Categories
Historic Sites

Corridor of Commerce


 

…”if Philadelphia is indebted to England for the name High Street, which undoubtedly is the case, nearly every American city or town founded since 1700 is, in turn, indebted to Philadelphia for its Market Street, which is particularly Philadelphian in nomenclature. This…was due to the plan of Penn, who, long before his city was laid out or settled, had provided a wide High street, where markets could be held on regular days of the week under certain restrictions and rules.”

-Joseph Jackson

Market Street, known as High Street until just before the consolidation of the city with its surrounding districts in 1854, has long been an important street in Philadelphia. For much of its existence, this street has been a corridor of both transportation and commerce. As was the case with most walking cities, in the beginning this street was an area that served functions of both residence and commerce. The famed John Wanamaker, for example, opened his first store here on the corner of 6th and Market Streets in 1861. Many more changes were to follow. The development of one section of the street, that which runs from 7th to 12thStreets, has been particularly notable in the past two centuries. Not only was this section of Market Street an important center for progressive era shoppers, but it has also been a site of simultaneous change and continuity since that time.


 

One of the early department stores in Philadelphia, Strawbridge and Clothier, was opened in 1868 at the corner of 8th and Market. This three-story brick building was soon replaced with a larger five-story structure. As a wholesaler, Strawbridge’s was particularly popular among shoppers for offering quality goods at low prices. They were also known for taking orders and making deliveries. It would eventually become one of the anchor stores of the Gallery at Market East, an urban shopping mall. In addition to Strawbridge’s, several other stores lined the street. These included Gimbel’s dry goods store, Sharpless Brothers, and Hood, Foullerod, and Company.

It was not until 1910, however, that rapid transit was added to the mix of services offered in the area. Philadelphia was the last of the major metropolitan areas on the east coast to offer such services. Bromley’s 1910 atlas of the city showed two subway stops here: one at 8th Street, the other at 11th. The lines of the Market Elevated, completed in 1907 by the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company, paralleled those of the older trolley lines. This original section of the elevated extended from 69th Street to 15th Street. By 1908, the Market Elevated system also included service to 2nd, Chestnut, and South Streets (the lines to Chestnut and South were discontinued in 1939).

Particularly important for the commercial activities of the section of Market Street discussed here were the special plans for the 8th Street Station of the Market Street Subway. In 1910, three of Philadelphia’s major department stores were found at the intersection of 8th and Market Streets. At this time, Strawbridge and Clothier was located on the northwest corner, Lit Brothers on the northeast, and Gimbel Brothers on the southwest. As a tactic for drawing in more shoppers, supposing that just as they preferred to avoid congestion in the street while driving or riding the trolley, people would prefer to avoid the traffic while shopping, the underground section at 8th and Market was created so that patrons could access all three department stores from underground. This way, shoppers never had to go outside onto the busy, polluted street if they did not desire to do so. The underground department store connection opened at last in August 1908. In 1915, work began on the Frankford Elevated line, which then went into service in 1922. Eventually the two rapid-transit lines were combined to create the Market-Frankford Elevated.


 

After a downswing in retail business due to suburbanization after World War II (people, it seemed, preferred to shop in branch stores in the suburbs where they could park their cars and shop in clean, relatively crime-free surroundings), the city engaged in a venture to attract shoppers to Center City Philadelphia once again. With funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority planned and implemented changes meant to revitalize the Market East area. One of the main developments of their renewal plan was the construction of the Gallery at Market East, a passenger railroad tunnel, and transportation concourse. The Gallery I (8th to 10th Streets) opened for business in 1977. Gallery II, which extended the mall west to 11th Street, was completed by 1984. The gallery had a successful first year, and since then has remained moderately successful. However, it was not as successful at attracting suburban shoppers as it had been hoped. Instead, the Gallery became a mall most often patronized by residents of the city itself.

Market Street, in the area from 7th to 12th Streets, has since the beginnings of the streetcar city been a center of commerce in the city of Philadelphia. If its past is to be trusted, it may be assumed that Market Street will still be lined with retail shops in the future. However, the character of the establishments that may be found there are susceptible to changes which reflect changes in society as a whole. Market Street went from being the site of multiple department stores known for the quality of their products and fairness of their prices to the site of an innovatively designed urban mall and other smaller retail establishments. In the time between the streetcar city and the present day, these changes can be attributed largely to the movement of people with disposable income out of the city and their propensity for automobile travel.

References:

  • The Athenaeum of Philadelphia. Philadelphia Architects and Buildings. http://www.philadelphiabuildings.org. 2007 (accessed 12 April 2007).

  • Bromley, George Washington. Atlas of the City of Philadelphia: Complete in One Volume from Official Surveys and Plans. Philadelphia: G. W. Bromley, 1895.

  • Bromley, George Washington.Atlas of the City of Philadelphia: Complete in One Volume from Official Surveys and Plans. Philadelphia: G. W. Bromley, 1910.

  • Ed Bacon Foundation.”Site Description and History.” Connecting Market East: A national student design competition.http://www.edbacon.org/marketeast/site.htm. 2006. (accessed 13 April 2007).

