Full text of "Philadelphia, a guide to the nation's birthplace, compiled by the Federal Writers' Project, Works Progress Administration, for the commonwealth of Pennsylvania"

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PHILADELPHIA

A GUIDE TO THE NATION S BIRTHPLACE

PENN IN ARMOR

American Guide Series

PHILADELPHIA

A GUIDE TO THE NATION S BIRTHPLACE

Compiled by the Federal Writers Project
Works Progress Administration for the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

Sponsored by the

PENNSYLVANIA HISTORICAL COMMISSION

Illustrated

First Edition

WILLIAM PENN ASSOCIATION
OF PHILADELPHIA, INC.
]937

The Telegraph Press

HARR1SBURG PENNSYLVANIA

PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.

THE AMERICAN GUIDE SERIES

The Philadelphia Guide is one of the publications in the American Guide
Series, written by members of the Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress
Administration. Designed primarily to give useful employment to needy unem
ployed writers and research workers, this project has gradually developed the
ambitious objective of presenting to the American people a portrait of America
its history, folklore, scenery, cultural backgrounds, social and economic trends,
and racial factors. In one respect, at any rate, this undertaking is unique ; it
represents a farflung effort at cooperative research and writing, drawing upon all
the varied abilities of its personnel. All the workers contribute according to their
talents ; the field worker collects data in the field, the research worker burrows
in libraries, the art and literary critics cover material relevant to their own
specialties, architects describe notable historical buildings and monuments ; and
the final editing of copy as it flows in from all corners of a state is done by the
more experienced authors in the central offices. The ultimate product, whatever
its faults or merits, represents a blend of the work of the entire personnel, aided
by consultants, members of university faculties, specialists, officers of learned
societies, oldest residents, who have volunteered their services everywhere most
generously.

A great many books and brochures are being written for this series. As they
appear in increasing numbers we hope the American public will come to ap
preciate more fully not only the unusual scope of this undertaking, but also the
devotion shown by the workers, from the humblest field worker to the most ac
complished editors engaged in the final rewrite. The Federal Writers Project,
directed by Henry G. Alsberg, is in the Division of Women s and Professional
Projects under Ellen S*. Woodward, Assistant Administrator.

Administrator
Works Progress Administration

FOREWORD

A spirit of achievement abounds in Philadelphia, mark
ing the renaissance of Philadelphia s renown as a center
of business, culture and enterprise.

Philadelphia is a rich city. Not only is it wealthy in
memories of those stirring times when a great political
philosophy was born in Independence Hall, but it is
laden with things which are richly American, such as the
warm sincerity and hospitality of its people.

I like to think of Philadelphia as a typical Pennsyl
vania city, shipping the stores of anthracite coal to every
part of the world, marketing the products of the rich
Pennsylvania farmlands, planning its future greatness
with the other communities throughout the Common
wealth.

A book can tell only a part of Philadelphia s story.
The whole story can be known by seeing and enjoying
these things which Philadelphia holds for visitors and
Philadelphians alike.

Mayor of Philadelphia

PREFACE

THE Philadelphia Guide, one of the American Guide series of regional, state,
city, county and sectional Guides being compiled by the Federal Writers
Projects, Works Progress Administration, marks the completion of the first major
publication by the Pennsylvania staff. Representing almost two years work by
the Philadelphia Project and the State staff, it presents the traditions and history
of the old city and the swiftly changing contemporary scene. It should prove in
teresting and instructive to Philadelphians, recalling as it does the quaintness
and peace of the Quaker town, which served as the nucleus for the modern in
dustrial city. It is believed visitors will find it valuable.

The first material was assembled in November 1935, when the Federal Writers
Project was started in Pennsylvania. During the following months a staff of
editors, reporters, copy desk men, artists, map makers, research workers, and
typists compiled, assembled, and edited the material. Historic lore uncovered by
reporters was checked for authenticity by recognized authorities. Among the con
sultants were religious leaders, industrialists, educators, geologists, musicians,
actors, painters, architects, scientists, librarians, physicians, labor leaders, social
service workers, and bankers, who have given freely of their knowledge to ensure
the accuracy of the Philadelphia Guide. During this period, of course, work on
numerous other books and pamphlets was being carried forward.

The project, part of the WPA program, was planned to provide work for un
employed newspapermen and magazine writers in a sphere where their talents
and abilities could find expression in channels of value to the Nation.

The first phase has been passed. It remains for those who read the Guide to
decide whether the second objective has been attained.

The gradual change in personnel and duties which has necessarily occurred dur
ing the long months the Guide was in the course of preparation makes it im
possible to give the entire staff, individually, the credit which each worker so
richly deserves. Since the inception of the task, more than two hundred and
forty men and women have at various times been engaged in some phase of the
work of compiling, writing, checking, editing, and 1 illustrating this modern
Baedeker of the Quaker City, meanwhile carrying on their work on other pub
lications of the American Guide Series. Death has taken the pen from the hands
of some ; opportunity in private industry has called others. But throughout this
kaleidoscopic change in the staff there has persisted a fine esprit cTcorps of which
the Philadelphia Guide is the first tangible memorial.

We offer the Guide with a feeling of satisfaction and confidence ; satisfaction,
that we have contributed something worthy to the city ; and confidence, that it
will prove of real value to those who use it.

Paul Comly French
Pennsylvania State Director
Federal Writers Project

Philadelphia

December 1, 1937

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

THE AMERICAN GUIDE SERIES vii

by Harry L. Hopkins, Administrator
Works Progress Administration

FOREWORD ix

by S. Davis Wilson

Mayor of Philadelphia

PREFACE xi

by Paul Comly French, State Director
Federal Writers Project

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xv

GENERAL INFORMATION xxi

Information Facilities Climate

Travel Sports

Accommodations Theatres

Shopping Night Clubs

CALENDAR OF ANNUAL EVENTS xxviii

POINTS OF SPECIAL INTEREST xxx

THE CITY AND ITS BACKGROUND

PORTRAIT OF PHILADELPHIA 3

NATURE S HANDIWORK 11

THE FIRST INHABITANTS 16

THE SAGA OF A CITY

Prologue 20

Penn and the Holy Experiment 23

Early Settlement 31

The Revolutionary Period 45

A Century of Growth 60

The Modern Metropolis 77

OLD WAYS AND OLD TALES 88

THE IMPRINT OF NATIONS 98

GOVERNMENTAL MACHINERY 109

PHILADELPHIA S ECONOMIC CHARACTER

Hub of Commerce and Industry 112

Cradle of American Finance 125

Public Utilities 137

Transportation 142

Labor and Labor Problems 147

THE CITY S CULTURAL ASPECTS

Religions 159

Education 173

Literature 184

Growth of the Press 202

Stage and Screen 213

Music 234

Painting and Sculpture 243

Colonial Mansion to Skyscraper

Architecture, The City of Yesterday and Today 256

Old Plans and New, The City of Tomorrow 279

Science 284

Medicine 293

Social Service 304

xiii

POINTS OF SPECIAL INTEREST

INDEPENDENCE SQUARE GROUP 319

CARPENTERS HALL 339

BETSY ROSS HOUSE AND THE LEGEND OF THE FLAG 342

THE POWEL HOUSE 345

THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC 348

LOGAN SQUARE LIBRARY 350

FRANKLIN INSTITUTE AND THE FELS PLANETARIUM 353

PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM OF ART 360

GIRARD COLLEGE 370

UNITED STATES MINT 375

ROADS AND RAMBLES IN AND AROUND THE CITY

(Maps with all tours)

HEART OF THE CITY 379

WHERE THE FATHERS WALKED

1. North of old "High Street" (City Tour 1) 385

2. From City Hall to "Society Hall" (City Tour 2) 399

TO THE SCHUYLKILL S BANK (City Tour 3) 431

"LONGEST STRAIGHT STREET"

1. South Broad Street Through the Melting Pot (City Tour 4) . . 441

2. North Broad Street Where Houses Stand in Regiments

(City Tour 5) 450

HISTORIC GERMANTOWN (City Tour 6) 475

WEST PHILADELPHIA

1. City of Apartments (City Tour 7) 493

2. Toward the Suburbs (City Tour 8) 505

THROUGH INDUSTRIAL PHILADELPHIA (City Tour 9) 513

ALONG THE WATER FRONT (City Tour 10) 533

FAIRMOUNT PARK

1. East Park (City Tour 11) 547

2. West Park (City Tour 12) 561

THE TREE-LINED PARKWAY (City Tour 13) 575

AROUND PENN S CAMPUS (City Tour 14) 587

SIX WOODLAND HIKES

Hills and Dales of the Wissahickon

1. The Lower Valley (City Tour 15) 601

2. Along Sparkling Cresheim Creek (City Tour 16) 607

3. Around Valley Green (City Tour 17) 615

Woodland Shadows of the Pennypack

1. By the "OF Swimming Hole" (City Tour 18) 620

2. Rendezvous for Izaak Waltons (City Tour 19) 621

By Placid Cobbs Creek (City Tour 20) , 625

JAUNTS TO THE ENVIRONS

To Brandywine Battlefield (Environs Tour 1) 629

To Bryn Athyn Cathedral (Environs Tour 2) 651

To New Hope and Washington Crossing (Environs Tour 3) 657

Valley Forge (Environs Tour 4) 673

CHRONOLOGY 686

BIBLIOGRAPHY 690

INDEX 692

xiv

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Among the consultants, who gave generously of their time and knowledge are
men and women prominent in many fields of activity in the City. While it would
be impossible to give credit individually to all of those who assisted us, yet we
are anxious for them to know that their advice and suggestions aided materially
in the preparation of the Guide.

There are some, however, to whom we are especially grateful. Included among
these are Henry B. Allen, Director, Franklin Institute; Dr. Jacob Billikopf, Chair
man of the former Philadelphia Regional Labor Relations Board; Reverend
Frederick W. Blatz, St. Peters Church; L. Wharton Bickley, Building Superin
tendent, Federal Reserve Bank; Dr. Samuel Bradbury, Medical Director, Penn
sylvania Hospital; Lieut. Com. William W. Behrens, U. S. N.; Julian P. Boyd,
Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Carl Boyer, Director, Wagner Free Institute
of Science; Charles M. B. Cadwalader, President, Academy of Natural Sciences;
Paul P. Cret, Architect; Horace T. Carpenter, Curator, Independence Hall; Frank
A. Cook, Building Manager, Philadelphia Saving Fund Society; Mabel Corry,
Secretary, New Century Club; Charles N. Christman, Director, Philadelphia Com
mercial Museum; Karl de Schweinitz, Secretary, Pennsylvania Department of Pub
lic Assistance; John C. Donecker, Secretary, Girard College; E. H. Dressel,
Superintendent, U. S. Mint; Ross B. Davis, Chief Engineer, Bureau of Fire.

