PhillyHistory

From Sculptor to Mobile Creator: Three Generations of Calder Artists

PhillyHistoryTeam — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:40:03 GMT

By Deborah Sting

Towering above the City of Philadelphia, a 37 foot tall statue of William Penn stares down at the city that the real William Penn founded over 300 years ago. While the statue is a very large, very visible reminder of the city’s past, it is also an excellent example of the work of Alexander Milne Calder, a talented sculptor whose son and grandson would also begin their artistic careers in Philadelphia.

Born in Scotland in 1846, Calder immigrated to America in 1868 and later studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.¹ As a sculptor, Calder is best known for creating the statues around City Hall. While the Penn statue is the most immediately apparent statue on the building, there are numerous other carvings, figures, and animals located on the structure. In total, Calder spent nearly 20 years sculpting around 250 figures for City Hall.

After standing on City Hall for over a century, many of Calder’s statues needed a large amount of restoration work in the late twentieth century. The statue of William Penn was cleaned in the early 1980s, again in 1996, and just recently in 2007, but the eight bronze figures located around the clock tower of the Hall had not been cleaned since they were placed in their locations between 1894 and 1896. These bronze figures include four eagles with 15 foot wingspans and four groups of figures.²The cleaning of the bronzes was completed in 2007 in conjunction with additional restoration work of the City Hall facade.

Assisting Calder with the creation of the statues on City Hall was his son, Alexander Stirling Calder. An artist and art teacher, Stirling Calder studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, traveled and sculpted in Europe, and taught at both the School of Industrial Design of the Pennsylvania Museum and the Art Students League in New York.³Calder focused on sculpture throughout his career and created several artworks that stand in Philadelphia. These artworks in the city include a statue of Samuel D. Gross near 10^th Street and Walnut, the Smith Memorial Arch near Memorial Hall, the Shakespeare Memorial north of Logan Square, and the Swann Memorial Fountain in the center of Logan Square.⁴

Although both were well-known in Philadelphia, the artistic reputations of Alexander Milne and Alexander Stirling would be surpassed by that of Alexander Calder. The son of Alexander Stirling Calder and his wife, painter Nanette Calder, Alexander Calder was born on July 22, 1898 in Philadelphia. After studying art in the United States and France, Calder became famous in both countries for staging shows with his “Circus,” a collection of miniature performers made out of scraps of wire, wood, paper, string, and other miscellaneous items.⁵ From these figures, Calder continued to experiment with wire sculptures and movement. After trying several mechanized objects, he decided to hang his created items in order to have them respond to the wind or other surrounding movements. The resulting artwork, named mobiles by the French artist Marcel Duchamp, challenged previous ideas about the rules of sculpture and cemented his reputation as a leader in the modern art movement.⁶ Calder died in 1976, but his mobiles and other artwork remain on display in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and around the world.

The Calder artists and their work are both a part of the history of Philadelphia and a demonstration of how sculpture has changed over the course of a century. From a nineteenth-century sculptor to a master of modern art, three generations of Calders have brought their talent and creativity to artwork around the city.

[1] “History for Alexander Milne Calder.” Bringhurst Funeral Home and Turner Funeral Home at West Laurel Hill. http://www.webcemeteries.com/westlaurelhill/LH.asp?Id=417591&T=T

[2] The Pew Charitable Trusts. “Philadelphia Completes Groundbreaking Restoration of Alexander Milne Calder Sculptures Atop City Hall.” February 26, 2007. http://www.pewtrusts.org/news_room_detail.aspx?id=21482

[3] “Alexander Stirling Calder.” Academy Stars. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. http://www.pafa.org/academyStars_p3.jsp

[4] “Alexander Stirling Calder.” Philadelphia Public Art @philart.net. http://www.philart.net/artist.php?id=36

[5] Tuchman, P. 2001. Calder's playful genius (Famous for his colorful mobiles, prolific sculptor Alexander Calder, 1898-1976, was also a master toymaker, wire portrait artist and painter of gouaches). SMITHSONIAN. 32 (2):87.

[6] “Alexander Calder.” American Masters. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/calder_a.html

The Philadelphia Peace Jubilee of 1898

PhillyHistoryTeam — Fri, 23 May 2008 20:55:17 GMT

By Deborah Sting

Although lasting only four months, the Spanish-American War was a decisive moment in United States history and served as America’s entry into the world of foreign affairs. Weeks of tension between Spain and the US over the issue of Cuban independence culminated in the US sending the battleship USS Maine to Cuba to protect American interests in the region. When the battleship sank due to an explosion on February 15, 1898, several US newspapers encouraged retribution and war was eventually declared on April 25. After four months of fighting in the Phillipines and Cuba, Spain sued for peace and hostilities stopped on August 12, 1898. With the Spanish-American War at an end, the United States gained control of the former Spanish colonies of the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico, as well as some influence over Cuba. To celebrate the end of the war, Philadelphia organized a Peace Jubilee to be held in October 1898 to honor the troops and celebrate the country’s success.