  • Isenberg, Alison.Downtown America: A history of the place and the people who made it. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.

  • Jackson, Joseph.America’s Most Historic Highway: Market Street, Philadelphia. Philadelphia: John Wanamaker, 1926.

  • Leif, Alfred.Family Business: A Century in the Life and Times of Strawbridge and Clothier. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1968.

  • Philadelphia City Planning Commission.Philadelphia Shops: A Citywide Study of Retail Center Conditions, Issues, and Opportunities. 1989.

  • Philadelphia City Planning Commission.Philadelphia Shops: A Citywide Study of Retail Center Conditions, Issues, and Opportunities. 1996.

  • Schoenherr, Steven E.Evolution of the Department Store. http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/soc/shoppingcenter4.html. 11 Feb 2006. (accessed 13 April 2007).

  • Sechler, Robert P.Speed Lines to City and Suburbs: A Summary of Mass Transit Development in Metropolitan Philadelphia From 1879 to 1974. Drexel Hill, PA: Robert P. Sechler, 1974.

  • SEPTA. ” The Market-Frankford Line Celebrates 100 Years. “SEPTA News.8 March 2007. Accessed online: http://www.septa.org/news/pages/20070308.html (accessed 6 April 2007).


  • SEPTA. Market-Frankford Subway-Elevated Line. http://www.septa.org/inside/history/mfse.html. 2007. (accessed 12 April 2007).

Categories
Historic Sites

A Walk to Die For: Laurel Hill Cemetery


 

Remember me as you pass by
As you are now so once was I
As I am now you soon must be
Prepare for death and follow me.

–Jackson (56)

In the colonial period and for some time after that, the purpose of the cemetery for the living was to serve as a grim reminder of the fate that would one day befall every person. Traditionally, corpses were buried in churchyards. However, as the 18th century neared, beliefs about the nature of death began to change. This change was most evident on tombstones which began to reflect a more optimistic view of the afterlife than the one quoted above. Additionally, public health concerns surrounding cemeteries began to change. They were increasingly viewed as unsanitary and disease ridden. People were concerned about the unhealthy “miasmas” or fumes, which could emanate from the many bodies buried in these spots within the city. With the onset of the industrial revolution, the land housing the burial grounds were in demand. In the city “rapid industrialization and population growth commonly led to the disinterment of burial grounds to make way for roads and buildings” (“History” 1). These issues led to the rural cemetery movement in America.

The rural cemetery movement sought to ease the pain of death by providing a country landscape in which to experience an appreciation for history and a sense of community. At the same time, focusing the cemetery outside of the city would help, it was thought, to make life in the city healthier. A forerunner of urban parks such as New York City’s Central Park and Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park, Laurel Hill cemetery was founded by John J. Smith and approved by an act of Pennsylvania legislature in 1836.

Laurel Hill cemetery was the second major rural cemetery to be built in the United States. (Wikipedia) John J. Smith decided to open it after a bad experience in trying to bury his young daughter in one of the city’s churchyards. The first interment, that of 67 year-old Mercy Carlisle, occurred soon later on October 19, 1836 (Guide 15). The cemetery quickly became a popular recreation destination for Philadelphia residents. The trip to the cemetery, which was outside of the city at the time, took one and a half to two hours to complete. Because of its length, visitors were encouraged to see the trip as a sort of pilgrimage.


 

At the time “many early visitors and funeral-goers traveled to Laurel Hill in a steamboat; once the vehicles started plying the Schuylkill River on a regular basis in the 1840s. Steam boats Washington, Mount Vernon, and Frederick Graff embarked hourly on a descent between Fairmount and the Falls of Schuylkill, emptying a stream of lot holders and sightseers at Laurel Hill” (“History” 1). Once there, they could stroll, keeping to the walkways; admiring the plant life, statues and other parts of the scenery.

Laurel Hill, since its opening, has been the final resting place for a number of notable individuals. The people buried here include Thomas McKean (signer of the Declaration of Independence), David Rittenhouse, and Henry Disston. In addition, six Titanic passengers are buried here. The cemetery was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1998, one of the only cemeteries to be honored with the distinction. It continues to draw visitors today, for both the scenery and for the educational programs funded by the Friends of Laurel Hill Cemetery, which was founded in 1978.

References:

  • Guide to Laurel Hill Cemetery, Near Philadelphia, With Illustrations. Philadelphia: C. Sherman, Printer, 1847.

  • “History.” The Laurel Hill Cemetery. http://www.thelaurelhillcemetery.org/index.php?m=1&p=1&s=1 (accessed 2 May 2007).

  • Jackson, Charles O. Passing: The Vision of Death in America. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977.

  • Mc Dannell, Colleen. Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995.

  • “Laurel Hill Cemetery.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel_Hill_Cemetery 22 April 2007. (accessed 2 May 2007).

  • “Laurel Hill Cemetery at Risk. ” Places. http://www.nps.gov/chal/sp/p01new1.htm. 11 April 2000.(accessed 2 May 2007).

  • Sloane, David C. The Last Great Necessity: Cemeteries in American History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.