George H. Fairchild, Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Samuel Fleisher,
Graphic Sketch Club; Harry H. Givens, Periodical Department, Historical Society
of Pennsylvania; Samuel G. Gordon, Academy of Natural Sciences; Dorothy Grafly,
Art Critic; Richard Gimbel of the Poe House; Carl F. Haussman, Rector, Zion
German Lutheran Church; WillB Hadley, City Treasurer; Norman F. Hall,
Chamber of Commerce; William Heim, Metropolitan Opera House; J. St. George
Joyce, Director of Public Relations, Temple University; Fiske Kimball, Director,
Pennsylvania Museum of Art; Howard A. Keiser, Superintendent, Academy of
Music; Dorothy Kohl, Executive Director, Philadelphia Art Alliance; Elizabeth
Kunkel, Secretary to the Director of Cedar Grove Mansion, Letitia Street House,
Memorial Hall and Rodin Museum; George I. Lovatt, Architect; Reverend
Clarence Long of Old Pine Street Church; Percy E. Lawler, Manager, Rosenr&gt;ach
galleries; Albert Mordell, Author; J. Hampton Moore, former Mayor of Phik
delphia; Henry T. Murdock, Dramatic Editor, Evening Public Ledger; Henri
Marceau, Assistant Director, Pennsylvania Museum of Art; Edith P. MacKendrick,
Assist. Treas., Monthly Meeting of Friends; Reverend W. R. McKean, Minister in
charge of Christ Church; Dr. Louis Nusbaum, Board of Education.

Reverend Dr. E. A. E. Palmquist, Executive Secretary, Philadelphia Federation
of Churches; Dr. Francis W. Pennell, Academy of Natural Sciences; Franklin H.
Price, Librarian, Logan Square Library; Richard Peters, Jr., Secretary, Historical
Society of Pennsylvania; David Philips, Public Relations Manager, P. R. T.;
William J. Patterson, Librarian, Masonic Temple library; Ormond Rambo, Jr.,
American Swedish Historical Museum; Reverend John Craig Roak, of Gloria Dei
Church; Dr. C. Dudley Saul, Physician; Judge Frank Smith; Dr. Frank G. Speck,
Professor of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania; Dr. Witmer Stone Acad
emy of Natural Sciences; R. C. Sutton, Chief Administrative Assistant, Fort Mifflin;
Herbert J. Tily, President, Strawbridge and Clothier; Dr. Francis H. Tees, Minister
of St. George s Church; William Henry Welsh, Dir. of School Extension, Board
of Education; Frances A. Wister, President, Philadelphia Society for Preservation
of Landmarks; Louis W. Wilgarde, Secretary to Mayor Wilson; Harold A. West,
Librarian, Mercantile Library; Thomas Washington, Rear Admiral, U. S. N.; and
John E. Zimmermann, President, U. G. I.

The editors of the Philadelphia Guide are indebted to Mr. William M. Camp
bell, delineator ; the Philadelphia Chapter, A.I.A. copyright holders ; and the
J. L. Smith Co., publishers ; for permission to reproduce as an end piece the
map Philadelphia from the map made by Johri Reed in 1774.

ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS

Perm in Armor

Liberty Bell

Delaware River Bridge Drawing by

Christ Church Tower Drawing by

Scene in Fairmount Park

Penn s Ship "Welcome" Drawing by

Workmans Place

Friend s Meeting House

Portrait of Benjamin Franklin

by Joseph Wright
State House
1776 and 1876

Declaration Table in Independence Hall

Betsy Ross House Today

Before Its Restoration

Shippen-Wistar House

James Wilson s Grave at Christ Church

Musical Fund Hall Drawing by

Monument to Negro Soldiers

Smith Memorial

Dewey s "Olympia," Philadelphia Navy Yard

Tacony-Palmyra Bridge Drawing by

Stum Scene

New Year "Shooter" Drawing by

Fire Plaques

Old Market

Curb Market at Ninth Street and

Washington Avenue
City Hall Tower
Hosiery Worker
Breaking up the Final

Courtesy of the Historical
Society of Pennsylvania
Ritter
Schmidt
Palmer
Ritter
Schmidt
Ritter
Ritter

Courtesy of the
Academy of Fine Arts
From old prints
Courtesy of the Historical
Society of Pennsylvania
Ritter
Ritter
Carter
Ritter
Ritter
Schmidt
Ritter
Ritter
Ritter
Schmidt
Ritter
Palmer
Kalmar
Ritter

Frontis
piece

Old Ships and New

Statue of Robert Morris at the

Old Custom House
Girard Bank
Old Schuylkill Navigation Canal Lock

in Fairmount Park
Melted Steel

St. Paul s Protestant Episcopal Churdi

S tenton House

Gateway of Old Christ Church

Board of Education Administration Building

Penn Charter School

The Poe House

Poe House Interior

Thomas Paine Drawing by

Front Page News in The Pennsylvania

Evening Post

Transmitting Station of WCAU
Walnut Street Theatre

First Chestnut Street Theatre Drawing by

Hedgerow Theatre

Memorial Arch at Valley Forge Drawing by
Academy of Music

Egan
Ritter
Drawing by Palmer

Courtesy of John P. Mudd
The Midvale Company
Egan

Ritter
Ritter

Ritter

Courtesy of John P. Mudd

The Midvale Company

Ritter

Barnum

Ritter

Egan

Kalmar

Schmidt

Reproduction copy

Courtesy of WCAU

Egan

Schmidt

Ritter

Palmer

Ritter

XVI

Rodin s "The Kiss"
T osaic, "The Dream Garden" after
Maxfield Parrish
our Towers

City Hall and Independence Hall
Old Stock Exchange and Philadelphia

Saving Fund Society
The Chew Mansion
Doorway of Mt. Pleasant

""" me of Robert Morris

iming Pool at the Carl Mackley House

A Mackley House
rounder s Hall, Girard College
Federal Reserve Bank Building
Natural Habitat Exhibits

Academy of Natural Sciences
Fitch s Steamboat "Perseverance
Laboratory

Ritter

Courtesy of Curtis

Publishing Comparty

Ritter

Ritter
Highton

Courtesy of the Pennsyl
vania Museum of Art
Egan

Courtesy of Museum of
Modern Art, New York
Ritter
Egan
Ritter

An Operation at Hahnemann

Preston Retreat

City Skyline from the Art Museum

Ritter
Drawing by Palmer

Courlsey of

Sharp & Dohme

Courtesy of Hahnemann

Medical College

Kalmar

Egan

Points of Special Interest

Old Gate at Independence Square Drawing by Schmidt

Statue of Barry and Independence Hall Highton"

Congress Hall Ritter

Old City Hall Ritter

American Philosophical Society Ritter

Interior of Independence Hall Ritter

Benjamin Franklin s Chair Ritter
Carpenters Hall JRitter

The Powel House Ritter

Franklin Institute by Night Egan

League Island Navy Yard Crane Drawing by Palmer

Zeiss Projector in the Fels Planetarium Ritter

East Wing of Art Museum Egan

Art Museum and the Old Water Works Kalmar

Founder s Hall at Girard College Egan
Stephen Girard Sarcophagus at Girard
College

United States Mint
City Hall and Skyline

Egan

Drawing by Palmer
Ritter

City Tours

St. George s Methodist Church

Elfreth s Alley

Benjamin Franklin s Grave

Christ Church Doorway

Drinker House

St. Peter s Church

St. Joseph s Roman Catholic Church

Philadelphia Conlributionship

Mikveh Israel Cemetery Drawing by

William Penn Statue, Pennsylvania

Hospital
Camac Street
Clinton Street

Kalmar
Ritter
Ritter
Ritter

Drawing by Schmidt
Ritter
Ritter
Ritter
Schmidt

Highton

Ritter

Sailing Boat Drawing by Giordano

Doorway of St. Mark s Church Ritter

Armory of First Troop, Philadelphia

City Cavalry Barnum

252
255
260

261
269

269
273

275
275
276
276

291
292

296

302
309
316

318
322
330
330
332
335
338
340
347
354
354
361
364
369
372

372
374
378

389
391
391
397
405
409
409
413
417

419
423
423
429
434

434

xvi i

Rittenhouse Square Ritter

Ridgway Library Ritter

American Swedish Historical Museum Ritter

Academy of Fine Arts Ritter 454

Observatory at Central High School Kalmar 460

Rodeph Shalom Synagogue Egan 460

Dome of Lu Lu Temple Egan

Mitten Hall, Temple University Egan 465

Rear of Temple University Dormitories Barrium 465

Main Altar, Church of the Holy Child Courtesy of William Rittase 472

Germantown Academy Highton

The Wyck House Barnum

Germantown Mennonite Church Barnum

The Billmeyer House Barnum

Convention Hall Kalmar

Detail of Bartram House Ritter

Bartram House Ritter

Interior of Bartram House Highton

U. S. Naval Home Kalmar 502

Thirtieth Street Station, P.R.R. Drawing by Palmer 507

Wynnestay Kalmar 509

Seminary of St. Charles Borromeo Ritter 511

St. Joseph s College Ritter 511

Stetson Hat Company Courtesy of John B.

Stetson Co. 516

Curtis Publishing Company Courtesy of Curtis Pub. Co. 516

Plant of J. G. Brill Co. Kalmar 522

Delaware River Bridge Egan 536
Sail Ship Drawing by Palmer

Delaware Avenue at Noon Ritter 539

Old Swedes Church Ritter 541

Old Swedes Church Graveyard Ritter 541

Old Sailing Vessels Egan }]l

Indian Medicine Man RUter 550

Exterior of Mt. Pleasant Ritter 553

Interior of Mt. Pleasant Courtesy of the Pennsylvania

Museum of Art 553

Schuylkill River from West River Drive Ritter 556

Boathouse Row Ritter 558

Old Solitude Himes 563

Interior of Letitia Street House Highton 565

Sweet Briar Highton 567

Letitia Street House Ritter 569

Interior of Cedar Grove Mansion Courtesy of Pennsylvania

Museum of Art 569

Horticultural Hall Kalmar 573

Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul Himes 577

Entrance Gate of Rodin Museum Highton 577

Facade of Rodin Museum Egan 582

Train Drawing by Palmer 585

Irvine Auditorium Ritter 591

Entrance to U. of P. Quadrangle Ritter 591

Franklin Field Drawing by Palmer 593

Dormitories at Pennsylvania Ritter 595

Statue of Benjamin Franklin Ritter 598

Rittenhouse Mill Carter 606

Devil s Pool Barnum 611

Indian Statue Barnum 613

Old Covered Bridge Barnum 616

Livezey House Carter 616

Concrete Bridge over Pennypack Creek Egan 620

Pennypack Baptist Church Egan 623

Cobbs Creek Park Trail Ritter 626

XVI 11

Environs Tours

Swarthmore College

Glen Riddle Homes

Concord Meetinghouse

Octagonal Schoolhouse

Sproul Observatory

Fort Mifflin

Fort Mifflin Basking in an Olden Glory

The Swedenborgian Cathedral

Swedenborgian Cathedral, A Vaulted Portico

Robbins House

Old Forge Inn

Friends Meetinghouse at Horsham

Keith House at Graeme Park

Canal at New Hope

Gulph Mills

Sign at King of Prussia Inn

Valley Forge Chapel Interior

Washington Memorial National Carillon

Cabin at Valley Forge

MAPS

HEART OF PHILADELPHIA

WHERE THE CITY FATHERS WALKED

1. North of old "High Street"

2. From City Hall to Society Hill
TO THE SCHUYLKILL S BANK
"LONGEST STRAIGHT STREET"

1. South Broad Street and Through

the Melting Pot

2. North Broad Street Where Houses

Stand in Regiments
ROOSEVELT BOULEVARD
HISTORIC GERMANTOWN
WEST PHILADELPHIA

1. City of Apartments

2. Towards the Suburbs

THROUGH INDUSTRIAL PHILADELPHIA
ALONG THE WATER FRONT
FAIRMOUNT PARK

1. East Park

2. West Park

THE TREE-LINED PARKWAY
AROUND PENN S CAMPUS
SIX WOODLAND HIKES

Hills and Dales of the Wissahickon

1. The Lower Valley

2. Along Sparkling Cresheim Creek

3. Around Valley Green
Woodland Shadows of the Pennypack

1. By the "OF Swimming Hole"

2. Rendezvous for Izaak Waltons
By Placid Cobbs Creek

FOUR TOURS TO THE CITY S ENVIRONS

Along the Brandywine

Swarthmore College Campus

To Bryn Athyn s Cathedral

New Hope, Artists Colonial

Rendezvous

Valley Forge

TRANSPORTATION IN THE CITY
FAIRMOUNT PARK PICTORIAL (Reverse)
HIGHWAY BY-PASSES AROUND PHILADELPHIA

Ritter

Egan

Ritter

Himes

Ritter

Introductory Tour

City Tour 1
City Tour 2
City Tour 3

City Tour 4
City Tour 5

City Tour 5A
City Tour 6

City Tour 7
City Tour 8
City Tour 9
City Tour 10

City Tour 11
City Tour 12
City Tour 13
City Tour 14

City Tour 15
City Tour 16
City Tour 17

City Tour 18
City Tour 19
City Tour 20

Environs Tour 1
Environs Tour 1A
Environs Tour 2
Environs Tour 3

Environs Tour 4

633
635
635
642
642
647
647
652
655
659
659
662
662
668
675
675
677
680
682

384
398
430

442
451

470
476

492
506
514
534

548
560

574
586

600
608
614

618
622
624

628
630
650
656

672
Pocket

Pocket

XIX

SEVENTEENTH

1 THE CITY

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TWELFH

CHAMBER Of
S COMMERCE

SNELLENBURG S

DEPARTMENT. STORE]