Peace jubilees had proven popular throughout America in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The National Peace Jubilee, held in Boston on June 16-19, 1869 and organized by Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore, celebrated the end of the Civil War and urged a focus on peace throughout the country.[1] For four days, tens of thousands of people gathered in a specially constructed concert hall known as the Coliseum for speeches and musical performances. The celebration was so well-received that Gilmore soon began planning another jubilee to be hosted in Boston just three years later. The World’s Peace Jubilee and International Music Festival opened on June 17, 1872 and ran for eighteen days. With its emphasis on large choral groups and international music, the jubilee included performances from English, French, Austrian, and Prussian orchestras and bands.[2]

Held for three days in October of 1898, the Philadelphia Peace Jubilee celebrated the conclusion of the Spanish-American War and brought national attention to the City. The festivities included speeches, parades, and events to honor the country’s soldiers. Towering over all of the activity was a gigantic arch built to span Broad Street. Located near the intersection of Broad and Sansom Street the archway served as a focal point for the Court of Honor. [3]The Court included the archway as well as many large columns that lined Broad Street from City Hall to Walnut Street. The columns and arch featured ornate carvings as well as statues of eagles and statues of riders on horseback.

Attendees at the Jubilee included General Graham, his complete staff, and 10,500 troops from four regiments in Pennsylvania as well as regiments from several other states.[4] The troops took part in military reviews and parades on Broad Street. President William McKinley visited Philadelphia for the Jubilee and the Pennsylvania Railroad Company encouraged attendance by offering round trip tickets for the price of a single fare.[5] Activities for those attending the Jubilee included church services, speeches, and three parades: a naval parade featuring nine warships anchored in the Delaware River, a civic parade, and a military parade of an estimated 25,000 troops reviewed by President McKinley.[6] While many people rushed to the city to view these events, some anti-war groups decried the Jubilee and the emphasis it placed on military splendor.

Despite the disapproval expressed by some people and differing opinions among Americans regarding the Treaty of Paris which would not be formally signed until December 1898, Peace Jubilees continued to be held across the country in November and December. President McKinley attended jubilees in both Chicago and Atlanta during that time. With its ornate Court of Honor, large parades, and enthusiastic support for the commanders and troops who served in the Spanish-American War, the Philadelphia Peace Jubilee celebrated peace as America increased its involvement in the world of foreign affairs.

[1] “The Jubilee At Boston,” New York Times, June 16, 1869.

[2] Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore, 1829-1892: Father of the American Concert Band. Boston College University Libraries. http://www.bc.edu/libraries/about/exhibits/burns/gilmore.html

[3] Looney, Robert F. Old Philadelphia in Early Photographs, 1839-1914. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1976.

[4] “Philadelphia Peace Jubilee,” New York Times, October 8, 1898.

[5] “Reduced Rates to Philadelphia via Pennsylvania Railroad, Account Jubilee,” Christian Advocate, October 13, 1898.

[6] “Philadelphia’s Peace Jubilee,” The Independent, November 3, 1898.

Ees Da Sa Sussaway- Lets Get Started

PhillyHistoryTeam — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:15:25 GMT

By Erica Stefanovich

To many, "ees da sa sussaway" would simply be syllables, but generations of Philadelphia children know differently. They know that these are the magic words of Chief Traynor Ora Halftown, beloved children's entertainer and Philadelphia legend.

Chief Halftown began broadcasting his self-titled children's television program in September of 1950. Originally intended to be a simple cartoon show, it grew into the longest running local children's program in the history of television. For nearly 50 years, Chief Halftown was a part of the lives of Philadelphia children.

Chief Halftown was a full-blooded Seneca Indian born in upstate New York. His parents were both born on an Indian reservation near Buffalo and his grandfather had toured with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. He moved to Pennsylvania with the hopes of becoming the next great crooner and enjoyed moderate success until after WWII. While those dreams were never to be fulfilled, he did find his way to fame. When his children's show began broadcasting, he had to rent his own costume from a shop on Chestnut St. Throughout the years, he always appeared on camera in native headdress, beads and buckskin. These signature marks were not just an aesthetic choice but also a teaching tool. His show, which began as a cartoon show, grew into a place to showcase the talent of local children and to teach about Native American traditions and culture.

In 1950 Chief Halftown was battling a prevalent stereotype. On television and in movies, there were very distinct depictions of Native Americans, generally as so-called savages or sidekicks. John Wayne and Jimmie Stewart both starred in films about Native American wars that year. If there were good roles for Native Americans, such as Cochise in Jimmy Stewart's Broken Arrow, they were generally not portrayed by Native American actors. Fortunately, Chief Halftown refused to play to stereotype. He famously claimed, "I had no idea what it would come to, but I vowed that I would be myself. I wouldn't talk like a Hollywood Indian…I made it clear that I was an Indian and no one was to tell me how to be an Indian."

Chief Halftown's formula worked, making him an incredibly popular part of the Channel Six lineup here in Philadelphia. In addition to his television show, Chief Halftown made lots of appearances in and around the city. On the weekends each summer he could be found at Dutch Wonderland, a family amusement park in Lancaster, entertaining and educating children in person. He not only entertained children though. He also visited senior centers, schools, store openings, and charity events. When his show went off the air in 1999, Chief Halftown was 82 years old but that didn't end his career. He continued making public appearances for several more years. He moved to Brigantine, NJ in 2002 to be near his children and passed away there in July of 2003.

Chief Halftown didn't live an outlandish existence. He never considered himself a celebrity, yet he was a part of the lives of children here in Philadelphia for nearly half a century. Never pandering and always staying true to himself, he succeeded in the local television market in a way that is no longer possible. As national networks have increased their children's programming, local shows beyond the news have died away. Chief Halftown was a pioneer. While he and his show may be gone, memories of his teachings will remain for years to come.