Categories
Public Services

Take Care of Him and I will repay Thee: A Luxurious Philadelphia Asylum


 

Since the establishment of Pennsylvania Hospital at 8th and Pine Streets “to care for the sick-poor of the Province and for the reception and care of lunaticks,” Philadelphia was a leading center of psychiatric care. The city is, after all, the birthplace of Declaration of Independence signer Benjamin Rush, widely regarded as the father of American psychiatry.

Rush’s belief that mental illness should “be freed from moral stigma, and be treated with medicine rather than moralizing” was reflected in his colleagues’ work at the nation’s first hospital. Founded by Dr. Thomas Bond and his close friend Benjamin Franklin, Pennsylvania Hospital was the first in America to treat insanity as a disease and the insane as potentially curable patients. While better-off, indigent and criminal mental patients were traditionally cared for – or, rather, stored – with relatives, in poorhouses or in prisons, respectively, those admitted to Franklin’s hospital at least had the potential to receive regular, professional medical care.

Yet as the number of insane patients grew to the point that the mentally ill made up the majority of the hospital’s population by the early 19th century, conditions worsened. Insane patients regarded as more violent or dangerous were kept restrained in cells in the hospitals basement, where most of their contact was not with medical staff but a ‘cell-keeper.’ Others were housed with sane patients, provoking complaints and putting pressure on the hospital to make new arrangements.

An expansion of the hospital’s west wing allowed the insane to be segregated from the physically ill for a time. But by 1832, the hospital administration had decided that an entirely separate satellite campus ought to “be provided for our Insane patients with ample space for their proper seclusion, classification and employment.” Pennsylvania Hospital duly acquired an 111 acre farm far from the main downtown location and began construction. On December 16th, 1841, the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane opened its doors. For hours and hours that day, a carriage traveled back and forth from 8th Street to the location on 44th between Market and Haverford Streets, transporting about 100 patients to their new West Philadelphia home.


 

According to many accounts, it wasn’t a bad place to live. The hospital grounds took up about 41 acres – surrounded by a ten and a half foot high wall – leaving the balance of the enormous campus to be used for “asylum pleasure grounds” and a small working farm. An engraving from Report of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane for 1845 shows a sprawling 3 story complex with two massive wings extending from a dome-topped central building, as men in top hats and tails and women in long dresses wander the manicured grounds.

A typical day for an asylum patient would include at least one 20 minute walk in the morning, followed by a visit to the on-site museum, library or billiard room. There was also a “pleasure railroad” on the grounds, apparently an enormous model train patients could ride. Lunch was served at 12:30, follwed by afternoon activities until 6:00, a light evening meal, and entertainment in the hospital auditorium. Though “magic lantern shows” of illuminated slides projected onto a screen were especially popular, patients also enjoyed lectures and musical acts, including, on at least one occasion, a performance by trained singing canaries. The institution’s doctors then made evening rounds before lights-out at 10:00. Bible classes and religious services were held on Sundays and were reportedly very well-attended, possibly as patients were rewarded for their presence and good behavior with gingerbread.

There were no restraints or straitjackets; patients were merely expected to behave themselves and, when they did not, were corrected with “nonviolent but firm resistance.”

Patients committed to the hospital owed their treatment to the institution’s famous superintendent, Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride. An expert in asylum design, Kirkbride was trained as a surgeon but refocused on the care of the mentally ill early on, being hired to run the brand-new Hospital for the Insane at the age of 31. Kirkbride’s impact was such that the hospital he ran, as well as many he designed, became known simply as “Kirkbride’s.”

While the gentle treatment patients received were in line with Kirkbride’s medical philosophy, their fairly lavish surroundings reflected his skills as an administrator and fund-raiser. Recognizing that wealthier patients paid in a disproportionate amount of the hospital’s revenues, Kirkbride had his institution cater to their desires. Those who could pay could have large private apartments, fine clothes and furniture and anything else their families might want to provide for them that Kirkbride’s staff agreed would not harm them. The hospital even built a private Italianate “cottage” on its grounds for one wealthy patient. Working-class patients, meanwhile, were encouraged to work. Male patients were directed to the asylum farm, while females were put to work in the kitchen. Though not unusual for its time, these internal class divisions between patients whose families could afford to pay extra for their care and those who couldn’t puts an interesting spin on the Biblical inscription on the Pennsylvania Hospital seal: “Take Care of Him and I will repay Thee.”


 

In any case, life at Kirkbride’s was not always calm, nor was the hospital entirely free of scandal. Shortly after it opened, the hospital proved to be infested with rodents and vermin – though Kirkbride’s expertise as an asylum-planner later became famous nationwide, he had not had the opportunity to have any part in the planning of his own hospital. Thus, an embarrassing incident in 1850 saw a recently deceased patient nibbled on before being brought to the morgue. As Kirkbride explained, “a portion of the cartilage of his nose had been destroyed, how they were unable to day, but it is supposed by a mouse or a rat.”

