the occasion.
John F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium continued to host the Army-Navy Game until 1980, at which time it moved to neighboring Veterans Stadium and ultimately to Lincoln Financial Field. By the time the match relocated to Veterans Stadium, the Army-Navy Game had declined in national importance and the crowd of 60,470 who attended the game in 1981 was the lowest crowd recorded since 1943. Still, the Army-Navy Game remains a legendary event in American sports and a notable part of Philadelphia history, as captured so vividly in the collection of photographs now displayed on PhillyHistory.org.
References
“102,000, East’s Largest Football Crowd, Will See Army-Navy Classic Today.” New York Times, November 28, 1936.