Sources

Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia Website

http://www.broadcastpioneers.com/chief.html

TV Party: Philly Local Kids Shows

http://www.tvparty.com/losthalftown.html

WHYY Website: Philly's Favorite Kids Shows

http://www.whyy.org/tv12/kidsshowhosts/index.html

Teaching the Sciences in Philadelphia

PhillyHistoryTeam — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:37:20 GMT

By Ron Avery

Today the Atwater Kent Museum is a modest-sized museum of city history, but it was built in 1826 as the original Franklin Institute – a school dedicated to the mechanical arts, science, technology and research.

The groundwork of the industrial revolution was laid in the early decades of the 19^th century with the advent of steam power, small machine shops, and advances in chemistry and physics. Philadelphia was among the cities in the forefront of the nascent industrial age. Technical schools were being founded at this time in European and some American cities. Local businessman Samuel Vaughn Merrick and science professor William H. Keating hatched the idea for such a school in Philadelphia in late 1823. Other leaders of the city joined the effort and a series of lectures was soon launched the next year in rented space at Carpenters’ Hall and the original University of Pennsylvania at 4^th and Arch. The school was an immediate success with 600 paying members in the first year. Mostly these members were young craftsmen and apprentices interested in improving their knowledge of engineering, the science behind the new advances.

Naming the organization after Philadelphia’s most famous man of science, Ben Franklin, was a natural. After only one year, the Institute was planning it own building on a vacant lot on 7^th Street near Market, and a source of funding appeared when the federal government agreed to a long-term lease for federal courts in part of the proposed building. John Haviland was selected as architect. Perhaps his most famous work is Eastern State Penitentiary, which influenced the design of prisons around the world. The new building for the Institute was about 60 feet wide and 100 feet long in the neo-classical style.

Some of the most important names in Philadelphia science and industry taught or lectured there. Men such as architects William Strictland and Thomas U. Walter and industrialists Matthias Baldwin, Isaiah Lukens, William Sellers. A host of scholars and scientists were associated with the Institute including Alexander Dallas Bache and Frederick Graff.

Today the Franklin Institute on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway is known as an outstanding science museum, but for decades it was much more. The Institute took on scores of research projects. It was also an early testing lab trying to determine if new inventions really worked. The first scientific study of water power drew international attention. The federal government helped finance a study there to determine how to make steam engines safe following disastrous explosions on steamboats. Later, it was the Franklin Institute that spearheaded a movement and devised ways to standardize threads and sizes for nuts and bolts.

The Institute also published a technical and science journal and sponsored contests for inventors. Evening lectures were a huge success. Those who paid their annual $3 dues could attend all lectures for free. From the start, women were admitted to all lectures. Drafting classes were particularly popular.

After 109 years of use, the building was abandoned when the Franklin Institute moved to the Parkway in 1933. It stood vacant and was scheduled for demolition when dynamic society woman Frances Ann Wistar launched a campaign to save it. She enlisted the aid of industrialist A. Atwater Kent, who had already provided the funding to preserve the Betsy Ross House.

Kent had been a pioneer in manufacturing auto parts and electrical appliances. He jumped into the new radio business in 1921 with much success. His Atwater Kent radio factory employed 12,000 workers at its peak. He purchased the building that now bears his name, which was dedicated in 1941 as a museum of Philadelphia history. The facade of the building hasn’t changed since the day it opened.

References:

Sinclair, Bruce. Philadelphia's Philosopher Mechanics: A History of the Franklin Institute, 1824–1865. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974.

Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia. http://www.philadelphiahistory.org/

The Jewish Quarter of Philadelphia

PhillyHistoryTeam — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:16:32 GMT

By Harry Boonin

Years ago, cities and towns in Europe had Jewish quarters. Most were finitely defined. When the east European Jewish immigrants began coming to the United States en masse, Jewish quarters sprung up in cities along the eastern seaboard. Some were loosely defined, others more precisely. In the early years of Jewish mass immigration, a fairly sizeable Jewish quarter was established in a well-defined area of old Philadelphia, today known as Society Hill and Queen Village. In The Presbyterian, a weekly journal published in Philadelphia in 1889 for the Presbyterian community, the editor wrote: “In Philadelphia we are likely to have a Jewish section, where emigrants from Eastern Europe will congregate. From Fifth Street to the Delaware River and south of Lombard Street these foreign Jews are crowding in, and being very poor, the Hebrew Charities are drawn upon heavily.”¹ The Jewish press saw a more confined and a smaller quarter, extending from Spruce Street in the north to Christian Street in the South and from 3rd Street to 6th Street east to west. Within this narrow rectangle, bearded Yiddish-speaking men and their large families settled. This was at a time when sweatshops were moving south from Kensington to Northern Liberties and then south of Market Street to Bank and Strawberry Streets. At this time, German-Jewish wholesale clothiers, like Snellenberg’s, had their businesses on N. 3rd Street between Market and Arch streets. Many of these buildings stand today.²

When immigrant steamers from Liverpool would arrive, trains of the Pennsylvania Railroad backed down onto the piers of the American Line to whisk away immigrants on their journeys to Chicago and places in the West. However, a sizeable number of Russian-Jewish immigrants stayed in Philadelphia and settled in the Jewish quarter. Many concentrated around the eastern end of South Street for three primary reasons: the rent was cheap, housing was near the sweatshops and the neighborhood was near the Emigrant Depot at the foot of Washington Avenue and the Delaware River. Prior to 1900, hardly any Jews lived south of Washington Avenue. The Jewish Quarter of Philadelphia was hemmed in by the Poles and the Irish to the east, by African Americans to the west and Italians to the southwest and, to the south, by the Irish. Crossing well defined boundaries was dangerous for the immigrants. Within this narrowly defined area, a new life sprang up. Curbside and pushcart markets were established; teams of horses flying over cobblestone streets made daily runs to the Dock Street wholesale market. Seen on the pavement of the new S. 4th Street pavement market were pickle barrels and union enforcers, dreamers and paupers, curbside bookies and curbside elections, saloons, pool halls and feed stores—and in the middle of all this excitement were the synagogues, dozens of them.