The superintendent was also periodically attacked in the press for knowingly committing sane people, a charge he vehemently denied. Occasionally his own patients had other ideas about their treatment as well. One escapee, a young man named Wiley Williams who had been committed by his family as a dangerous eccentric, managed to shoot Kirkbride in the head by lying in wait for him in a tree. Kirkbride survived with a scratch – the bullet was apparently deflected by his thick hat – while Williams spent the rest of his life classified as a criminal lunatic in Eastern State Penitentiary, from which he sent his former doctor long, apologetic letters.

Kirkbride died of pneumonia in 1883, after a lifetime of treating the mentally ill. His hospital lasted more than a century after his death. The city moved the campus moved a few blocks west to make room for the expanding Market Street subway line in late 1950’s, around which time the hospital changed its name to The Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital. The asylum closed its doors in 1997, sending its psychiatric care operation back across the river to the 8th Street campus after over 150 years in West Philadelphia. Today, some remaining hospital buildings are used as a social services center, while the rest of the original campus has been redeveloped. A housing project and the enormous office building built by the Provident Mutual Insurance Company now occupy the space where Kirkbride’s patients once strolled, rested and – in about half of their cases – healed.

References:

  • Board of Public Charities of Pennsylvania. To the Legislature: A Plea for the Insane in the Prisons and Poor-Houses of Pennsylvania. A.C. Bryson & Co., Steam-Power Printers, Philadelphia, 1873.

  • Bond, Earl D. Dr. Kirkbride and his Mental Hospital. J.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1947.

  • Kirkbride, Thomas S. On the Construction, Organization and General Arrangements of Hospitals for the Insane with Some Remarks on Insanity and its Treatment. J.B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia 1880.

  • Tomes, Nancy. A generous confidence: Thomas Story Kirkbride and the art of asylum-keeping, 1840-1883. Cambridge University Press, 1984.

  • “Dr. Benjamin Rush: patriot and father of American psychiatry.” Medical Post January 14 1997.

  • “Kirkbride’s Hospital Also Known as Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital Placed on the National Register of Historic Places July 24, 1975.” http://www.uchs.net/HistoricDistricts/kirkbride.html

  • “History of Pennsylvania Hospital” http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/paharc/

Categories
Entertainment

I Remember Arch Street


 

Picture, if you will, walking down a street in Center City Philadelphia; and lining both sides, as far as you can see, are nothing but stores packed full of electronics goodies. A mere fantasy you say? Not really. Because such was Arch Street in the late Nineteen Fifties and early Sixties, as I remember it.

“Radio Row”, as it was called, started around 12th Street with Herbach & Rademan, or H&R as it was fondly known. The company still exists today on Erie Ave (actually Moorestown NJ, now), and features as it did then, an enormous variety of gadgets and scientific devices for the hobbyist and industry.

Across the street from H&R was the Radio Electronics Institute. This was a technical school which taught Radio and TV technology.

Down at 11th and Arch was The Philadelphia Outlet Store. In this Emporium featured, what seemed to be hundreds of little bins, each stacked high with some kind of unusual tool or gizmo, all at unbelievably low prices.

From 10th to 6th and Arch, store after store tantalized the electronics buff, offering a vast variety of goods and services. To mention just a few establishments, there was: Soundtronics, Almo Radio, Lectronics Distributors, Captain Joe’s, Radio Electric Service, Foremost Electronics, Barrett Brothers, Consolidated Radio.


 

There were also a number of electronics surplus stores, whose names escape me. These stores, bursting with equipment, placed much of their wares out on the sidewalk for everyone to examine.

An ARMY-NAVY store like Captain Joe’s was not a place to buy designer jeans as “I. Goldberg” is today. They actually sold Army and Navy surplus equipment from the Second World War, and the Korean Conflict. A large amount of useful electronics, as well as parachutes and uniforms were available for purchase.

The “Big Daddy” of all the stores in the area had to be Radio Electric. This was a giant place which stocked just about everything. I remember many times walking in, with my Popular Electronics Magazine under my arm and running down a list of parts I needed for my latest project. With a great deal of patience, the counter man would run around getting me my one resistor, two capacitors, and a 12AX7 (a vacuum tube).

Today it is all gone.

Categories
Events and People

The Life of Thomas McKean


 

Though the majority of the images in PhillyHistory are ‘geocoded’ or associated with a specific address, there are quite a few images and documents that either had no location associated with their creation or did not contain enough location information from the original photographer or author to determine an accurate location. I often conduct searches on PhillyHistory.org with the “Include records without a location” box checked and stumble across some fascinating images.

Recently I came across one such image – a portrait of a man named Thomas McKean (pronounced McKane).

McKean was born in New London Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania in 1733. He was raised in Delaware, and would rise to prominence there as a lawyer and a politician. He was a soldier in the continental army, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence from Delaware.

Following the American Revolution, McKean served as the ‘President of Delaware’ (equivalent to ‘Governor’) for a short time before moving to Philadelphia to become a Chief Justice, a position which he held from 1777 to 1799. After his tenure, he was elected to three consecutive terms as Governor of Pennsylvania. He was in office from 1799 to 1808. McKean resided in Philadelphia until his death in 1818.