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SUBWAY STATIONS

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UNNSYLVANIA^

FEDERAL COURTS BUILDING

1. City
la. Citv

ill Annex

NINTH

lb. Market Street Nat l

Bank Bldg.
v2. Wanamaker Store

3. Lincoln-Liberty Bldg.

4. Girard Trust Co. Bld{

5. Mitten Bank

6. Broad Street Station
1. Reyburn Plaza

8. Masonic Temple

9. Bulletin Building

Legend numbers refer i
points of interest describf
in chapter, Heart of tl
City, page 379.

GENERAL INFORMATION

The Philadelphia which greeted travelers
in former days is revealed in the excerpts
from old Baedeker Guides.

Information Facilities in Philadelphia

Information Service. General information concerning Philadelphia may be
obtained at railroad and bus stations ; street railway, air line, and steamship
offices ; department stores ; newspaper offices ; and various civic agencies. (See
Transportation section.)

Travelers Aid Society, 307 S. Juniper St., maintains information desks at
principal railroad stations.

Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company (P. R. T.), 224 S. Broad St., supplies
information concerning trolleys, busses, subways, and elevated railways.

American Airlines, Inc., Eastern Airlines, Inc., and United Air Lines, ticket
office, 1339 Walnut St.; Pan-American Airway System, 1620 Walnut St.; Trans
continental & Western Air Lines, Inc., 1417 Chestnut St.

The two major automobile clubs the A. A. A., at 23 S. 23d St., and the
Keystone, at Broad and Vine Sts. furnish road maps and special service to mem
ber and keep on file folders descriptive of places of special interest to visitors.
They outline motor routes, indicating detours and roads under construction.

The Chamber of Commerce, 12th and Walnut Sts., and the Board of Trade,
Bourse Bldg., 5th St. near Chestnut, supply data concerning commercial Phila
delphia.

The leading daily newspapers are: Record (morning); Inquirer (morning);
Evening Bulletin; Evening Public Ledger; Daily News (evening). All except the
Bulletin" and Daily News conduct resort and travel bureaus.

Publications. The following will be found useful: BoycFs Official Philadelphia
Street and Trolley Guide and the Bulletin Almartac and Year Book, both avail
able at newsstands and stationery stores; Glimpses of Philadelphia, Chamber of
Commerce, 12th and Walnut Sts.; Hotel Greeters Guide of Philadelphia and
This Week in Philadelphia, both available at most of the large hotels; Philadel
phia Guide Book, Horn and Hardart "Automat" restaurants; The PJ?.T. Traveler,
P.R.T. Traveler s Lecture List, and P.R.T. Route Map, Philadelphia Rapid Transit
Co., N.W. corner Broad and Locust Sts.; and Unique Tours, Automobile Club of
Philadelphia, 23 S. 23d St.

Transportation

Railroad Stations. Pennsylvania R.R. Thirtieth St. Station, 30th and Market
Sts.; Broad St. Station, Broad and Market Sts.; Suburban Station, 16th St. and
Pennsylvania Boulevard; North Philadelphia Station, Broad St. and Glenwood Ave.

Baltimore & Ohio 24th and Chestnut Sts.

Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines Market St. Ferry.

Reading Company Terminal, 12th and Market Sts.; North Broad St. Station,
Broad and Huntingdon Sts.

Baedeker s (1893); . . . Tramways run from all . . . suburban
stations ... or ferries to the chief centres of the city and Hotel
Omnibuses (25c) meet the principal trains.

xxi

Highways. Six US highways lead into Philadelphia.

(See Philadelphia and vicinity map for highways and by-passes) Two bridges
connect Philadelphia with New Jersey: Delaware River Bridge from Camden
(toll 20 cents) ; Tacony-Palmyra Bridge (toll 30 cents).

Bus Stations. Greyhound Lines terminal, Broad Street Station.

Reading Transportation Co. terminal, 12th and Market Sts.

Doylestown and Easton Coach Co. terminals, Broad Street Station, Reading
Terminal, 12th and Filbert Sts., and Broad St. and Erie Ave.

Island Beach Stages terminal, 1233 Filbert St.

Martz Trailways terminal, 13th and Filbert Sts.

Public Service Interstate Transportation Co. terminal, 13th and Filbert Sts.

Trenton-Philadelphia Coach Co. terminals, 13th and Filbert Sts., Broad St.
and Erie Ave., 5th St. and Roosevelt Blvd.

Short Line terminal, 1311 Arch S t.

Safeways Trails System terminal, 13th and Filbert Sts.

Red Star terminal, 13th and Filbert Sts.

Pan-American Bus Lines terminal, 1233 Filbert St.

In addition there are fleets of busses, with terminals on Filbert St. between
12th and 13th Sts., that cover metropolitan Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and ad
jacent States. Broad Street (east side), is the converging place for most busses
from New Jersey points.

Suburban electric railway lines with their terminus at 69th St. provide access
to the city via 69th St. Terminal.

The High-Speed Line (fare 10 cents), between Philadelphia and Camden, across
the Delaware River Bridge, connects with subway lines at 8th and Market Sts.,
Philadelphia, and with seashore trains in Camden.

Airports. Central Airport, Crescent Blvd., Camden, 5 mi. S. E. of city for
American Airlines, Inc., Eastern Airlines, Inc., Pan-American Airways System,
and United Airlines. Ticket office, 1339 Walnut St. ; Transcontinental and Western
Airlines, Inc., 1417 Chestnut St. (regular limousine service from 1417 Chestnut St.
and Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, 75 cents; taxi fare from City Hall, $1.50; bus
fare, 20 cents).

Planes entering Central Airport are served from the Eastern Airlines, T.W.A.,
American Airlines, and United States Airmail Service.

Ferries across Delaware River. Pennsylvania ferries dock at the Market St.
wharf (fare 5 cents, 10 tokens for 30 cents; automobiles, 20 cents, strip of 10
tickets, $1.50). Reading ferries dock at the Chestnut St. wharf and South St.
wharf (fare 4 cents, 10 tickets for 25 cents ; automobiles, 25 cents).

Passen ger Steamship Piers. Wilson Line, Delaware Ave. and Chestnut St.; to
Pennsgrove, N. J., Chester, Pa., and Wilmington, Del. This line also offers moon
light excursions on the river.

Ericsson Line, Inc., Delaware Ave. and South St.; to Baltimore, by way of the
Delaware & Chesapeake Canal.

Local Street cars and busses. The Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company (trolley
and subway fare, 8 cents; 2 tokens, 15 cents; bus fare, 10 cents) operates trolleys,
subway lines, and busses to virtually every part of the city.

Baedeker s (1893) : . . . Electric, Cable or Horse cars traverse
all the principal Sts., (fare 5c, transfer tickets 8c) . . . Omni
buses ply up arid down Broad St. and in Diamond Street. . . .

Passengers may obtain free transfer tickets, when fare is paid by cash or
token, enabling them to connect with other trolleys or subway lines. These are
accepted on most of the routes. To connect with certain other routes an "ex
change ticket" is sold for three cents, at the time fare is paid. Conductors will

xxii

explain when a free transfer will do and when an exchange is necessary, if in
formed of the destination desired.

Taxis. Adequate service to all parts of city and suburbs (rates 20 cents for
first l /4, mile, 5 cents each additional Vi mile).

Baedekers (1893) : . . . Hansoms (1-2 persons) iy z M., 25c . . .

Four wheelers, l-&gt;2 pers. 50c., 75c . . . One trunk or valise free,

each extra article of luggage 6c . . .

Sight-seeing Busses. Tours of the historical, business, and residential sections,
Fairmount Park, and Valley Forge are offered daily by two companies: the Royal
Blue Line Company of Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin Hotel, Ninth and
Chestnut Sis.; the Gray Line, Keith s Theatre Bldg., 1116 Chestnut St. (rates,
city tour, 3 hours $2.00; l l / 2 hours, $1.00; Valley Forge tour, $3.00).

Chartered bus transportation is obtainable through the Mertz White Way Lines,
Inc., 3210 Spring Garden St.; the P.R.T. Co., Broad and Locust S ts.; and the
two sight-seeing bus companies listed above.

Accommodations

Hotels. These run the gamut from 25-cent "flop-houses" to the palatial central
city hotels. Room rates in the better hotels range from $2 up. (See Central
City map.)

Baedeker s (1893) : . . . Aldirie, 1910 Chestnut St., a good family
hotel, $3y&gt;-5 . . . Greens, 8th and Ches.nut Sts., R. from $1, for
men . . .

Restaurants. Every type, from lunch wagons and automats to famous sea food
houses and pretentious dining rooms. There are a number of foreign restaurants,
including Italian, French, Jewish, Russian, Swedish, German, Rumanian, and
Chinese.

Baedeker s (1893) . . . Bellevue Hotel (somewhat expensive) . . .
Reisser, 5th St. above Chestnut, for men, with a "Rathskeller" down
stairs . . . Dennett s Lunch Room, 529 Chestnut St., 13 S. 9th St.,
arid 1313 Market St. (Low prices.)

Liquor Stores. As the sale of liquors and wines in Pennsylvania is a State
monopoly, spirituous beverages in Philadelphia are dispensed through State
liquor stores operated by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. Beverages are
sold in sealed containers, which must not be opened on the premises. Liquor is
sold by the drink only in taprooms and restaurants licensed for the purpose.
Beer, ale, and porter cannot be obtained in liquor stores, but are offered for
sale in thousands of taprooms throughout the city.

State liquor stores, conveniently placed in every section of the city, are open
from 10 to 9 daily, except Sundays and legal holidays. However, two central
stores are open until 11 p. m one at 1334 Walnut St., the other at 734 Market St.

Street Numbering

The numbered streets run north and south. A system which allots one hundred
numbers to each block is used for designating all addresses. In general, the
north and south streets are numbered each way from Market St. odd numbers
on the east side, even numbers on the west.