Central to the new immigrant neighborhood was South Street, called “the great Street for Polish Jews and huckstering of every variety.” Some writers called it the Russian quarter because so many of the newcomers were from the Imperial Russian Empire.³ In 1887, the Public Ledger wrote: “On South Street many “neat” stores have been built and indications point to the further improvement of that old down-town avenue of retail trade.” Dock Street, the wholesale food market of its day, “is not a handsome street; it is old, full of crude commercial bustle in the hours of the day, and after night fall or in the early hours of the night until the nocturnal preparations for the next day begin, it is almost wholly deserted.”⁴ The first Yiddish theatre was in the center of the quarter, located at the corner of 5th & Gaskill Streets. It was here that the greatest actors of the Yiddish theatre performed, Jacob Adler and Boris Thomashevsky.⁵ And it was here, in the late 1880s on the little stage lit by candle light, that real horses were used in the tragedies and comedies of that era. In the 1890s, the S. 4th Street vegetable and meat market was started on the sidewalks; it eventually grew into the fabled S. 4th Street pushcart market, still remembered till this day.

Most of the immigrants worked in the nearby sweatshops or in the markets. Markets were located in the shambles along S. 2nd Street, the Washington Market along Bainbridge Street from 3rd to 5th Streets and in the 4th Street pushcart market. Sweatshops in the quarter numbered over one hundred. On the 300 block of Lombard Street alone there were five sweatshops. In 1895, men in these shops were paid $6.00 per week for working 58 hours and women, for the same work and hours, were paid $3.00 a week and sometimes as little as $1.80.

After 1900, Jews moved south across Washington Avenue and within just a few years they lived in great numbers south of Washington Avenue and east of Broad Street. Many Jews in the clothing trade prospered during the 1920s and moved to West Philadelphia and Strawberry Mansion. After Congress cut off immigration from Eastern Europe in 1924, the old Jewish quarter began to die out. Although its demise was slowed, first by the Depression and then by the effects of World War II, outward movement from the quarter accelerated after the war ended. Today, there are four synagogues remaining from the original Jewish quarter. Two buildings built as synagogues—B’nai Abraham, 527 Lombard Street (built in 1910), and B’nai Rueben, 6th & Kater Streets (built in 1905 but used for commercial purposes since 1956)—survive. Today, the twin religious houses of Mother Bethel Church (built in 1889) and Congregation B’nai Abraham stand proudly together at the corner of 6th & Lombard streets—and have stood together since 1910.

References:

¹ The Presbyterian, Vol. LIX, No. 9, March 2, 1889 (Presbyterian Historical Society).

²For a listing of the wholesale clothiers and sweatshops on Bank and Strawberry Streets, see Harry D. Boonin, The Jewish Quarter of Philadelphia (JWT of Philadelphia, Inc., 1999), Appendix B.

³The Life of Michael Valentine Ball (1868-1945), Transcribed and Researched by Edward L. Ball (Warren, PA, June 2003), p. 167. (Privately printed).

⁴Rudoph J. Walther, Happenings in Ye Olde Philadelphia (Walther Printing House, Philadelphia, 1925), p. 176, and Dock Street from the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, January 27, 1919, by Penn (William Perrine).

⁵David B. Tierkel, History of the Yiddish Theatre in Philadelphia, unpublished Yiddish typescript, 1934, Yiddisher Visnshaftlikher Institue, YIVO, New York.

Creativity in Cast Iron: Strickland Kneass’s Chestnut Street Bridge

PhillyHistoryTeam — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 16:41:11 GMT

By Christopher R. Dougherty

For Strickland Kneass (1821-1884) engineering was not about letting tradition dictate uninspired designs nor did the profession thrive in clannish fiefdoms of expertise. Trained in the era before formal engineering curricula, Kneass saw engineering as an organic profession whose rules, though important, were always secondary to imaginative solutions. In his nearly half century of work in the private sector and his seventeen years of service to the City of Philadelphia as Chief Engineer and Surveyor, as a sewer and drain expert, as a bridge builder, and as Fairmount Park Commissioner, Kneass distinguished himself as a polymath designer and organizer who deftly navigated between the shoals of tradition and innovation.

The remains of Kneass’s boldest design, a bridge whose scale and use of cast iron made it singular in the United States and throughout the world, stands ignored by hundreds of thousands of motorists, pedestrians, and joggers who pass it. A vestige of his Chestnut Street Bridge (1861-66): the eastern granite abutment and the central pier, though ignobly incorporated into the current highway overpass, still testifies to the creativity and vision of one of the city’s most talented builders.