During his time in office McKean was a supporter of free education for all. However, he was met with opposition because he supported strong executive power, which eventually led to a bitter feud with the Aurora newspaper publisher, William Duane, and the Philadelphian populist, Dr. Michael Leib. In 1807, McKean was impeached, but the trial was delayed until his term ended the following year. Despite the controversy, McKean has solidified his place in Pennsylvania history. He has a county in Pennsylvania and a street in South Philadelphia at Pier 78 named after him.

McKean is one of a long line of people who moved to Philadelphia, fell in love with it and stayed here for the rest of his life. He lived at the northeast corner of 3rd and Pine, and attended the First Presbyterian Church at 21st and Walnut.

References:

Categories
Public Services

The Life of the Schuylkill: Part Two


 

Jaundice. Vomiting. Kidney failure. Bleeding from the mouth, eyes, nose and stomach. Death.

Many Philadelphians today would probably not have a hard time believing that the list above is a catalogue of consequences one might reasonably expect to suffer after drinking out of the river. Yet it was precisely these agonies – the agonies of yellow fever – from which Philadelphia depended on the Schuylkill for protection at the turn of the 19th century.

Convinced that the city’s filthy drinking water was behind a series of yellow fever epidemics that killed a quarter of the population of the city in the 1790’s, Philadelphia launched an ambitious program of water management that culminated in the building of the Fairmount Waterworks. The Waterworks were unquestionably a technological marvel of their time, becoming the second most visited American tourist attraction after Niagara Falls. Yet the whole project had been based on the mistaken notion – advanced by, among others, Declaration of Independence signer Dr. Benjamin Rush – that yellow fever was spread by contaminated drinking water. Piping in relatively clean water from the Schuylkill did improve the city’s health, but it did nothing to eliminate the mosquitoes that spread yellow fever. What’s more, the excellent water system intended to safeguard the health of the city would contribute to the death toll in the next great epidemic: typhoid.


 

In the 1890s, a century after the yellow fever epidemics – and Franklin’s bequest to the city for a public water system – Philadelphia endured some of the worst typhoid outbreaks in the country. Business had been good during the Civil War, and the factories, slaughterhouses and coal mining operations that drove eastern Pennsylvania’s economy were dumping their waste directly into the river out of which Philadelphians downstream drank. Coursing throughout Philadelphia in a distribution system that was the pride of the city, the contaminated water spread disease and death. Poor sanitation in the city itself compounded the problem, as the river was used simultaneously as a sewer and a source of drinking water.

As reported in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal in 1883, Schuylkill water was so bad by the late 19th century that “…a physician offered $50 to anyone who would drink a quart of it ten nights in a row. Each evening, the doomed man comes on stage, the stipulated amount of water is brought out and he takes the draught to slow music before a sympathetic audience. It is the agreement that if he vomits or dies, he will lose the prize.”

A river of “uncommon purity” a century earlier, the Schuylkill became a dead river in which not even bacteria could live happily. So black with coal its surface would not reflect the sun, the river was also known to run red from the offal of the slaughterhouses, to say nothing of the rainbow of colors contributed by industrial dyes. As late as 1924, the river reminded local activists of Moses’ Ten Plagues, Philadelphia apparently having been cursed “as the land of Egypt was cursed by God at the mouth of Aaron.”

Nevertheless, Philadelphia’s reputation for especially disgusting water persisted for decades. Navy pilots stationed around the city during World War II claimed they could navigate around Philadelphia by smell, while a cartoon in Stars and Stripes demonstrated how far word had spread about the city’s water. The picture shows a group of GIs looking on as one of their fellow soldiers drinks directly from a murky jungle swamp. “That guy’s from Philadelphia,” the caption reads. “He can drink anything.”

References:

  • The Philadelphia Water Department. The Philadelphia Water Department: An Historical Perspective,, 1987.

  • The Philadelphia Water Department, in collaboration with Hal Kirn and Associates and Rocky Collins.The River and the City: Script for a Film, 1994.

  • “View of the practicability and means of supplying the city of Philadelphia with wholesome water.” In a letter to John Miller, Esquire, from B. Henry Latrobe, engineer. December 29th. 1798. Printed by order of the Corporation of Philadelphia. (Accessed via American Antiquarian Society and NewsBank, inc. Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans Readex Digital Collections).

  • Lonkevich, Susan “Rebirth on the River” The Pennsylvania Gazette. Jan/Feb, 2000.

  • See also, http://www.fairmountwaterworks.org

  • See also, http://www.phillyh2o.org

Categories
Historic Sites

A Man Full of Trouble: Philadelphia’s Last Surviving Colonial Tavern


In the years leading up to the American Revolution, Philadelphia was unquestionably a city of taverns. They were a one stop source of food, entertainment, and cheap drinks. Furthermore, they were the largest and most abundant (about one for every 25 men) public buildings available for community interaction. As a result, taverns, or “public houses,” became the center of social, business, and political activity in the city.