In the central section of the city, the east-west streets are numbered westward
from Delaware Ave., on the eastern water front. Farther north, where the city

xxiii

stretches eastward, Front St. is the dividing line from which the numbers start
in either direction. On all east and west streets, odd numbers are on the north
side, and even numbers on the south.

Germantown, Manayunk, Kensington, and other outlying sections have their
own numbering arrangements, dating back to the time when they were separate
towns.

Shopping Information

The shopping center of Philadelphia a half century ago was at 8th and Market
Sts. Today most of the leading stores are on Chestnut St. from 10th to 19th, on
Walnut St. from 10th to 17th, and on Market St. from 7th to Broad. Most of
the city s largest department stores are in the last-named section.

On Market St. from 6th to 16th, and on cross streets between Arch and Wal
nut, may be found a great number of smaller shops which deal mainly in lower-
priced merchandise.

The important retail jewelry establishments are on Chestnut St., east of Broad.
The wholesale jewelry trade is centered on Sansom St. between 7th and 8th, and
the jewelers "curb market" operates in this vicinity.

Exclusive dress and fur shops are on Chestnut and Walnut Sts. between 10th
and 17th, as well as on cross streets between these thoroughfares. Stores carrying
select men s goods are also on Chestnut St. between 10th and 19th, and on
Walnut St. east of Broad.

Some of the downtown stores have branches in sections outside the congested
areas. These sections include West Philadelphia, Germantown, Kensington, and
Frankford, and such suburbs as Upper Darby (69th St.) , Ardmore, and Jenkin-
town.

The Dock St. Market is the largest wholesale produce center in Philadelphia.
Prominent among the retail produce centers is the Reading Terminal Market,
12th St. between Filbert and Arch. On South and Bainbridge Sts., from 2d to
10th Sts., schleppers, or barkers, buttonhole the passerby in front of many stores.

On 9th St., between Christian and Wharton, is the city s colorful Italian market.
Here pushcarts, filled with fish, meats, and vegetables, line the curbs on both
sides of the street. The typical Jewish market is on 4th St. between South and
Catharine. Here, in addition to foodstuffs, a large assortment of dry goods and
wearing apparel of the cheaper grade is offered for sale. Along Marshall St. be
tween Poplar St. and Girard Ave. is another Jewish market.

The oldest market in the city is the Second St. or "Headhouse" Market, at 2d
and Pine Sts. The first section of the market house was built in 1745, the "Head-
house" in 1800. Here is carried on a flourishing trade in meats and general
produce.

Climate and Clothing

Summer temperatures in Philadelphia occasionally rise above 100, but the
summer mean is well below that figure. The high humidity, however, often
renders the atmosphere oppressive. Garments suggested for the warm season are
those of pongee, silk, linen, cotton, Palm Beach cloth, and other lightweight
fabrics.

In winter, as a rule, there are fewer than 100 days with a temperature below
freezing. Here again, however, the high humidity accentuates the discomfort. Zero
temperatures are seldom experienced. During part of the season it is possible to
get along in comfort with a light overcoat. It is advisable to be equipped with all

xxiv

the accessories for winter wear, including raincoats and overshoes, since much of
the precipitation occurs in the form of rain or sleet, rather than snow. Blizzards
are rare only once or twice in a lifetime does the average Philadelphian see
his city snowbound.

Amusements and Sports

Philadelphia is well supplied with facilities for every type of sport and amuse
ment, both indoor and outdoor. The city s great breathing spot, Fairmount Park,
furnishes exceptional opportunities for recreation. In addition there are, in the
city and vicinity, numerous baseball fields, among them the two major-league
parks, football and other athletic stadia, golf links, tennis courts, bathing beaches,
swimming pools, a famous regatta course, gymnasiums, concert halls, auditoriums,
theatres, and night clubs.

Public Parks. Numbering nearly 150 and set here and there in the various sec
tions of the city, these help fill the recreational needs of both children and
adults. Except for the extensive areas covered by Fairmount and the other large
parks, each occupies one or two city blocks.

The central city parks are: Rittenhouse Square, 19th and Walnut Sis.; Logan
Circle, 19lh St. and the Parkway; the Parkway proper; Independence Square, 6th
and Chestnut Sts. ; Washington Square, 6th and Walnut Sis.; arod Franklin
Square, 6th and Race Sts.

Amusement Parks. Woodside Park, Ford Road and Monument Ave., in Fair-
mount Park (open June, July, and August), is the only amusement park within
the city limits. Fireworks displays are a regular Friday evening feature.

Willow Grove Park, Easton and Old York Roads, Willow Grove, (open, June,
July and August), has served as a popular amusement park for Philadelphians
for more than 40 years.

Lakeview Park, 8400 Pine Road, Fox Chase, and Penn Valley Park, Trevose,
are on the outskirts of the city.

Stadia and Other Athletic Fields. Municipal Stadium, Broad St. and Pattison
Ave. (seating capacity, 102.000), owned by the city, is one of the largest stadia
in the world. Among the sports presented here are football, baseball, track,
boxing, wrestling, midget, auto racing, bicycle racing, and soccer.

Major league baseball fields: National League, Broad and Huntingdon Sts.
(seating capacity, 18,500) ; American League, 21st St. and Lehigh Ave., (seating
capacity, 29,000). The latter is generally known as Shibe Park.

Franklin Field, 34th and Spruce Sts. (seating capacity, 80,000), is the outdoor
stadium of the LTniversity of Pennsylvania.

Temple University Stadium, Vernon Road and Michener St. (seating capacity,
40,000) .

German-American Field, 8th St. and Tabor Road (seating capacity, 1,500), is
equipped for soccer, tennis, and trapshooting.

Yellowjackets Field, Frankford Ave. and Devereaux St. (seating capacity,
5,000), is the scene of motorcycle and midget auto races and football games.

Indoor sports events are presented at the Arena, 4500 Market St. (seating
capacity, 6,000 to 10,000). Boxing, wrestling, and tennis matches and ice-hockey
and basketball games are presented here. At times it is turned into a public ice-
skating rink. Adjoining is an outdoor stadium (seating capacity, 9,500) in which
boxing and wrestling matches are held in warm weather.

The University of Pennsylvania Palestra, 33d and Chancellor Sts. (seating
capacity, 10,000), is equipped for basketball.

Golf Links and Tennis Courts: (See map for complete list.)

Municipal and semipublic golf courses within city limits : Karakung and

XXV

Cobbs Creek, 72d St. and Lansdowne Ave.; Holmesburg, 9500 Frankford Ave.;
Juniata, M and Cayuga Sts.; and League Island, League Island Park.

In suburban sections: Baederwood at Noble; Beverly Hills at Beverly Hills;
Glenside at Glenside ; Hi-Top at Drexel Hill ; Langhorne at Langhorne ; Mary
Lyon and Sharpless at S warthmore; Pennsylvania at Llanerch; Valley Forge at
King of Prussia; and Wissahickon at Ft. Washington. In all of these the "pay
as you play" plan is in force.

Numerous private golf courses and country clubs lie within a 25-mile radius of
the center of Philadelphia. Most of these are available only to members and
their guests.

Municipal and public tennis courts within city limits: Allen s Lane, 283 Roch-
elle Ave.; Baederwood, Old York Road, north of Hart Lane; Chamounix, Return
Drive east of Ford Road; Cobbs Creek, 63d and Walnut Sts.; English Building,
52d St. and Parkside Ave.; Fisher s Park, 5th and Spencer Sts.; Garden Court,
47th and Pine Sts.; Hunting Park, 9th St. and Hunting Park Ave.; Kingsessing
Recreation Center, 49th St. and Chester Ave.; League Island Park, Broad St. and
Pattison Ave.; Passon, B St. and Olney Ave.; Spruce Tennis Club, 49th and
Spruce Sts.; Walnut Park Plaza, 62 d and Walnut Sts.; and Woodford, 33d and
Dauphin Sts.

Private tennis courts are connected with colleges, country clubs, and athletic
organizations, such as the Penri Athletic Club, Drexel University, Y.M.C.A.,
Philadelphia Country Club, Racquet Club, etc. Their use is limited to members
and their guests.

Swimming Pools and Bathing Beaches. Most of the public recreation grounds
have outdoor swimming pools, and virtually every sport and social club, as well
as every branch of the Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A., has its pool. Most of the latter
are indoors. Other swimming pools to which the general public is admitted are
in hotels, apartment houses, athletic fields, etc.

The city s two public bathing beaches are Pleasant Hill Park, Toi-resdale, on
the Delaware River, and League Island Park, near the junction of the Delaware
and Schuylkill Rivers. These facilities, open to all, are well policed and care
fully guarded.

Concert Halls and Auditoriums. Academy of Music, Broad and Locust Sts.
(seating capacity, 2,729), and the Academy of Music Foyer, in the same build
ing, are used for musical productions and for lectures, debates, and addresses.
This building is the home of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Philadelphia
Forum.

Municipal Auditorium, better known as Convention Hall, 34th St. and Vintage
Ave. (seating capacity, 13,500).

Witherspoon Auditorium, Juniper and Walnut Sts. (seating capacity, 1,000).

Among the auditoriums on the University of Pennsylvania campus is Irvine
Auditorium. 34th and Spruce S ts. (seating capacity, 2,127).

All the leading hotels have ballrooms which are used for amateur theatricals
as well as for dancing.

Robin Hood Dell, in the heart of Fairmount Park, (seating capacity, 6,000), is
an open-air amphitheatre, where both symphony and opera are presented on
summer evenings.

Theatres. Philadelphia supports four legitimate theatres, although the bookings
9 r nnfU 0t C nt n " ous: Forres t Theatre, Walnut and Quince Sts. (seating capacity,
) ; the brlanger Theatre, 21st and Market Sts. (seating capacity, 2.000) ; the
Locust Theatre, Broad and Locust Sts. (seating capacity, 1,580) ; and the Chest-
nut Street Opera House, Chestnut St. between 10th and llth (seating capacity,

1646)

Several of Philadelphia s theatres have become landmarks. Among them are

xxvi

the Walnut Street Theatre, 9lh and Walnut Sts. (seating capacity, 1,512), which
presents Yiddish plays; the Metropolitan Opera House, Broad and Poplar Sts.,
(seating capacity, 3,482), which lends itself to various forms of entertainment
from motion pictures to opera ; and the Academy of Music, mentioned above.

Burlesque : Bijou, 8th and Race Sts. (seating capacity, 1,400) ; Trocadero, 10th
and Arch Sts. (seating capacity, 1,100) ; and Shubert, Broad St. below Locust
(seating capacity, 1,700).

Negro productions: Nixon Grand, Broad St. and Montgomery Ave. (seating
capacity, 3,200).

Amateur and semi-professional : Plays and Players, 1714 Delancey St. ; Alden
Park Little Theatre, Chelten and Wissahickon Aves.; Students Little Theatre,
2032 Chancellor St. ; the Germantown Theatre Guild, 4821 Germantown Ave.

Motion Pictures: There are approximately 200 motion picture houses. The
largest of those in central city are the Aldine, 19th and Chestnut S ts. (seating
capacity, 1,400) ; the Boyd, Chestnut St. west of 19th, (seating capacity, 2,500) ;
the Fox, 16th and Market Sts. (seating capacity, 2,467) ; the Stanley, 19th and
Market Sts. (seating capacity, 3,100).