The son of a Philadelphia engraver, Kneass attended the Rensselaer Institute, later Polytechnic Institute, when that institution began developing its own idiosyncratic approach to training civil engineers. For a young Kneass attending the Troy, NY school in the late 1830s, the curriculum—which still included geology, law, Biblical history, and surveying—was far from a dry inculcation of mathematical formulae. Despite a rigorous schedule that roused students at dawn, “there was considerable flexibility, informality, and probably even laxity in the actual operation” of the school. Students were taught to work through problems, develop their own conclusions, and report on their findings during examinations. A Rensselaer engineer, an advertisement touted, “are taught all these things (23 subjects of civil engineering) and many others, with the appropriate instruments in their hand, accompanied by short lectures of their own.”

Graduating in 1839 at the age of 18 with full honors, Kneass reaped the benefits of this diverse technological education and soon lived up to the reputation of the multifaceted Rensselaer engineer. In 1847 he assisted the Pennsylvania Railroad in laying out a portion of their Harrisburg to Pittsburgh segment. He also worked as a draftsman at the Naval Bureau of Engineering and as a topographer for the British Commission mapping the U.S.-Canadian border. Later, in 1869, he assisted James Worrall in surveying the famous 12 Mile Arc border between Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

In 1855, Kneass resigned as chief engineer for the North Pennsylvania Railroad to become Chief Engineer and Surveyor of the City of Philadelphia. He found the bureaucracy of the recently-consolidated city in shambles. He soon concentrated all the operations of the seven survey districts and standardized grade plans, weights and measures, and designs for sewerage. In 1865 he organized a Registry Bureau as the central repository for property data and building plans. All the while he made recommendations for the improvement of the city’s sewer and storm water systems.

Undoubtedly, Kneass stayed abreast of the new developments in bridge construction; he knew of popular ornamentation then in vogue in Europe and construction management methods. He probably followed the reorganization of his alma mater on the pattern of the progressive French Ecole Polytechnique. He certainly knew of the iron bridge at Colebrookdale, England over the Severn River—the often-reproduced icon of the Industrial Revolution built in 1791. Perhaps closer to home, he knew of William Strickland’s use of iron members at the Chestnut Street Theater. And he may have recalled the work of two innovative Army engineers at Dunlap’s Creek in Brownsville, Pennsylvania. There, Captain Richard Delafield and Lieutenant George W. Cass constructed the country’s first metal arch bridge in 1836 as part of the Cumberland Road.

The success of these projects, and a willingness to try new materials, may have influenced Kneass’s design for the Chestnut Street Bridge in 1857 which included an unprecedented amount of cast iron. Though it is unclear who supplied the cast iron, two features made iron attractive. One was the adaptability of the casting process. Artistically and practically, cast iron offered designers great flexibility. Bridges made of a multitude of smaller, mass-produced components could be assembled easier and were inherently safer. This, coupled with the proximity of Philadelphia’s cast iron suppliers, led Kneass to build a bridge around two sweeping 184’ arches using six cast iron ribs. Yet Kneass was no bare functionalist and his line and watercolor drawings abound with Gothic arches in stone and iron. And though Kneass was applying an untested material to a major arterial bridge, he still followed an important standard practice: overbuilding the bridge to ensure safety redundancy. Each rib, he estimated, could sustain a transient load of 486,000 lbs. Anticipating increasing traffic, Kneass wanted wider approaches—a detail the shortsighted city councils wrong-headedly vetoed as the bridge had to be widened in 1911.

Construction began in 1861 and by 1864 the center pier was completed as evidenced by the date “1864” etched into the stone shield on the central pier’s southern side. Two years later the bridge opened to the public at a cost of $500,000. For most of the latter half of the nineteenth century, the bridge remained a point of pride for American civil engineers. “As far as known, with the exception of the Chestnut-street bridge, Philadelphia,” wrote engineer Malverd Abijah Howe in 1897, “there are no cast-iron arch bridges of any magnitude in the United States.” Despite its apparent stolidity Strickland Kneass’s Chestnut Street Bridge did not last a century and it was demolished in 1958, perhaps because its massive western abutment sat right in the path of the Schuylkill Expressway.

Works Cited:

Gilchrist, Agnes. “Chestnut Street Bridge,” Historic American Engineering Survey, (Washington: National Park Service, 1958), 2.

Graff, Frederic. Obituary Notice of Strickland Kneass, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 21, No. 115. (Apr., 1884), pp. 451-455.

Howe, Malverd A. A Treatise On Arches: Designed for the Use of Engineers and Students in Technical Schools (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1897), xvii.

Rezneck, Samuel. An Education for a Technological Society: A Sesquicentennial History of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy: RPI, 1968).

From Musket Balls to Basketballs- The Sparks Shot Tower

PhillyHistoryTeam — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:15:55 GMT

By Ron Avery

Perhaps it is still standing because it would cost too much to demolish. The Sparks Shot Tower – for many years the tallest structure in Philadelphia - is now part of a city recreation center. Instead of making tons of musket balls, birdshot and bullets, the 142-foot tower looms above an indoor basketball court.

The Sparks Shot Tower has been a South Philadelphia landmark since 1808. Located at Front and Carpenter Streets, it’s easily seen by passing motorists on I-95. Most people probably assume it’s a tall smoke stack from some long-defunct factory. It is, indeed, a 200-year-old industrial artifact. When the brick tower was first built, it represented a revolutionary new technology in the manufacture of lead ammunition. The technology was born in Great Britain where it was discovered that dropping molten lead from a high place caused it to form perfectly round balls as it fell. The lead was poured through a mesh that gave the balls the proper sizes. The hot balls fell into a large vat of water.