The colonial elite were inclined to patronize more fashionable “upscale” establishments. Perhaps most recognized of such venues in pre-revolutionary times was the City Tavern, whose patrons included Benjamin Franklin, Paul Revere, and George Washington, amongst others. In fact, it is well known that this famous pub is where members of the First Continental Congress met unofficially in 1774 and where the country’s early leaders met to celebrate the first anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Although the original structure was damaged in a fire and subsequently demolished in 1856, a replica was built at 2nd and Walnut Streets in 1976, and is open for business today.

There were, however, other less exclusive public houses that appealed to the humbler and perhaps less refined factions of society, including laborers, sailors, and other waterfront workers. One such establishment – A Man Full of Trouble Tavern is today the only surviving pre-revolutionary tavern in Philadelphia. Man Full still stands at its original building site at 127-129 Spruce Street in Philadelphia”s historic Old City.


Built in 1760 along the banks of Dock Creek, by Michael Sisk, the structure was first put into commercial service sometime in the decade following its manufacture, by its first unlicensed tavern keeper Joseph Beeks. Throughout its history, ownership of the tavern changed hands many times. Beeks’ successor, James Alexander obtained a license in 1773 and ran the pub through 1789 when Thomas Wilkins took it over for a short time. Perhaps the most noteworthy owner, widow Martha Smallwood acquired the property in 1796 and ran it for the next thirty years. Historical and archaeological data hint that Smallwood may have succeeded in bringing a small amount of gentility to a previously oafish establishment. Subsequent to widow Smallwood’s death in 1826, the establishment morphed into Stafford’s Tavern, Cove Cornice House, Naylor’s Hotel – a mid-nineteenth century hotel famous for its oysters – and, in the mid-twentieth century, a wholesale chicken market.


The building was finally, in the 1960s, restored and opened for historic tours by Councilwoman Virginia Knauer. In 1966, Knauer also invited a group of graduate students from the University of Pennsylvania to conduct an archaeological investigation of the site. Significantly, A Man Full of Trouble Tavern is the only public house site in Philadelphia to yield considerable archaeological findings that reveal important nuances of early American public life. Unfortunately, to the dismay of historical enthusiasts, and more specifically, the patrons of Philadelphia’s Tippler’s Tour*, the interior of Man Full, along with its archaeological relics, was closed to public speculation in 1994.


References:

Categories
Public Services

The Life of the Schuylkill: Part One


 

The Schuylkill is not an unattractive river. Reflections of the illuminated arches of the bridges above it gleam on its dark surface at night, while the lights of Boathouse Row have given commuters on I-76 and Amtrak and Septa passengers something to enjoy as they speed past. The Fairmount Waterworks, newly restored and featuring a high-end restaurant and high-tech museum, has been attracting locals and tourists alike for almost 200 years. Many Philadelphians spend hours on and around the river, jogging, fishing, boating and relaxing.

But how many would drink straight out of it?

When William Penn drew up Philadelphia’s grid and decided where to site the city in the late 1600’s, he did so with a careful eye to water resources. Nestled at the closest point between two rivers, Philadelphia was intended to become a green city of lush parks and wide avenues – everything overbuilt, dingy, plague-infested and fire-prone London was not.

Yet as the city grew into the second largest English-speaking city in the world in the eighteenth century, the groundwater Philadelphians had been drinking from wells and streams became deadly. By the time Benjamin Franklin bequeathed 1,000 pounds to the city after his death in 1790 to “insure the health, comfort and preservation of the citizens” by managing the water supply, Philadelphia was on the verge of a series of fever epidemics. A quarter of the population of the city would die, while half of Philadelphians – the wealthier half – moved out into the safety of the surrounding countryside. The cause, according to eminent Philadelphia physician Benjamin Rush, was sewage leaked into the city’s underground wells and the general filthiness of the city.

Even before disaster struck, Philadelphians avoided drinking the water when they could, preferring beer, wine or spirits. Apparently this was the foundation of a local joke explaining why the Continental Congress only held meetings early in the day – by afternoon, after a thirsty morning’s work, the founding fathers were unfit for much other than reeling home to sleep it off.


 

Fortunately, the city had a river in reserve. Philadelphia’s growth had not gone at all according to Penn’s plan, hugging the Delaware instead of filling out the grid and leaving the Schuylkill and the land to the west relatively untouched. The city government formed a special Watering Committee to examine the possibility of building a conduit to the Schuylkill or Wissahickon Creek. According to B. H. Latrobe, the engineer tasked with finding a safe water supply and getting it to the city, the Schuylkill was remarkably fresh. Latrobe reported back that “In favor of the Schuylkill: The Principal circumstance is the uncommon purity of its water” and devised an innovative plan to pump the water out using massive steam engines.

The plan went forward – at a time when there were only three steam engines of the size required in America – and a pumping station was built on the Schuylkill at Chestnut Street, which fed water from the river to a 16,000 gallon tank in Center Square, where City Hall is today. It then naturally flowed down from this massive water tower to the rest of the city via a network of underground wooden pipes. Philadelphians were then invited to pay a fee to be connected to the water system. Subscribers – initially mostly businesses like tanneries and breweries – soon numbered in the hundreds.