Night Clubs: Philadelphia has numerous night clubs and cabarets, ranging
from those having a cover charge to the less luxurious with neither cover nor
minimum charge. Some of the best of the night clubs are operated in hotels and
restaurants of established reputation, mostly in the central city section.

Broadcasting Stations

WCAU (1170 kw) 1622 Chestnut Street. (An affiliate of the Columbia Broad
casting System)
KYW (1020 kw) 1622 Chestnut Street.

WFIL (560 kw) Widener Building (KYW and WFIL are affiliated with the
National Broadcasting Co., Inc.)

WIP Broadcasting Station (610 kw) 35 So. 9th St. (An affiliate of the Mutual
Broadcasting System)

WDAS Broadcasting Station, Inc. (1370 kw) 1211 Chestnut St.
WHAT Broadcasting Station (1310 kw) Ledger Building
WPEN Studios (920 kw) 22d and Walnut Sts.
WTEL Studios (1310 kw) 3701 N. Broad St.
All may be visited by tourists.

xxvil

ANNUAL EVENTS

January

n.f.d.
February

3dwk
n.f.d.

n.f.d.

March

2d wk
last wk
n.f.d.
n.f.d.

April

last wk
Easter

May

1st wk

2d wk
2d wk
2dwk
3dwk
3dwk
n.f.d.

Dates in many of the following events of general interest
vary annually. Events lacking definite dates are either listed
irt the week in which they usually occur or are marked
"rt.f.d." (no fixed date) and take place during the month
under which they are listed.

Mummers Parade, northward on Broad St.

Welsh Eisteddfod, auspices of First Presbyterian Church.

Poor Richard Celebration; Christ Church Services; Wreath on

Franklin s grave; Banquet at Bellevue-Stratford Hotel.
Franklin D. Roosevelt s Birthday Ball, Convention Hall. (While

President).
Saddle Horse Association Indoor Show, 103d Cavalry Armory.

National Home Show, Commercial Museum.

Presentation of Bok Award for greatest service to city, Academy
of Music.

Chinese New Year Celebration date depending on lunar con
dition Race St. between 9th & 10th.

Exhibition of works by blind, Gimbel Brothers Store.

Flower Show, Commercial Museum.

Charity Horse Show, 103d Cavalry Armory.

Motorboat and Sportsmen s Show, Commercial Museum.

Penn Relay Carnival, Franklin Field. (Last Friday and Saturday).
Sunrise Services, Reyburn Plaza, Franklin Field, and Temple
Stadium.

Launching of ship of flowers on the Delaware in memory of
deceased naval veterans, Race St. Pier.

Boys Week, ending Saturday with parade on the Parkway to In
dependence Hall via Chestnut St.

Dewey Day Celebration at Navy Yard.

Folklore Festival, Academy of Music.

Philadelphia on Parade, Convention Hall.

Flower Mart, Rittenhouse Square.

Germantown May Market, Vernon Park.

Hobby League, Annual Show and Exhibition, Franklin Institute.
(Usually held early in May, but some years in latter part of
April).

XXVlll

June

1st wk
1st wk
1st wk
2dwk
last wk

July
4
4
4

September

6
1st wk

October

12
27

1st wk
2dwk

n.f.d.
n.f.d.

November

1-2

2d wk
last wk

last wk

December

n.f.d.

Flag Day Celebration, Betsy Ross House.

Field Mass for Police and Firemen, Logan Circle.

Clothes Line Art Exhibit, Rittenhouse Square.

Wissahickon Day, Riders and Drivers Meet, Wissahiekon Farms.

Historical Pageant and Fete at Old Swedes (Gloria Dei) Church.

Opening of Robin Hood Dell concert season, Fairmount Park.

Celebration in Independence Square.

People s Regatta on the Schuylkill River.

Clan-na-Gael Athletic Games, Northeast High School Field.

Lafayette Day, observed at Independence Hall.

Constatter Volkfest Verein. (German Celebration held Labor Day
and following Tuesday), Philadelphia Rifle Club.

Columbus Day Celebration at monument in Fairmount Park.

Navy Day, open house at Navy Yard.

Electrical and Radio Show, Convention Hall.

Opening of Philadelphia Orchestra concert season, Academy of

Music.

Food Fair and Better Homes Exposition at Commercial Museum.
Opening of Philadelphia Forum season, Academy of Music.

Kennel Club dog show, Convention Hall.

Automobile show, Convention Hall.

Thanksgiving Day Gimbel Toyland Parade (morning).

Penn-Cornell Football Game (afternoon).
Army-Navy Football Game, Municipal Stadium. (Schedule for

Philadelphia from 1936 to 1938.

Takes place Saturday following Thanksgiving Day.

Christmas Ball, Bellevue-Stratford Hotel.
Christmas Eve carol singing, Reyburn Plaza.
Sounding of Liberty Bell, Independence Hall.

Assembly Ball, Bellevue-Stratford Hotel. (Held 1st or 2d Friday).
Charity Ball, Bellevue-Stratford Hotel. (Some years held late in
Nov.).

XXIX

POINTS OF SPECIAL INTEREST

Its position as a center of many of the cultural fields enables Phila
delphia to offer, from its wealth of sight-seeing treasures, an array of
places of special interest to the visitor. Reference to the index will
guide the reader to more complete information on the places included
in the following lists :

HISTORIC BUILDINGS

Carpenters Hall, Chestnut St., east of 4th.

Christ Church, 2d St., north of Market.

Independence Hall, Independence Square, 6th and Chestnut Sts.

Old Swedes Church, Swanson St., south of Christian.

William Penn (Letitia Street) House, Fairmount Park, west of

Girard Ave. Bridge.
Betsy Ross House, 239 Arch St.

HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

American Philosophical Society, 5th and Chestnut Sts.
Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 13th and Locust Sts.
Independence Hall, Independence Square, 6th and Chestnut Sts.
Library Company of Philadelphia, Juniper and Locust Sts.

PERMANENT ART COLLECTIONS

Free Library of Philadelphia, 19th St. and the Parkway.

Graphic Sketch Club, 711-19 Catharine St.

La France Art Museum, 4420 Paul St., Frankford.

Memorial Hall, Parkside Ave. at 43d St.

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Broad and Cherry Sts.

Pennsylvania Museum of Art, 25th St. and the Parkway.

Rodin Museum, 22d St. and the Parkway.

SCIENTIFIC COLLECTIONS

Academy of Natural Sciences, 19th St. and the Parkway.

Franklin Institute Museum and Fels Planetarium, 20th St. and
the Parkway.

Wagner Free Institute of Science Museum, 17th St. and Mont
gomery Ave.

Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, 36th St. and Woodland
Ave.

xxx

LITERARY

Edgar Allan Poe House, 530 N. 7th St.

Free Library of Philadelphia, 19th St. and the Parkway

Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 13th and Locust Sts.

Leary s Book Store, 9 S. 9th St.

Library of University of Pennsylvania, 34th St., north of Spruce.

Mercantile Library of Philadelphia, 14 S. 10th St.

Sullivan Memorial Library, Park Ave. and Berks St.

BOTANICAL

Awbury Arboretum, Washington Lane and Chew St.

Bartram s Gardens, 54th St. and Eastwick Ave.

Botanical Gardens of University of Pennsylvania, South St., west

of Schuylkill River.
Fairmount Park.
Herbarium of Academy of Natural Sciences, 19th St. and the

Parkway.

Horticultural Hall, Fairmount Park at 44th St. and Parkside Ave.
Morris Arboretum, Meadowbrook Lane and Stenton Ave.
Woodward Estate, Mermaid Lane and McCallum St.

RELIGIOUS

Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul, 18th St. and the Parkway.

Church of the Brethren, 6613-Germantown Ave.

Friends Arch Street Meeting House (Orthodox), 4th and Arch

Sts.

Old Pine Street Presbyterian Church, 4th and Pine Sts.
Rodeph Shalom Synagogue, Broad and Mount Vernon Sts.

St. George s Methodist Episcopal Church, 4th St., above Race.
St. Joseph s R. C. Church, Willing s Alley (between 3d and 4th

Sts., south of Walnut) .
Race Street Meeting House (Hicksite), S. W. Cor. 15th and Race

Sts.

First Church of Christ (Scientist), 4012 Walnut St.
Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, S. W. Cor. 19th and Walnut Sts.
Grace Baptist Temple, S. E. Cor. Broad and Berks Sts.
Swedenborgian Church (Church of the New Jerusalem), N. E.

Cor. 22nd and Chestnut Sts.

MUSIC

Academy of Music, Broad and Locust Sts.
Curtis Institute of Music, 18th and Locust Sts.
Robin Hood Dell, Fairmount Park, west of Ridge Ave. and Hun
tingdon St.
Settlement Music School, 416 Queen St.

xxxi

ART CLUBS

Art Alliance, 251 S. 18th St.

Art Club of Philadelphia, 220 S. Broad St.

Philadelphia Sketch Club, 235 S. Camac St.

Plastic Club, 247 S. Camac St.

Print Club, 1614 Latimer St.

Graphic Sketch Club, 719 Catharine St.

COMMERCIAL ART GALLERIES

Boyer Galleries, Broad St. Suburban Station Building, 16th St.

and Pennsylvania Blvd.

Gimbel Galleries, Gimbel Store, 9th and Chestnut Sts.
Modern Galleries, 1720 Chestnut St.
Newman Galleries, 1625 Walnut St.
Rosenbach Galleries, 1320 Walnut St.

BURIAL GROUNDS

Christ Church Burial Ground, 5th and Arch Sts. (Grave of Benja
min Franklin) .

Portuguese Hebrew Burial Grounds, Spruce Street, east of Ninth.
(Grave of Rebecca Gratz).

STATUES AND MEMORIALS

Benjamin Franklin Statue, 9th and Chestnut Sts.

Catholic Total Abstinence Union Fountain, Fairmount Park near
52d St. and Parkside Ave.

Christopher Columbus Statute, Belmont and Parkside Aves.

Cowboy Monument (Frederic Remington), East River Drive
above Girard Ave. Bridge.

Equestrian Statue of Gen. U. S. Grant, East River Drive, Fair-
mount Park.

Equestrian Statues of Generals McClellan, Reynolds, and Meade,
north plaza of City Hall.

Joan of Arc Statue, Fairmount Park near 31st St. and Girard
Ave.

Lincoln Monument, Lemon Hill, Fairmount Park.

Robert Morris Statue, Chestnut St., between 4th and 5th Sts.

Smith Memorial, Fairmount Park near 42d St. and Parkside Ave.

Washington Monument, 25th St. and the Parkway.

Washington Statue, Chestnut St. between 5th and 6th Sts.

William Penn Statue, atop City Hall.

xxx 11

SeaZ of Philadelphia
"Let Brotherly Love Continue 9

The
CITY

and its
BACKGROUND

U" : .,:,:..., :,,

Liberty Bell
Ring out for Liberty

PORTRAIT OF PHILADELPHIA

PHILADELPHIA through the countless changes of the past two
hundred and fifty years has retained something of the rhythm
and color of its pioneer days and some of the spirit and inten
tions of its founder. While it lacks a certain sophistication common
in the larger American cities, yet beneath its surface calm throbs a
pulse of activity peculiarly Philadephian. Despite its air of provin
cialism, the City of Penn claims justly a record of solid accomplish
ments not only in the arts and sciences, but in industry and commerce.

