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The Department of Docks, Wharfs and Ferries: Making Philadelphia's Modern Waterfront
By Christopher Raymond Dougherty
Arguably Philadelphia's most progressive mayor of the early 20th century, Rudolph Blankenburg (1912-1916) the "Old Dutch Cleanser" - sought to reform and modernize many of the city's graft-ridden and inefficient departments. Blankenburg, realizing that Philadelphia was locked in competition with New York, Boston and Baltimore for international maritime trade, spurred the recently created Department of Docks, Wharves, and Ferries to better coordinate the city's port facilities. As one port official put it in 1912, "New York is one of the best ports to enter, but one of the most...
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Aquatic Freeway
By Steven Ujifusa
During the heady years of the late 19th century, the Schuylkill and the Delaware Rivers were as congested as the interstates that flank them today. Oil tankers, freighters, coal barges, and an occasional ocean liner clogged the Delaware River during the daylight hours. The Schuylkill River, although narrower and shallower, was overrun with smaller vessels, such as the wooden sailing schooners showing in the above photographs. And as on the Schuylkill Expressway, accidents happened!
According to the photograph caption, the two ships collided during the "freshet" of May 1894. A freshet...
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The Schuylkill Expressway: Modern Highway or "Worst Mistake"?
By Christopher R. Dougherty
Though he later regretted his steadfast support for the intrusive road, mayor Richardson Dilworth saw the construction of the Schuylkill Expressway as a necessary component of the region's postwar transportation overhaul. To Dilworth and other transit planners, the specter of gridlocked colonial streets loomed large. As early as 1931, a regional planner had derided Philadelphia's lack of interest in the public infrastructure, calling the city a "growing child in late adolescence," or "an ailing adult . . . rotting at the core." With the Depression and World War II...
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Bringing the World to Philadelphia
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...
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England's Green and Pleasant Land on the Banks of the Schuylkill: The Story of St. James-the-Less, Part One
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...
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England's Green and Pleasant Land on the Banks of the Schuylkill: The Story of St. James-the-Less, Part Two
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...
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From Musket Balls to Basketballs- The Sparks Shot Tower
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...
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The Jewish Quarter of Philadelphia
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:...
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Teaching the Sciences in Philadelphia
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 19th 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...
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From Sculptor to Mobile Creator: Three Generations of Calder Artists
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...
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The Sesquicentennial Exposition of 1926
By Deborah Sting
In 1926, Philadelphia hosted a celebration commemorating the 150th anniversary of the founding of the United States. This Sesquicentennial Exposition drew exhibitors from around the world and featured speeches, sporting events, a military camp, and an 80 foot tall replica of the Liberty Bell covered in 26,000 light bulbs. The main entrance of the Sesquicentennial was located at the intersection of Broad Street and Packer Avenue and most of the grounds covered the area that is now the site of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park and various stadiums on the south side of...
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Immigrant Jewish Philadelphia: School Days
By Harry D. Boonin
Going through photographs on PhillyHistory.org, I was struck by the number of photos showing Philadelphia public grade schools from years ago, most now torn down although some still remain. These photographs show the construction of new schools during the period of heavy immigration into the country at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries as well as the inside of classrooms, the first day of school, schoolyards, formally posed photographs of classes and informal scenes of children playing in the schoolyards. In The Immigrant Jew in America, edited by Edmund...
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Pageantry at the Sesquicentennial
By Deborah Sting
In an attempt to attract large numbers of visitors, the Sesquicentennial Exposition offered a variety of activities and events. Visitors could tour nearly a million square feet of exhibit space and dozens of different amusements and see everything from a military camp to monkeys to a house displaying nothing but different types of wallpaper.
Along with these other attractions, Sesquicentennial officials staged various pageants, choruses, and performances. Perhaps two of the largest performances were the “Freedom” pageant and the “America” pageant, both held at the Municipal Stadium located near the intersection of Broad Street...
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DeWolf Hopper: Sesquicentennial Actor and the Voice of “Casey at the Bat”
By Deborah Boyer
In an attempt to draw large crowds to the Sesquicentennial, organizers of the event allocated funds for a pageant entitled “Freedom” to be held at the Stadium near the intersection of Broad Street and Pattison Avenue. Although the pageant was to open on July 3, 1926 and be performed on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday evenings until October 2, heavy rains caused the cancellation of many performances and the decision was made to hold the final staging of the pageant on Saturday, September 11.[1]
While “Freedom” would not be the financial success hoped for by the Sesquicentennial...
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A Royal Visit to the Sesquicentennial
By Deborah Boyer
In an effort to draw additional visitors to the Sesquicentennial Exposition, special days were set aside to celebrate and honor various countries, states, cities, and groups. These celebration days included Missouri Day, Finnish Day, National Puzzlers’ Day, Pittsburgh Day, and University of Michigan Alumni Day. Activities on each day often included special programs, luncheons, banquets, and visits from dignitaries and honorees.[1]
Swedish Day on June 6 was one of the first celebration days to occur during the Sesquicentennial, taking place even before all of the landscaping and building on the grounds was completed. As part...
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USS Los Angeles: A Naval Dirigible
By Deborah Boyer
With the Exposition grounds located adjacent to the Navy Yard at League Island, the U.S. Navy and the military in general were very involved in the Sesquicentennial Exposition. The Navy developed a Navy Historical Exhibit in one of the buildings in the yard, and several different types of ships were moored at the Reserve Basin near Navy Yard. Camp Anthony Wayne, a model Army camp, was created in League Island Park and Camp Samuel Nicholas, a model Marine camp, was located just outside the Navy Yard within the grounds of the Exposition.[1]
The U.S....
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Lillian Copeland: Sesquicentennial Athletic Star
By Deborah Boyer
Among the many events and activities at the Sesquicentennial were several athletic competitions held at the Municipal Stadium at the intersection of Broad Street and Pattison Avenue. These competitions included everything from track and field meets to the world heavy-weight boxing championship between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney to a lacrosse match between the Caughnawaga Indians of Canada and the Onondaga Tribe of Syracuse.[1]
In early July 1926, National and Olympic caliber athletes traveled to Philadelphia to compete in the women’s, senior men’s, and junior men’s American Athletic Union (A.A.U.) National Track and Field...
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Cowgirls and Calf Roping at the Sesquicentennial
By Deborah Boyer
Not all of the entertainment that took place at the Municipal Stadium during the Sesquicentennial Exposition of 1926 focused on pageantry, theater, and music. The Stadium, located near the intersection of Broad Street and Pattison Avenue, was built to serve both as a gathering and performing area during the Sesquicentennial and as a venue for outdoor and athletic events in Philadelphia after the Sesquicentennial was finished. 710 feet wide and 721 feet long, the Stadium had a seating capacity of 100,000 with 73,830 of those seats being permanent and the remainder being movable...