Until this discovery, musket balls were fashioned by pouring the lead into wooden molds. The new technique made it many times quicker and cheaper to make ammunition. Tons of shot was imported to America until President Thomas Jefferson imposed the Embargo Act in 1807. During the Napoleonic Wars, both France and Great Britain began seizing ships from neutral nations headed toward enemy ports. Jefferson’s answer was to ban trading with both nations.

According to a long-told story, Thomas Sparks and John Bishop were out hunting water fowl in the swamps in South Philly when they began discussing the high price of lead shot caused by the embargo and hit on the idea of building their own shot tower. Another partner in the project was James Clement. All three were experienced in working with lead. The partners found someone who had worked in a British shot tower to advise them. The tower is said to be a sterling example of Philadelphia brickwork. Topped by a cone-shaped roof, the tower is 30 feet in diameter at the base and tapers to 15 feet. “Members of the United States Lighthouse Board have frequently repaired to its site to copy the model and afterward re-embody it in a lighthouse,” according to an 1875 book on Philadelphia industry.

There is some debate over the claim that the Queen Village landmark was the first American shot tower. A stone shot tower in Wythe County, Va., along the New River, was built about the same time. It still stands along with Sparks and three other American shot towers. Within a year of the opening of the Sparks Shot Tower, Philadelphian Paul Beck built an even larger tower along the Schuylkill River, but it is long gone.

During the War of 1812, the Sparks Shot Tower was in full operation selling ammunition to the federal government. Bishop left the enterprise because he was devout Quaker who felt he could not support war in any form. The third partner also eventually left. At some point machinery was installed in a nearby building to make the conical bullets that replaced most lead shot. Four generations of the Sparks family continued operations until 1903 when the business was sold.

In 1913, the city purchased the shot tower and surrounding grounds to create a playground for a neighborhood teeming with immigrants and the poor. The entrance to the tower is sealed off and few have entered it in decades.

Sources

Avery, Ron. Beyond the Liberty Bell. Philadelphia: Broad Street Books, 1991.

Workshop of the World. Oliver Evans Press, 1990. http://www.workshopoftheworld.com/index.html

There is also a large amount of research on shot towers available on various websites.

England's Green and Pleasant Land on the Banks of the Schuylkill: The Story of St. James-the-Less, Part Two

PhillyHistoryTeam — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 17:33:30 GMT

By Steven Ujifusa

By advocating English Gothic as the only acceptable style for Anglican churches, the Philadelphia followers of the Cambridge Camden Society wanted to take a stand against trends they felt were very unattractive in the boisterous new nation: a dangerous secularism built upon the unfettered worship of commerce, technology and the power of reason. Even so, the young nation as described by observers like Alexis de Tocqueville was largely indifferent or even hostile to such diversions as liturgical ceremony, spiritual mysticism, and antiquarianism. Tocqueville noted the result of the lack of government-sanctioned aristocratic and clerical prerogatives on the American psyche: "When ranks are confused and privileges are destroyed, when patrimonies are divided and enlightenment and freedom are spread, the longing to acquire well-being presents itself to the imagination of the poor man, and the fear of losing it, to the mind of the rich. A multitude of mediocre fortunes is established … They therefore apply themselves constantly to pursuing or keeping these enjoyments that are so precious, so incomplete, and so fleeting."¹ Of course, Robert Ralston and his fellow Philadelphia sponsors of St. James-the-Less had fortunes largely based in banking and manufacturing, not in inherited rank and feudal landownership.

In keeping with the Cambridge Camden Society's mission for authenticity, no architect per se was hired to design St. James-the-Less. John E. Carver, the general contractor, worked from measured drawings of St. Michael's, Long Station in Cambridgeshire, which had been built c. 1230.² The project's sponsors saw this model as the purest example of a modestly-sized but exquisitely crafted British parish church, one that was designed and built by local craftsmen out of local materials. Rather than being delicate, lofty, and grandiose, St. James-the-Less is compact, rugged, and muscular. The nave windows are small, creating a very dark, mysterious nave compared to the open, light-filled ones of neoclassical Philadelphia churches.

The chancel, where the priest performs the sacrifice of the mass, is recessed and partially screened from the congregation, a liturgical statement meant to convey the mystery of the sacrament. The masonry walls are rough-hewn and composed of stones of irregular shapes. The gable peaks are capped by stone crosses, while the doors are painted a bright red and are ornamented with wrought iron hinges and handles. Unlike large Gothic cathedrals, which used flying buttresses to augment the load bearing capacity of their walls, St. James-the-Less relies only on its thick masonry piers and walls to support its roof.

The choice of setting for St. James-the-Less was as important to its architecture. Ralston and his colleagues wanted a site that would be appropriate to a country parish church. According to a 1983 history of the church, "The Ridge Road had long been a main avenue of travel, but many of the tracts that are now built up in rows of houses were then woodlands, or were occupied by country places of considerable size."³ Since factories and dense residential development were slowly creeping northward, the vestry of St. James-the-Less hoped that their new church would be used not just by the wealthy, but also by the working class employed in the mills and factories. The church and its grounds would be a spiritual and physical oasis for families who lived in dense row house districts with little green space and few aesthetic charms. To borrow two images from William Blake's famous poem "Jerusalem," St. James-the-Less was to be nestled in a land of "pleasant pastures green," a world away from the "dark, satanic mills" of the smoke-belching metropolis.