Already on the cutting-edge of contemporary technology, Philadelphia”s water system then got even better. Frustrated with the expense of fueling the steam engines and the constant breakdowns – and explosions – that plagued the pumping stations, the Watering Committee converted the two-engine Fairmount Waterworks into a water-powered, self-supporting technological wonder.


 

The job fell to Frederick Graff, one of Latrobe’s former assistants. Graff executed one of the most successful public works projects of the era with only a few drawings – there were no similar designs that could be copied and no models or prototypes were made. The Schuylkill is a wide, deep, flood and ice-prone river, a nightmare for engineers of the time to tame, dam and harness. Graff did it, housing his machinery in graceful Greek-revival buildings as Latrobe had done with the pumping stations. A technical and aesthetic triumph, the shift to water-power slashed operating costs from $360 dollars a day to $4.00.

The Fairmount Waterworks’ fame spread to Europe, and the image of the Greek temples by the Schuylkill became one of the most reproduced prints of America in travel books. Hotels were built on the opposite bank for visitors – the public was invited to tour the Waterworks from its first day of operation on. Even Charles Dickens, unremittingly harsh in his observations of the United States in his American Notes for General Circulation, had to admit that, during his visit in 1840, Philadelphia was,”most bountifully provided with fresh water, which is showered and jerked about, and turned on, and poured off everywhere. The Water-Works… are no less ornamental than useful, being tastefully laid out as a public garden, and kept in the best and neatest order.”

Yet the “golden age” of Philadelphia”s water system was already nearing its close.

Many thanks to the Philadelphia Water Department for their willingness to share valuable information for this blog entry!

References:

  • The Philadelphia Water Department. The Philadelphia Water Department: An Historical Perspective,, 1987.

  • The Philadelphia Water Department, in collaboration with Hal Kirn and Associates and Rocky Collins.The River and the City: Script for a Film, 1994.

  • “View of the practicability and means of supplying the city of Philadelphia with wholesome water.” In a letter to John Miller, Esquire, from B. Henry Latrobe, engineer. December 29th. 1798. Printed by order of the Corporation of Philadelphia. (Accessed via American Antiquarian Society and NewsBank, inc. Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans Readex Digital Collections).

  • See also, http://www.fairmountwaterworks.org/.

Categories
Historic Sites

The Divine Lorraine Hotel


 

Standing at the corner of Broad and Fairmount Streets in North Philadelphia is a building that is historically significant on a number of different levels. The Divine Lorraine Hotel, formerly known as both Lorraine Apartments and the Lorraine Hotel, was designed by architect Willis G. Hale and built between 1892 and 1894. The building originally functioned as apartments, housing some of Philadelphia’s wealthy residents.

Both the location of the building and the architecture itself reflect the changes that were occurring rapidly in the city of Philadelphia and in the country at the time. North Philadelphia of the 1880s attracted many of the city’s nouveau-riche, those individuals who became wealthy as a result of the industrial revolution. The Lorraine was a place of luxurious living, providing apartments with new amenities such as electricity. In addition, the building boasted its own staff, eliminating the need for residents to have private servants. There was also a central kitchen from which meals were delivered to residents.

The Lorraine Apartments were also an architectural feat. Prior to this period, the majority of Philadelphia’s buildings were low rise, generally being no more than three or four stories tall. Not only were construction materials and techniques not capable of supporting taller buildings, but also imagine the inconvenience of the many flights of stairs one would have to ascend in order to get to higher floors in the absence of an elevator. However, around the time of the industrial revolution, improvements in building materials made taller buildings possible. The Lorraine, at ten stories tall, was one of the first high rise apartment buildings in the city. An earlier high rise apartment building was also designed by Hale, which was built at 22nd and Chestnut Streets in 1889 and stood until demolished in 1945.


 

In 1948 the building was sold to Father Divine (aka George Baker or Reverend Major Jealous Divine). Father Divine was the leader of the Universal Peace Mission Movement. After purchasing the building, Father Divine renamed it the Divine Lorraine Hotel. His hotel was the first of its class in Philadelphia to be fully racially integrated. The Divine Lorraine was open to all who were willing to follow the rules of the movement. Among other things, these rules included no smoking, no drinking, no profanity, and no undue mixing of the sexes. Men and women therefore resided on different floors of the building. Also, guests and residents were expected to uphold a certain level of modesty, meaning that women were expected to wear long skirts – no pants. Believing that all people were equal in the sight of God, Father Divine was involved in many social welfare activities as well. For example, after purchasing the hotel, several parts of it were transformed for public use. The 10th floor auditorium was converted to a place of worship. The movement also opened the kitchen on the first floor as a public dining room where persons from the community were able to purchase and eat low cost meals for 25 cents each.

Divine’s followers ran the hotel after his death until its sale in 2000. The Universal Peace Mission Movement still exists in the form of a network of independent churches, businesses, and religious orders. Its followers also run another hotel, the Divine Tracy in West Philadelphia. The Divine Lorraine received a historical marker from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission in 1994 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002 as a site significant in terms of both architectural and civil rights history. After its most recent purchase in 2006, future plans for the hotel included converting it into condominiums.