Actually, Philadelphia is neither "slow" nor quiet. Against the
bronze statue of William Penn atop City Hall beat the sound waves
of a million-tongued titan ; alien accents and the stridency of the
Machine mingling wdth the gentler tones of an older day. (Gone
is the "Greene Countrie Towne" established among the tall pines
two and one-half centuries ago ; the alchemy of progress has trans
muted it into a great industrial city, and the ferment of commerce
has altered its face.) Its voice is the voice of ( ai city of contrasts
a city of wealth and poverty, of turmoil and tranquillity, of stern
laws often mitigated by mild enforcement ; a city proud of its world-
molding past and sometimes slow to heed the promptings of modern
thought.

Its Colonial primacy, which the Republic s growth has long since
annulled, has set it apart, in some respects, from its American sisters.
But, like many other centers of conservatism, Philadelphia during
the 1930 s has given evidence of a better understanding of the place
it should occupy in the national scene.

Although it wears with somber dignity the halo of great age, it
was only yesterday that its colonization ceased, and time began to
amalgamate the many nationalities composing its citizenry. Thus
it bears the stamp in greater or less degree of a polyglot humanity
the sedate Quaker; the Swede, touched by mysticism; the thrifty
and methodical German; the imperturbable Englishman; the Celt,
excitable, idealistic; the energetic and vivid Jew; the underprivileged
Negro ; the mercurial Italian ; and the fatalistic Slav.

Except for its tree-shaded squares and parks, Penn could not have
envisioned the present municipality, with its 129 square miles en-

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

compassing a far-flung checkerboard of streets thoroughfares
crowded with raucous traffic and flanked by solid rows of buildings.
With one exception, Penn s open squares are preserved in the city s
heart just as he laid them out.

A spirit of reserve has become proverbially characteristic of the
city and its people. Philadelphia is hesitant in proclaiming the
efficiency of its soundly welded commercial and industrial mechanism.
Sanctuary of artist and scientist though it is, it makes no vulgar
display of the refinements of cultural and scientific preeminence
which clothe it with traditions reminiscent of Old World capitals.

Nucleus of a "holy experiment" in colonization, it was dearly
loved by the early settlers, and that love endures among its people
today. Though ranking among the great cities of America, there sur
vives beneath its urbanity more than a trace of provincialism. Like
most American centers of population, its growth has been the re
sult of consolidation. Made up of a number of communities, it is
essentially a city of faubourgs combined with Penn s original town
under a dual city and county government. Today, despite mass trans
portation, mass schooling, and mass thought, these sections retain
many of the mannerisms, local loyalties, and physical idiosyncrasies
inherited from the Quaker, Swede, and German communities of early
days. Districts such as Frankford, Kensington, Nicetown, Rox-
borough, Manayunk, Germantown, and West Philadelphia inde
pendent in local government until the Act of Consolidation of 1854
have their own newspapers, community interests, shopping centers,
and Main Streets.

The staid manner of the early Quakers has left its impress on the
city s character and has perhaps been responsible for the long pres
ervation of such anachronistic statutes as the Sunday Blue Laws of
1794. Some of these laws were repealed in 1935. Although the
Quaker element in general has abandoned its traditional sedateness
for more modern modes and manners, there are many Friends who
still observe quaint amenities of the past in the intimacy of their
homes, thee-ing and thou-ing one another as in the days of Penn.

Philadelphia s broad expanse rests upon lands generally flat or
rolling, except where the Wissahickon and Fairmount hills or the
Chestnut Hill and the Manayunk elevations break the terrain. To
the stranger it may seem peculiar that, in a city with so much room,
the houses crouch side by side in rows; and that in congested areas
where space is scarce there are notably few skyscrapers. The reason
for the prevailing "row house" may have its root in the pro
vincialism of the city, but skyscrapers are few for a reason obviously
economic there is no great demand for them.

Until comparatively recent years the city s low horizon was broken
only by the looming tower of City Hall. This building is still the

PORTRAIT OF PHILADELPHIA

city s highest, but now its eminence is challenged by newer giants
nearby in particular, the ultra-modern Philadelphia Saving Fund
Society building, two blocks eastward. Nearby to the northwestward,
where in former years sprawled an ugly melange of dilapidated
dwellings, rise stately temples of art and science which overlook the
landscaped Parkway and lend grace and dignity to the central city.

Also pleasing to the eye are such remote portions of the city as
Germantown, Chestnut Hill, Overbrook, and Oak Lane. These are
residential sections where imposing homes, spacious lawns, and a
multiplicity of trees provide the dominant scene. Even the row
houses here have individuality. The traditional red brick often
gives way to stucco and field stone, and variations in design break
the monotony of constant repetition.

In its multiplex building design, Philadelphia presents another
facet of its paradoxical make-up. Within and around it is preserved
a heritage of fine Colonial architecture in brick and stone, perhaps
unsurpassed by that of any other city in the Nation. To the first
structures, built by the Swedes, have been added buildings by Welsh
men, Englishmen, and later craftsmen of various nationalities.

A short walk in older sections of Penn s "Towne" reveals a wealth
of historic buildings public, ecclesiastical, and domestic and
quaint back streets and courts. The many well-designed doorways,
dormer windows, iron handrails, foot scrapers, and fire plaques make
a stroll through these streets an interesting adventure. Interspersed
with pre-Revolutionary structures are public buildings of the early
Republic and the grotesque architecture of the late nineteenth cen
tury. The twentieth century, too, has thrust its bulk and ultra-
modernism upon the city, without effacing the Philadelphia of yester
year. Though the shadow of skyscrapers may fall across such hal
lowed shrines as Independence Hall and Christ Church, the heavy
hand of commerce leaves them unscathed.

But Philadelphia has its "tenderloin" and its slums. The former
finds its fullest expression in the region bordering Eighth Street north
of Arch, where for several blocks it basks in the tawdry glory of
brash neon signs and burlesque posters. Cheap restaurants and hot-
dog stands fill the air with odors that mingle with the reek of alcohol,
the stench of uncollected garbage, and the smell of humanity un
washed. Here, in this section of flophouses, shooting galleries, mis
sions, and bawdy houses, live and circulate the least prepossessing
of Philadelphia s citizenry.

Even more odious are the city s slums. Two areas especially
poisonous have their eastern extremities along the Delaware River:
one bounded, approximately, on the south by Race Street, on the
west by Fifth, and on the north by Girard Avenue; the other em
braced in the area between Christian Street on the south and Lombard

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

on the north, with its western limit near Eighth Street. These are
neighborhoods of the bandbox house and the vermin-infested hovel.
Here man s need for shelter has been exploited to the utmost. It is
only fair to add that preliminary steps have been taken to eliminate
not only these slum sections, but also others scattered in various parts
of the city.

Viewed from an airplane, central Philadelphia presents ian orderly
pattern of squares laid within the angles formed by two coordinate
axes: Broad Street and Market Street. The former, reputedly the
longest straight intracity thoroughfare in the world, forms the north-
to-south axis; the latter, the east-to-west. Diagonal avenues, many
following across the city the course of Colonial highways, occasion
ally modify the geometrical rigidity of these squares.

If the plane approaches from the west, Fairmount Park s wooded
hills and glens appear as a small wilderness entrapped, but un-
ravaged, by the encircling tentacles of municipal and suburban
development. From the southernmost limit of its green depths, the
broad, tree-lined Parkway sweeps majestically toward City Hall,
which stands directly upon what would be the intersection of Broad
and Market Streets.

The mammoth Thirtieth Street Station of the Pennsylvania Railroad
and the new Post Office building can be picked out readily from
above, standing as they do on the west bank of the Schuylkill River
a stream silvery in Penn s time, but now blackened and polluted
by the waste of factories. The railroad tracks leap across the river to
parallel Market Street, flanking the northern side of the Market Street
axis with a gigantic welt of masonry and steel. This elevated right-of-
way, or "Chinese Wall" as it is locally termed, has long been con
sidered a civic nuisance.

Not far south of the wall stand ancient dwellings, once the homes
of Philadelphia s old families. The old families have long since de
parted, and many of the homes have become rooming houses or tap
rooms. Nearby are the luxurious apartment hotels of Ritlenhouse
Square and the age-mellowed dwellings of Delancey Street last
strongholds of that old aristocracy most of whose members have re
treated to the suburbs, leaving a diminishing rear guard to stem the
tide of change.

A point directly over City Hall offers the best view of the blocks
of squares spreading in every direction big blocks, for Penn in
tended that each householder should have sufficient space for a garden
plot. There are few such plots now; all available footage has been
given over to solid ranks of houses, one row backed up against an
other in shameless intimacy.

Farther eastward, beyond the Philadelphia Saving Fund Society
skyscraper, the skyline undulates to the water front, where the city

PORTRAIT OF PHILADELPHIA

ends abruptly in a region of piers, wharves, and warehouses. Here,
on the Delaware River s west bank and stretching for miles to north
and south, lies the only large fresh-water port on the Atlantic sea
board a port which, though 88 miles from the Delaware capes,
ranks among the world s greatest shipping terminals in point of
cargo tonnage as well as in wharfage facilities.

Stretching across the river is one of the world s largest suspension
bridges the Delaware River Bridge, linking Philadelphia with
Camden, N. J. Beneath its span move tug and barge in endless pro
cession ; in its shadow huge freighters are constantly loading and un
loading cargoes consigned to or brought from every corner of the
globe.

Southward lies a virtual honeycomb of homes. Block after block
of houses extend to the brink of the Delaware River, to within a mile
and a half of the Philadelphia Navy Yard and to the gigantic oil
refineries that have added to Philadelphia s economic worth at the
expense of its fragrance.

Immediately south of the business district is the second largest
Negro section, a patchwork made up of bits of Memphis, Birming
ham, and New Orleans transplanted to Philadelphia. Here are the
laborers and the children of laborers, imported principally by the
politico-contractor firms.

Philadelphia s "Little Italy" stretches south from the Negro sec
tion to the oil-suffused flats of the Delaware near the Navy Yard. This
district, thoroughly alive, teems with humanity; reflecting struggle,
emotion, and Latin intrigue. Provalone cheeses dangle in store win
dows, sloe-eyed sons of Sicily and Calabria loiter on corners, and the
musty odor of red wine predominates.

Delaware River Bridge

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

South of Oregon Avenue and a bit west, the marshes that fringe
the Delaware are dotted with huge silvery tanks. Here and there cabins
and the frame shacks of produce farmers appear, but the rustic cry
of the rooster is lost in the mournful blasts of foghorns as oil tankers
move into their slips in the Delaware or the lower Schuylkill.

Considering facets which, even though intangible, are important
in a summation of the city s character, Philadelphia is figuratively
two cities. One is the sprawling municipality of two million persons
living and working compactly within the corporate limits. The other
is the "city" of a half million which does its work within Philadelphia,
but lives its private life on the exclusive Main Line or in other sub
urbs. Each morning by train, motorcar, bus and trolley the half
million descend upon the city to assume their duties in its offices and
mills and factories, until evening speeds them homeward.

Among these half-million commuters are most of those who hold
social and commercial hegemony over Philadelphia members of
old families who regard themselves as the real Philadelphians. They
are the holders of the city s vested trusts, members of its exclusive
Assembly ; and of such organizations as the Racquet Club and the
Union League the latter a political stronghold, where tenets of
the Republican party have been entrenched since the Civil War. They
govern the city s banks and its insurance companies, and establish
the financial policies of its industries.

