{"id":1057,"date":"2011-09-15T11:00:15","date_gmt":"2011-09-15T15:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phillyhistory.wpengine.com\/?p=1057"},"modified":"2013-09-02T12:06:53","modified_gmt":"2013-09-02T16:06:53","slug":"philadelphia-as-athens-of-america-more-than-skin-deep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/2011\/09\/philadelphia-as-athens-of-america-more-than-skin-deep\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia as Athens of America: More than Skin Deep"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\"Purchase <\/a> \"View <\/a>
\nThe Merchants Exchange Building by William Strickland at Walnut and Dock Streets, ca. 1859.<\/span><\/div>\n

Philadelphia\u2019s fa\u00e7ade of choice used to be one bedecked with columns\u2014and the more the better. Greek and Roman orders ruled from the late 18th century clear through much of the 19th century. Whether you had a bank, a church, a town hall, a school or an asylum, classical features conveyed the “right” message as visitors passed your portal. Want to convey a sense of wealth? Go Greek. Need to speak the language of civic importance or educational authority? Say it with a stack of stone cylinders. Folks were even willing to forgive their pre-Christian origins as they prayed behind pagan porticoes.<\/p>\n

Benjamin Henry Latrobe gets the credit for giving Quaker Philadelphia permission to lose the red brick and cloak everything in white marble. And he practiced what he preached in 1811 when he orated that \u201cthe days of Greece may be revived in the woods of America and Philadelphia become the Athens of the Western World.\u201d Latrobe’s own Philadelphia commissions: the Pump House in Center Square<\/a> and the Bank of Pennsylvania<\/a> were (literally and figuratively) classics.<\/p>\n

None of Latrobe\u2019s major works survive in Philadelphia, although you can see his marble magic in other places. Latrobe went on to Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Richmond before succumbing to Yellow Fever while on the job in New Orleans. (There\u2019s an excellent hour-long documentary about Latrobe at PBS online<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Where Latrobe left off his students and their <\/em>students picked up and carried on. There\u2019s William Strickland\u2019s Merchant\u2019s Exchange (illustrated here<\/a>) and his Second Bank<\/a>. There\u2019s Thomas U. Walter\u2019s Founder\u2019s Hall<\/a> at Girard College and many others, including the Mercantile Library<\/a>, U.S. Naval Home<\/a>, U.S. Mint<\/a>, Jefferson Medical College<\/a>, and the First Independent Presbyterian Church<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia as the Athens of America was always more than skin deep. The very idea <\/em>that Philadelphia would inherit Greek arts and ideals goes back to the very beginning, when Penn named his city in<\/em> Greek. That Philadelphia would become the New World\u2019s center for democracy, arts and learning might have been pushed aside for a few busy decades, but it wasn\u2019t ever <\/em>entirely forgotten.<\/p>\n

In the early 1730s, founders of the Library Company of Philadelphia had written<\/a> of Philadelphia as \u201cthe future of Athens in America.\u201d A few years before that, Philadelphia poet George Webb, who David S. Shields calls<\/a> \u201cthe first major prophet of the America of Athenaeums, civic temples, and ‘new Romans’,” wrote a poem that concludes with a few relevant lines:<\/p>\n

Stretch\u2019d on the Bank of Delaware\u2019s rapid Stream
\nStands Philadelphia, not unknown to Fame:
\nHere the tall Vessels safe at Anchor ride,
\nAnd Europe\u2019s Wealth flows in with every Tide:
\n\u2026
\nWho (if the wishing Muse inspir\u2019d does sing)
\nShall Liberal Arts to such Perfection bring,
\nEurope shall mourn her ancient Fame declin\u2019d,
\nAnd Philadelphia be the Athens of Mankind.<\/p>\n

Webb had plenty of company believing in this big idea for small Philadelphia. No, Latrobe didn\u2019t invent <\/em>the idea of Philadelphia as the rightful heir to ancient greatness. He only reminded Philadelphians what they had long known\u2014and urged them to put the Greek out where everyone might actually see <\/em>it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Merchants Exchange Building by William Strickland at Walnut and Dock Streets, ca. 1859. Philadelphia\u2019s fa\u00e7ade of choice used to be one bedecked with columns\u2014and the more the better. Greek and Roman orders ruled from the late 18th century clear through much of the 19th century. Whether you had a bank, a church, a town […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1057\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}