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PhillyHistory.org Photos Now Available on Flickr!
By Deborah Boyer
We are excited to announce that a select number of images from PhillyHistory.org are now available on Flickr!
Flickr, a popular online photo sharing website, allows users to upload images and share those images with the public. With millions of users from around the world, placing PhillyHistory.org photos on Flickr provides an opportunity to introduce many new people to the fantastic collection of images in the PhillyHistory.org database. Sixty-six photos, including some of the oldest and most popular images from the City Archives, were hand-picked for inclusion on Flickr. The images are organized into four thematic sets that...
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The Reading Railroad's Turn of the Century Big Dig, Part Two
By Ron Hoess
Last month, we discussed the Reading Railroad's ambitious plans for placing their City Branch below ground level. One part was the construction of a tunnel beneath Pennsylvania Avenue. The tunnel was to be 2888 feet long and of sufficient width to hold four tracks, two for the main line into the city and two for storage.1 At the time, steam power still ruled the rails, so providing suitable ventilation for a tunnel of this length was not a trivial engineering problem. Extensive correspondence over the issue survives in the Reading archives. Ultimately, the...
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Founder’s Week in Philadelphia
By Deborah Boyer
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the city of Philadelphia hosted several large celebrations. Events such as the 1876 Centennial and the 1898 Peace Jubilee connected Philadelphia residents to the anniversary of the founding of the United States and the end of the Spanish-American war. From October 4 to 10, 1908, however, the city threw a celebration that focused on local history rather than national or global events. Known as Founder’s Week, the festivities commemorated the 225th anniversary of the founding of Philadelphia with events throughout the city.
The festivities were well-attended...