References:

  • ARCH: Pennsylvania’s Historic Architecture and Archaeology. http://www.arch.state.pa.us/. (accessed 29 March 2007).

  • Hotes, Robert J., et al. “Divine Lorraine Hotel Honored with Landmark Building Award.” Preservation News. http://www.preservationalliance.com/news_divine_2.php (accessed 26 March 2007).

  • Newall, Mike. “Left Behind: A rare look inside North Broad’s Divine Lorraine, a hotel with a heavenly past on the cusp of (commercial) resurrection.” Philadelphia City Paper. 13-19 January 2005. http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2005-01-13/cover.shtml (accessed 28 March 2007).

  • Rohrer, Willa. “Noble Savage: Selling the guts of a Philly landmark.” Philadelphia Weekly. 18 October 2006. http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/view.php?id=13214. (accessed 28 March 2007).

  • “The Universal Peace Mission Movement of Father Divine.”16 June 1997. http://www.americanreligion.org/cultwtch/frdivine.html. (accessed 28 March 2007).

  • Wikipedia. “North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Philadelphia,_Pennsylvania. (accessed 28 March 2007).

Categories
Public Services

Fires, Fights and Benjamin Franklin: Philadelphia’s Volunteer Firemen, Part Two


 

By 1752, there were already eight active fire companies in Philadelphia. That same year, Franklin built on his own achievement by helping to found the Philadelphia Contributionship, the oldest fire insurance company in America. Interestingly, though Franklin modeled his creations after their English counterparts, the American system was fundamentally different. In England, fire brigades were founded and administered by insurance companies, whose properties they protected exclusively. In America, the sequence was reversed. Though Franklin´s Contributionship and the companies that sprung up soon after followed the English practice of issuing their policy holders “fire marks” to display on their homes – many of which are still visible – Philadelphia´s fire companies would respond to any fire in their area, regardless of who insured the premises or if they were insured at all. Whether they responded more zealously to fires at buildings insured by their affiliated insurance companies – which were known to reward the firemen for saving as much of the property as they could – remains an open question.

Yet the atmosphere of selflessness and civic duty was charged with rivalry from the start. No sooner had Franklin´s Union established itself as a positive, respected force in the community than his rival Andrew Bradford, whose American Mercury competed with Franklin´s Gazette and whose violent dislike of his competitor was well known, founded his own fire company, Fellowship, in 1738. Rivalries between fire companies became especially destructive as Philadelphia´s unparalleled municipal water system ushered out the bucket-fed fire engine and ushered in the age of hose. The new equipment took some getting used to – one company records an unfortunate incident where a newly bought hose rotted after being stored in a barrel of dill pickles. But as pressurized fire plugs spread and fire brigades founded corresponding hose companies, things took an unfortunate turn. .


 

Once attached to a fire plug, a hose company could prevent rival companies from sharing the honor of fighting the fire. Wild races to be the first to connect to the plug – and violent fights to capture or recapture them – naturally ensued. Feuds between companies, as described in the song quoted above, were brutal and sometimes deadly, involving shootouts and, ironically, false alarms and acts of arson. By the mid-19th century, it was widely held that the volunteers were “a reproach to the city.” An entire melodramatic novel, “Jerry Pratt´s Progress or Adventures in the Hose House”, chronicled how a fresh-faced young country boy lost his morals – and, in a fight between hose companies, his life – after becoming a volunteer fireman. .

Though they remained political powerhouses, reportedly milking the city budget for unnecessary equipment and salaries to a shocking extent, the social makeup of the volunteer companies changed dramatically since the days of Franklin and Washington. Once made up of the city´s elite and professional classes, the companies came to be synonymous with the bare-knuckle politicians of Philadelphia´s infamous political machines. Despite a burst of renewed confidence in the volunteer companies during the Civil War, during which many volunteers gave their lives on the battlefield, the city finally voted to disband the volunteer companies and established a professional municipal department in 1871.

“Here´s health to Benjamin Franklin
And all who revere the name:
To the members of the Franklin Hose
I do allude the same”

(“The Franklin Hose Song,” c. 1850)

References:

  • Johnson, Harry M. &quote;The History of British and American Fire Marks.” The Journal of Risk and Insurance, Vol. 39, No. 3. (September, 1972), pp. 405-418.

  • Neilly, Andrew H. The Violent Volunteers: A History of the Volunteer Fire Department of Philadelphia, 1736-1871. University Microfilms, Inc. Ann Arbor, 1959.

  • The Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire. Franklin & Fires: His interest therein and his effort to Protect the Citizens of Philadelphia from Devastation., J.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia 1906.

  • Wainwright, Nicholas B. A Philadelphia Story, 1752-1952: The Philadelphia Contributionship., Wm. F. Fell Co. Philadelphia, 1952.

  • Wainwright, Nicholas B. “Philadelphia’s Eighteenth-Century Fire Insurance Companies” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society.,New Ser., Vol. 43, No. 1. (1953), pp. 247-252.