{"id":14479,"date":"2022-01-03T08:29:39","date_gmt":"2022-01-03T13:29:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/?p=14479"},"modified":"2022-01-09T18:23:00","modified_gmt":"2022-01-09T23:23:00","slug":"exercising-the-egyptian-option-in-northern-liberties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/2022\/01\/exercising-the-egyptian-option-in-northern-liberties\/","title":{"rendered":"Exercising the Egyptian Option in Northern Liberties"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt<\/a> with 400 ships, 54,000 men and one artist. Dominique-Vivant Denon<\/a> \u201cmade good use of his time, sketching furiously when the troops paused for brief moments.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Denon brought back to Paris images far more detailed than the pyramids and broken sculptures Westerners had been familiar with. The 23-volume Description de l\u2019\u00c9gypte<\/em>, published from 1809 to 1828, included no fewer than 837 engravings capturing \u201cEgyptian culture from every possible vantage point.\u201d For the first time, Europeans and Americans could get to know the temples and ruins from Thebes, Esna, Edfu, Philae and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Odd Fellow’s Hall, Northwest Corner of 3rd and Brown Streets, March 3, 1959 (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These exotic images led to appreciation and emulation in Philadelphia. For the first time, architects could add an Egyptian option to their expanding array of eclectic motifs that included the classical, the Gothic and the Oriental.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was so appealing to Americans about the Egyptian? Some liked the allusion that their fertile valleys might be compared to the Nile. (The Mississippi was occasionally referred to as the American Nile.) The Schuylkill floodplain <\/a>near Valley Forge became known as the \u201cEgypt District.\u201d Americans appropriated ancient names: Cairo, Memphis, Thebes, and Karnak \u2013 suggesting that their cities might also flourish for millennia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Americans adopted Egyptian motifs for one cemetery gateway<\/a> and another<\/a>. In perpetuity, they would entomb their dead in marble crypts<\/a> the designs of which were replicated from published sources. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first American building in the Egyptian style was William Strickland’s Mikveh Israel synagogue on Cherry Street from 1825<\/a>. Over the next several decades, more Egyptian-inflected buildings would rise in Philadelphia, including a prison<\/a>, an insurance company<\/a>, a waterworks<\/a>, and an Odd Fellow\u2019s Hall (pictured above). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Egyptian Hall, Masonic Temple, 1 North Broad Street (PhillyHistory.org) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

What kept the Egyptian influence from even wider adoption? Possibly the rising anti-slavery movement. After all, wasn’t memorializing ancient Egypt akin to celebrating the institution of slavery? Or maybe Christian America just couldn’t promote Egypt\u2019s pagan past? Whatever–once it took hold, architects, designers and the public couldn\u2019t resist an occasional sampling of the Egyptian option.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt with 400 ships, 54,000 men and one artist. Dominique-Vivant Denon \u201cmade good use of his time, sketching furiously when the troops paused for brief moments.\u201d Denon brought back to Paris images far more detailed than the pyramids and broken sculptures Westerners had been familiar with. The 23-volume Description de l\u2019\u00c9gypte, published […]<\/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-14479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14479","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=14479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}