Endowed with inherited wealth and traditional conservatism, most
of them are reluctant to change. Under their guidance, until recently,
the average citizen remained quiescent; with few exceptions labor
troubles were of little consequence, despite the city s heritage in
unionism, and radical economic philosophies made no appreciable
headway. Much of this apathy may have been due to the fact that
Philadelphia, prior to the Wall Street panic of 1929, had an aver
age of owner-occupied homes reaching 50 per cent or higher. It is
significant that when many of those homes were forfeited by fore
closures, chiefly because of the collapse of building and loan associa
tions, the yeast of change began to ferment. In the political and
economical mutations of the current decade, moreover, there per
meated through every strata of society the realization that the right
of the worker to a job is an essential factor in the economic well-
being of the nation.

Locally known as the "City of Homes" and the "Workshop of the
World," Philadelphia is both of these within certain limitations. The
former designation has lost much of its appropriateness since the
social cataclysm of the early 1930 s, when thousands of homeowners,
bereft of their property, had to rent apartments or portions of single
dwellings. With the easing of the economic tension, some of these
again began to acquire homes for themselves, but the majority have

PORTRAIT OF PHILADELPHIA

demonstrated their ability to live contentedly in apartments or rented
dwellings.

The city s reputation as a world s workshop has continued up to
the present materially undamaged. Philadelphia has fulfilled the
economic destiny prescribed for it by its geographical position close
to nature s storehouses of ores and fuel, and linked to them by
ample facilities for rail and water transportation. Within its bound
aries are contained thousands of factories engaged in scores of differ
ent industries. While its industrial activities are centered in no partic
ular section, the northeast region, embracing Kensington, Frankford,
and Tacony, has the most diversified manufactures and the greatest
number of plants in operation. This is the country s leading district
for textiles and the home of the largest saw-making plant in existence.
Other famous Philadelphia-made products are radio reception units,
hats, streetcars, automobile bodies, cigars, and carpets. The value
of its industrial output is approximately a billion dollars annually.

Since the days of Benjamin Franklin, David Rittenhouse, James
Logan, and Benjamin West, Philadelphia has maintained a high posi
tion in the world of culture and learning. Although such a skyscraper
institution as Temple University is symptomatic of the intrusion of
modern influences upon the city s ancient dignity, this college has
become as much a part of educational Philadelphia as has a much
older institution, the famed University of Pennsylvania. The city
of Penn may cherish the old, but it does not shun the new. Thus
there are century-old banks, hospitals, colleges, manufactories, clubs,
hotels, and libraries standing side by side with those of recent origin.
Forces ancient and modern, along with those transitional influences
which link the new and the old in Philadelphia, impart to the city
an atmosphere distinctly its own, and place their indelible imprint
upon the living mosaic of its people.

Thousands of its residents have never seen the Liberty Bell ; many
thousands have never attended a concert of the world-famous Phila
delphia Orchestra. Naturally, only a small percentage of the city s
population is represented in the student bodies of its art academies,
music schools, and other institutions of specialized or general in
struction. But these cultural and historic institutions, whether or
not they are of traditional prominence in their various realms, give
to the Philadelphian a complacent pride which outsiders often mis
interpret as deliberate snobbery.

The city can be seen in its most rollicking aspect on New Year s
Day, when King Momus and his court rule Broad Street, filling the
wide thoroughfare with joyous nonsense. It can be seen in its quietest
hours from two to five every morning, when even downtown streets
are virtually deserted. After seven and up to nine in the morning, and
from five until seven in the evening the central area is a bedlam

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

of clanging trolleys, rumbling busses, snarling motorcars, and hurry
ing throngs.

Commuters and shoppers from outlying districts and suburbs en
train at Reading Terminal or the Pennsylvania Railroad stations, or
take subway or elevated line leading west to 69th Street, north to
Olney, northeast to Frankford, or east across the Delaware River
Bridge to Camden. Out the broad Parkway from City Hall flows a
river of automobiles, halting at regular intervals before the command
ing glare of intersection lights.

By 7:30 there is a lull in the central city as the sphere of activity
shifts to the home. Though in any large community the suspension
of traffic at this hour is noticeable, in Philadelphia the dinner hour
quietude is as definite a demarcation between the day s work and
the evening s recreation as twilight is between sunshine and darkness.
To many Philadelphians the evening s entertainment may include
a "show" at one of the few remaining theaters, a film at one of the
numerous movie palaces, or perhaps an athletic contest at one of the
sports centers. Others may attend a concert or a lecture at the Academy
of Music, while another element inevitably gravitates toward taproom
or night club. But the greater number of Philadelphians will remain

at their hearths. From countless
rows of houses, standing in
block-long anonymity against
the blackness of night, will come
in imperishable steadfastness
the soft, warm lights of home,
and the gentle tumult of chil
dren being marshaled for bed.
On the morrow the city will
arise to cope anew with its cur
rent problems; it will turn an
inquiring face to the future,
even while looking back in mem
ory to the misted glory of its
yesterdays.

Christ Church Tower
Whose bells rang on market day"

NATURE S HANDIWORK

Topography

PHILADELPHIA and its suburbs comprise an area unusual in
the variety of its landscape. The region lies in parts of three
distinct physiographic provinces tracts of country in which
geographic and topographic features derive from definitely different
geological conditions. These three provinces, which form the border
lands of the Philadelphia area, are known scientifically as the At
lantic Coastal Plain, the Piedmont Plateau, and the Triassic Lowland.

Philadelphia County, coextensive with the city, forms an area of
129.714 square miles. The entire Philadelphia district, geologically,
comprises 915.285 square miles, extending approximately 34.50 miles
from north to south and 26.53 miles from east to west.

The county itself is bounded on the south by Bow Creek, Back
Channel, Delaware County line, and the Delaware River ; on the east
by the Delaware River and Poquessing Creek ; on the north by Po-
quessing Creek, the Montgomery County line, the Philadelphia, New-
town & New York Railroad (a branch of the Reading Co.), Chelten
ham Avenue, Cresheim Avenue, Stenton Avenue, and Northwestern
Avenue ; on the west by the Schuylkill River, City Line Avenue, and
Cobbs Creek.

The Coastal Plain, within which the southeastern corner of the
county lies, consists of a raised section of sea deposits, covered in part
by subsequent erosion products brought down largely by the Dela
ware and Schuylkill Rivers from higher land nearby, and in part by
"glacial outwashes," glacial clay, and sands washed down from the
region north of Easton.

The process by which the Coastal Plain originated causes the Phila
delphia area to be flat, with a gentle rise eastward from the Schuyl
kill, and a gradual decline southward to the Delaware. The formations
in this area are composed of sands, clays, and gravels, with subter
ranean watercourses here and there which form quicksands.

The Piedmont Plateau, a higher elevation, underlies the major
part of the Philadelphia area. The rock formations of this area, very
ancient geologically, appear along the East River Drive in Fairmount
Park, along Wissahickon Creek, and in the Germantown and Chest
nut Hill sections.

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

The rock structure of the Triassic Lowland is scientifically the least
revealing within the Philadelphia area. It lies to the north of White-
marsh Valley, and includes the wide region of flat and rolling country
extending northeast and west from Fort Washington, Norristown, and
the Trenton cutoff of the Pennsylvania Railroad, running as far as
the Reading Hills and even extending into Lancaster County. The
Triassic Lowland includes a great part of Bucks, Montgomery, Lan
caster, Chester, and Delaware Counties.

Rivers : Two major streams, the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers,
form a junction at the southernmost extremity of Philadelphia. The
former skirts the city on the east ; the latter takes a southerly course
through the city before flowing into the larger stream.

The Delaware River, from its source to the point where it flows into
Delaware Bay, is 410 miles long, and drains an area of 12,012 square
miles. It is navigable by ocean steamers as far as Trenton, the tidal
limit, 130 miles from the Delaware capes. For approximately 35 miles
the Delaware flows through the Philadelphia area. The stream is sub
ject to seasonal fluctuations in volume.

The Schuylkill, approximately 100 miles long, has a drainage area
of 1,915 square miles. With headwaters in the anthracite belt of
Schuylkill County, it flows across the Triassic Lowland and the Pied
mont Plateau. Its chief tributaries are the Perkiomen and Wissa-
hickon Creeks.

The divide separating the basins of the Delaware and Schuylkill
Rivers in the southwest is marked in general by the route of the
western division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. In this southern re
gion, the Delaware watershed is drained by Cobbs, Darby, Crum,
Ridley, and Chester Creeks, which empty into the Delaware River ;
and the Brandywine, Red Clay, and White Clay Creeks, which empty
into the Christiana River, a tributary of the Delaware. On the divide
between the Schuylkill and Delaware basins on the northeast are
Germantown and Chestnut Hill. In this section the watershed is
drained by Pennypack, Tacony, Poquessing, Neshaminy, Mill, Com
mon, Durham, Brock, and Pidcock Creeks.

Flora

PHILADELPHIA S flora differs little from that of other large cities
- in the East. However, the city s progress in the field of experi
mental horticulture is noteworthy. This experimentation was begun
by pioneer settlers in the district. Members of the Penn family, in
fact, brought to the New World saplings of cherished trees, shoots of
cultivated plants, and many types of shrubs and flowers.

By far the greatest of early horticulturists was John Bartram.
Not satisfied to confine his researches to his home area, Bartram

NATURE S HANDIWORK

roved from Canada to Florida, obtaining an inclusive collection of
American plants for the botanical gardens of Colonial Philadelphia,
and for shipment to England. Many of the trees he planted before the
Revolutionary War still stand.

The horticultural halls and greenhouses of Philadelphia contain a
myriad of trees, plants and shrubs, and the naturalist finds the flora of
Fairmount Park most interesting. Trees comparatively rare may be
found throughout the city s park system. These include the trans
planted balsam fir, red spruce, Chinese juniper, and Chinese elm,
and the native shagbark hickory and sweet gum. Poisonous plants
found in the section are poison ivy and poison sumach.

Among the more common American trees growing in the Phila
delphia district are the red or soft maple, a tree that graces the banks
of streams or marshes ; the flowering dogwood ; the white ash ; the
black oak ; the white oak ; and the beech.

Common locally are the black locust, the wood of which is valuable
for shipbuilding and lathe work ; the American plum, a small tree
productive of delicious fruit ; the wild cherry ; the black or sour
gum ; the black ash ; the green ash ; the hackberry, and the red
mulberry.

Other trees familiar in the area include the sycamore or button-
wood ; the black walnut ; the butternut ; the mockernut hickory ;
the shellbark hickory ; the red birch ; the sweet or black birch ; the
hop-hornbeam or ironwood ; the linden, and the sugar or hard maple.

In the glades and woods of the area are found the blue-water
beech ; the large-toothed poplar ; the hemlock spruce, and the red
cedar.

Members of Philadelphia s arboreal family more rarely encountered
in or near the city include the tulip tree ; the papaw, a small tree
found in the rich bottom lands ; the horse chestnut, originally a
native of southern Asia but long since naturalized as a shade tree ;
the box elder, or ash-leaved maple, a tree that occasionally beautifies
the banks of streams and lakes in the area, and the white pine.

According to tree census figures for 1937, Philadelphia contains
more trees than any other city in the world. Reports of the Fairmount
Park Commission show that there are 157,773 trees on the city streets,
and approximately 500,000 in Fairmount Park, and a million in the
various other parks throughout the city.