Construction on the church began in 1846, with an initial budget of $6,000. The Bishop Alonzo Potter dedicated the structure in 1850, but the total cost for the church had risen to over $30,000--approximately $700,000 in today's money--largely because of the expensive decorations that the patrons insisted on adding to the interior.⁴

The impact of tiny St. James-the-Less on American architecture was immense. Parishioners were stunned at the proportions and craftsmanship of the building while visitors left the church determined to build their own country Gothic churches to the same exacting standards. Within the next few decades, English Gothic churches sprung up throughout the Philadelphia region and beyond. According to architectural historian Phoebe Stanton: "Many of the Protestant Episcopal churches that followed in the United States were informed with its [St. James-the-Less] feeling for materials and for simple but delicate articulation of ornament and scale … Whether or not one approves the appropriation of a medieval plan for nineteenth century use and the introduction of a deep chancel as a part of church plans and liturgical practice, one must be grateful for the accident which brought to America a building that demonstrated the aesthetic truths medieval buildings had to offer the nineteenth century architect and patron."⁵ The most notable architectural descendents of St. James-the-Less include architect John Notman's St. Mark's Church at 16th and Locust and the Hewitt brothers' St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church in Chestnut Hill, both of which use the English country church plan.

Aside from some minor interior cosmetic changes, St. James-the-Less remained largely unchanged during the 19th century, even as the mills, foundries, and crowded row house blocks crept up the Schuylkill banks and encroached on its formerly sylvan setting. The church served as a place of worship both for the working class of East Falls and the wealthy Center City Philadelphians, many of whom are buried in the cemetery, which by the early 20th century had completely filled the grounds.

Although the church itself remained unaltered, the physical plant of St. James-the-Less expanded to serve the needs of an increasingly urban and working class neighborhood. In 1916, a new rectory and a large parish house/school building were constructed across Clearfield Street from the church. Perhaps the most striking new addition to the St. James-the-Less compound was the Wannamaker Memorial Tower, built to serve both as the church's carillon and the Wannamaker family tomb. Eschewing the rustic language of the original church, these buildings take their cues from the liturgical architecture of architects such as Ralph Adams Cram, with their use of intricate stone tracery, gargoyles and other decoration.

Today, St. James-the-Less - a seminal piece of American architectural heritage, a pastoral respite from the blighted neighborhoods of Hunting Park Avenue, and a National Historic Landmark - sits shuttered and dark. Still wholly intact inside and out, St. James the Less sits perched on its hill above the Schuylkill River waiting for a new life.

References:

¹ Alexis de Tocqueville. Democracy in America. Edited and translated by Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

² Phoebe B. Stanton. The Gothic Revival and American Church Architecture: An Episode in Taste, 1840-1856. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. 94.

³ Paul W. Kayser. A Brief History and Guide to the Church of St. James the Less. Philadelphia: St. James the Less, 1983. 2.

⁴ Paul W. Kayser. A Brief History and Guide to the Church of St. James the Less. Philadelphia: St. James the Less, 1983. 4.

⁵ Phoebe B. Stanton. The Gothic Revival and American Church Architecture: An Episode in Taste, 1840-1856. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. 113.

England's Green and Pleasant Land on the Banks of the Schuylkill: The Story of St. James-the-Less, Part One

PhillyHistoryTeam — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:31:24 GMT

By Steven B. Ujifusa

In 1846, several prominent members of the Philadelphia Episcopal Church met at the country estate of Robert Ralston in the village of Falls of Schuylkill. They were merchants, manufacturers, and other men of property, but they had not gathered to raise capital to build another factory or lay more miles of railroad track. Instead the meeting at "Mount Peace" produced the following goal: "To build a church which should be a country house of worship, as similar as possible to the best type of such a church that England could furnish, a veritable home of retirement and meditation, a quiet house of prayer."¹ All of the men were members of a small organization known as the Cambridge Camden Society, a tight-knit group of academics, architects and patrons of the arts who sought to radically transform British and American church design.

During the 1830s, the Cambridge Camden Society was formed in England to revive the authentic Gothic style in church architecture. Its corresponding spiritual equivalent, known as the Oxford Movement, was led by a group of Oxford University professors, theologians and students. Anglican thinkers such as John Henry Newman, Edward Pusey, and John Keble felt that the Church of England had become liturgically lax and hoped to revive many of its traditional, Roman Catholic practices.² The Oxford Movement and the Cambridge Camden Society wanted to reassert the centrality of the Mass over preaching in the Anglican service, as well as a reincorporation of pre-Reformation symbols and practices in the liturgy and design. St. James-the-Less was intended by its Philadelphia sponsors to be an authentic and perfect jewel of the emphatically medieval and British Gothic style.

As is common with cases of spiritual and aesthetic nostalgia, Ralston and his coterie planned St. James-the-Less in reaction to what was seen as a soulless, materialistic present. The Cambridge Camden Society became disenchanted with the classical revival that had been the dominant form of church architecture during the 18th century. Anglican churches built during the 18th and early 19th centuries in England and America based their floor plans and detailing on Greek and Roman models, most notably those adapted by the Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. Examples of neoclassical Anglican churches in Philadelphia include Christ Church at 2nd and Market Street (1727) and St. Peter’s Church (1760). These churches are characterized by an open nave without side aisles, simple ornamentation, large windows letting in ample sunlight, and a lack of liturgical representative artwork. Firmly identifying with the Protestant rather than the Catholic traditions of the Church of England, these churches were meant to emphasize preaching and congregational hymn singing over communion and liturgical processions.

The Federal and Greek revival styles, steeped in the language of pagan classical antiquity, were wildly popular in Philadelphia during the first decades of the 19th century. To the sophisticated urban mercantile elite, the adaptation of the classical language for the young nation was a logical choice. The young republic, led by classically virtuous men such as George Washington, was the heir to Greek democracy and the Roman Republic. Nicholas Biddle, the erudite Philadelphia banker and man of letters, felt that the Greek revival style, with its associations with reason, restraint, and egalitarianism, should be the national style for the American Republic.³ The most perfect monument to Biddle's idea is the Second Bank of the United States at 5th and Market Streets, designed by William Strickland and based on the Parthenon. As a practical matter, builders and architects could easily adapt the classical style to all manner of uses. By the 1830s, sober Greek porticos, entablatures and other decorative details adorned the row houses, banks, and schools throughout Philadelphia.

As the American Revolution and the hostility to all things British faded into distant memory, a number of prominent Philadelphians began to look to architects who were inspired by the English church's medieval, pre-Reformation heritage. The Gothic style - almost exclusively used for church architecture since the Middle Ages - was not easy to adapt to a merchant's row house block near Washington Square or a bank on Market Street. Gothic had inextricable associations with markedly "un-Republican" concepts, namely monarchy, feudal aristocracy, and clerical hierarchy. It also connoted mystery and complexity rather than reason and simplicity.

References:

¹Paul W. Kayser, A Brief History and Guide to the Church of St. James the Less. Philadelphia: St. James the Less, 1983. 2.

² "What is the Oxford Movement?" Pusey House Chapel and Library, 2006. http://www.parishes.oxford.anglican.org/puseyhouse/oxfdmove.htm.

³ Joseph Downs. "The Greek Revival in America." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series, Vol. 2, No. 5 (Jan., 1944), 173.

Bringing the World to Philadelphia

PhillyHistoryTeam — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 17:26:14 GMT

By Ron Avery

During its last decades, the Commercial Museum was a forlorn and forgotten anachronism - little more than a hazy memory for aging Philadelphians of a long-ago junior high school field trip. When it was demolished in 2005, few mourned its passing. But during its first decades, there was probably no Philadelphia institution more dynamic, useful or better-known around the globe. It was much more than a mere museum. It was the de facto U.S. Department of Commerce, before the federal government established that department.

The idea for the museum was born with a visit by University of Pennsylvania biology professor Dr. William P. Wilson to the great Columbian Exhibition of 1893 in Chicago. He convinced City Council and Mayor Edwin S. Stuart to purchase 24 railcars filled with materials from the fair when it closed. Wilson became director of the museum and added tons of new material from big fairs and exhibits around the world.

Six years after its founding in 1894, the museum consisted of five buildings along 34th Street near Spruce. Its large staff promoted world trade in a dozen ways including the collection of countless items of trade goods from every nation in the world. Collecting tons of foreign goods and raw materials was aimed at showing American businesses what other nations offered in the way of trade goods and what they might want to buy. The museum even compiled lists on which foreign firms to avoid.

The museum also spewed out an ocean of publications, reports and statistical data and did translations in two-dozen languages. It put together international buyers and sellers, boasted up-to-date scientific testing labs, and had a network of 20,000 overseas correspondents feeding statistics and facts on trade back to Philadelphia headquarters. It had a huge library of books and publications relating to world trade. Along with lectures for adults, it provided classes on trade and geography for school students and gave them a glimpse of exotic lands.

It was such a unique and useful concept that President William McKinley came to Philadelphia to speak at its birth - an address covered by the New York Times. The President also sent a message in 1899 for the dedication of the museum's buildings and to welcome a Commercial Congress attended by trade officials from 60 nations.

While the City had provided the initial cash to launch the museum and start its collecting activities, the exposition and trade congress were authorized by both houses of Congress. The federal treasury gave $350,000, and money from Pennsylvania, the City of Philadelphia and private capital brought the total to $800,000. A major source of continued funding for the museum was membership fees of about $100 a year from businesses with an interest in export/import. Seventy percent of the member businesses were from outside the Philadelphia region.

When the U.S. Department of Commerce was born in 1914, the museum began to lose its unique position in the country. In 1930, the Philadelphia Convention Hall opened in the middle of the museum buildings. Buildings south of Convention Hall were replaced with modern exhibit space in the 1960s. Eventually, the complex became known as the Civic Center on Civic Center Boulevard although the ornate northern-most building retained its role as the Commercial Museum It enjoyed some brief glory in the early 1960s with gala trade fairs and fashion shows focused on Italy and France.

The complex became derelict in the late 1990s after the opening of the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Center City. The University of Pennsylvania eventually purchased the complex to expand its medical research facilities. Although truckloads of museum material had been discarded over the decades, there were still about 27,000 items in storage including some rare and expensive craft and folk items from Africa and Asia. Curators at the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and other museums were delighted to share the hidden treasures.

References:

Hunter, Ruth. The Trade and Convention Center of Philadelphia: Its Birth and Renascence. City of Philadelphia, 1962.

Philadelphia Daily News. "A Museum is Set to Pack It In," June 13, 1994.

Philadelphia Daily News "Museum Exhibits Parceled Out," June 19, 2001.