Some curious kinds of plants may be found in certain sections
of Philadelphia. Some are indigenous, others have been transplanted
from foreign countries and various parts of the United States. The
common dodder s or love vine has small white flowers ; a parasite,
it feeds on the herbs and shrubs to which it clings. The ghost plant,
usually found under pine or oak trees, takes its nourishment from
the roots of other plants. The compass plant, a foreign species, re-

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

ceives its name from the fact that some of the leaves point north,
others south, enabling the lost traveler to reestablish his position.
The mad dog skullcap, found in shaded, wet places, was once con
sidered a cure for rabid dogs ; this plant belongs to the mint family,
and has blue flowers and a smooth stem.

The indigenous skunk cabbage, known to the early Swedish settlers
in the Philadelphia section as "bear weed," is among the first har
bingers of spring. It has a thick rootstalk and a cluster of large veiny
leaves. It is a perennial herb, with an unpleasant odor. Brightening
sandy spots of suburban Philadelphia is the butterfly weed, so named
because of its gaily colored flowers. The flowers are brilliant orange
and borne in dense clusters.

Fauna

DURING the migratory season, many transient birds visit south
eastern Pennsylvania. Among the winter birds are the song,
tree, and English sparrows; starling, winter wren, slate-colored snow
bird, white-throated cardinal, tufted titmouse, red and white-winged
crossbills, pine finch and gold finch, herring gull, titlark, brown
creeper, and golden-crowned kinglet. Birds of prey include the red-
tailed, sharp-shinned and sparrow hawks ; the snowy owl, and the
long-eared, short-eared and saw-whet owls.

With the arrival of spring, Philadelphia s bird kingdom is well es
tablished. Crows fill the moist, warm air with raucous cries, snow
birds and tree sparrows linger in the fields, the fox-colored sparrow
appears, cedar birds perch on the branches of red cedars, and the
melody of song sparrows vies with the hammered tattoo of the wood
peckers. Other visitors are the robin, bluebird, house wren, dove,
red-winged blackbird, and purple grackle. The crow, quail, horned
owl, downy woodpecker, screech owl, barn owl, and cedar bird are
found here through the year.

The European starling, now common to many Atlantic coastal
cities, where it nests in the niches of public buildings, first appeared
in Philadelphia in 1904. According to ornithologists, the starling now
outnumbers even the English sparrow in the city and suburbs.

The starling has "taken over" many of Philadelphia s central city
commercial buildings and many public buildings on the Parkway. In
the autumn countless flocks nightly perch in the eaves of the Art
Museum and the Public Library, to the annoyance of custodians. At
tempts to discourage this pest by firing roman candles at their roost
ing places have resulted in only temporary relief.

With so much of the wildwood atmosphere still preserved, Phila
delphia has its share of bats, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, weasels,
and the smaller rodents, such as the meadow mouse and the white-

NATURE S HANDIWORK

footed deer mouse. The raccoon and opossum are now rarely found,
but are still encountered in the deeper rural sections of this district.

Scene in Fairmount Park
"Sylvan glades and purling streams"

THE FIRST INHABITANTS

THE first men known to occupy what is now Philadelphia were
Indians of the Lenni-Lenape tribes. The Lenni-Lenape, whom
the English later named the Delawares, were one of the more
important nations inhabiting the eastern regions when Europeans
first arrived. They belonged to the great Algonkian linguistic stock
and, according to their own legends, had migrated eastward from the
country beyond the Mississippi.

The Lenni-Lenape nation was divided into three main tribal groups
the Munsee, Unami, and Unalachtigo. Philadelphia history is con
cerned chiefly with the Unami (or "Turtle") tribe of Lenape, though
the Susquehannocks and Shawnees (the former of Iroquoian stock,
the latter of Central Algonkian) figured in the city s early history.

Penn s land treaties were negotiated with the Unami, who occupied
both sides of the Delaware from the mouth of the Lehigh River to
what is now New Castle, Del. Their main village or capital, Shacka-
maxon, (Ind., place of eels) is generally supposed to have been the
scene of the famous treaty conference held by William Penn on the
west bank of the Delaware in the autumn of 1682. The village site,
now part of Philadelphia, is known as Penn Treaty Park, and one of
the streets in the vicinity bears the name "Shackamaxon."

Many other sections of the city retain names given them by the
Indians. Some of the more picturesque are Manayunk, "where we go
to drink" ; Wissahickon, "yellow stream" or "catfish stream" ; Pass-
yunk, "in the valley" ; and Wingohocking, "a favorite spot for plant
ing." Others are Kingsessing, "bog meadow" or "the place where
there is a meadow" ; Pennypack, "still water" ; Tacony, "wood or
uninhabited place" ; Tioga, "at the forks" ; Tulpehocken, "the land
of turtles" ; and Wissinoming, or Wissinaming, "where we were
frightened" or "a place where grapes grow." The area embraced in
Philadelphia was called Coaquannock, or "grove of tall pines."

The Unamis had large heads and faces, and their noses were
sharply hooked. Mainly a sedentary and agricultural people, they
lived on maize, fish, and game. Men of the tribe dressed in breech
clout, leggings, and moccasins, with skin mantle or blanket thrown
over one shoulder. Their heads were shaved or clipped, except for a
scalp lock generously pomaded with bear s grease and bedecked with
ornaments. The women garbed themselves in leather shirt or bodice,

FIRST INHABITANTS

with skirt of the same material. They wore their hair plaited, the
long tails falling over their shoulders.

Before the advent of Dutch and Swede upon the Philadelphia
scene, the Indians lived in lodges of birch hark. The more sturdy log
hut of later date probably was copied from the whites, although Iro-
quoian peoples lived in log dwellings prior to white contact. .

Not long before Penn arrived in the New World, a group of
Shawnees had migrated northward into Pennsylvania, some of them
locating for a time on the flats below Philadelphia. The Susquehan-
nocks from Maryland, known as "Black Minquas" to the Swedes, had
preceded them and were well known to the early settlers.

After a brief sojourn in the vicinity, the Shawnees moved north
ward to the Wyoming Valley, and thence to western Pennsylvania and
Ohio. The Susquehannocks, waging bitter warfare with the Iroquois
Confederacy, were driven from their Pennsylvania strongholds early
in the period of white colonization.

Probably no more intimate picture of the Indian living in and near
Philadelphia can be given than that of William Penn to the Free
Society of Traders in his letter of 1683. Penn wrote :

For their persons, they are generally tall, straight, well built, and
of singular Proportion. They tread strong and clever, and mostly walk
with a lofty Chin. Of complexion Black, but by design, as the Gipsies
in England. They grease themselves with Bear s fat clarified ; and us
ing no defence against sun or weather, their skins must needs be
swarthy. Their eye is little and black, not unlike a straight-look t
Jew. The thick Lip and flat Nose, so frequent with the East Indians
and Blacks, are not common to them ; for I have seen as comely
European-like faces among them, of both sexes, as on your side of
the Sea. And truly an Italian Complexion hath not much more of
the White ; and the Noses of several of them have as much of the
Roman. Their Language is lofty, yet narrow ; but like the Hebrew in
signification, full. Like short-hand in writing, one word serveth in the
place of three, and the rest are supplied by the Understanding of the
Hearer ; Imperfect in their Tenses, wanting in their Moods, Parti
ciples, Adverbs, Conjunctions and Interjections. I have made it my
business to understand it that I might not want an Interpreter on any
occasion, and I must say that I know not of a language spoken in
Europe that hath words of more sweetness or greatness, in Accent
and Emphasis than theirs ; For instance, Octokekon, Rancocas,
Oricton, Shak, Marian, Poquesian, all of which are names of places,
and have grandeur in them Sepassen, Passijon, the names of places;
Tamane, Secane, Menanse and Secatareus, are the names of persons.

If an European comes to see them, or calls for Lodgings at their
House or Wigwam, they give him the best place, and first cut. If they
come to visit us they salute us with an Itah! which is as much as to
say, "Good be to you !" and set them down, which is mostly on the
ground, close to their heels, their legs upright ; it may be they speak
not a word, but observe all passages. If you give them anything to

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

eat or drink, be it little or much, if it is given with kindness they
are well pleased ; else they will go away sullen, but say nothing.

In sickness, impatient to be cured ; and for it give anything, es
pecially for their children to whom they are extremely natural. They
drink at those times a tisan, or Decoction of some Roots in Spring
Water ; and if they eat any flesh it must be of the Female of any
Creature. If they dye, they bury them with their Apparel, be they
Men or Women, and the nearest of Kin fling in something precious
with them as a token of Love. Their Mourning is blacking of their
faces, which they continue for a year. Some of the young women are
said to take undue liberty before Marriage for a portion ; but when
married chaste.

Their Government is by Kings, which they call Sachama, and those
by succession, but always of the Mother s side. For instance, children
of him who is now King will not succeed, but his Brother by the
Mother, or the Children of his Sister, whose Sons (and after them the
Children of her Daughters) will reign ; for Woman inherits. The
Reason they render for this way of Descent is, that their issue may
not be spurious. The Justice they have is Pecuniary. In case of any
Wrong or evil Fact, be it Murther itself, they atone by Feasts and
Presents of their wampun, which is proportioned to the quality of
the Offence, or Person injured or of the S ex they are of.

For their Original, I am ready to believe them of the Jewish Races.

Perm s entire approach to the native was the outgrowth of a com
bination of characteristics that today seem contradictory. He held an
unquestioning helief in the right of the white men, whom he con
sidered God s chosen people, to populate the new land, in the right
of Christians to dispossess the aborigines. But his abiding sense of
humanity softened to gentleness the stern measures to which such a
belief would appear naturally to lead. Although a shrewd real estate
man, promoting his interests even to the extent of circularizing
Europe, he dealt generously with the Indians. The result indicated
the promptings of his heart, which softened his views on the subject
of white invasions and confirmed his belief that peaceful expansion
of the Colony depended on the courteous and kind treatment of the
natives.

It is doubtful if even the best intentions could have saved the
Indians from a fate that hinged, not so much on the wishes of in
dividual men, as on the inexorable forces working upon European
society. Penn treated the Indians with more consideration than any
other Colonial Governor. His successors acted in a quite different
spirit. It was not long after Penn was in his grave, that the Pro
prietors tricked the Indians out of a large slice of land by means of
the notorious Walking Purchase.

The Walking Purchase of 1737 was resorted to in settling a contro
versy due to a loosely drawn deed covering a tract extending from a
point a short distance above Trenton, west to Wrightstown in Bucks
County, northwest and paralleling the Delaware River as far as a

FIRST INHABITANTS

man could walk in a day and a half, and then east to the Delaware,
following a line not defined in the deed.

Thomas Penn finally prevailed upon the Indians to agree to the
terms of the document, and preparations were made for the walk.
Instead of the leisurely method of walking, which the natives ex
pected, the whites advertised for fast walkers, marked trees to in
sure a straight line of travel, and made every effort to procure the
greatest amount of land. Three walkers were hired, two of whom fell
out, but the third reached a point more than 60 miles from the start.
The deceit was continued by drawing the line at an angle, rather than
straight, thus claiming the best lands of the Minisink region.

With the development of Philadelphia, Indians retreated to the
outskirts, and finally to remoter regions, being pushed northward and
westward as the frontiers spread out. Not long after the Walking
Purchase, the last Delaware council fire died out upon the Wis-
sahickon s hills, leaving Philadelphia to the white man and the white
man s ways. Today about 150 Indians live in the city. They are not
subjected to discrimination, and on the whole are entirely adjusted
socially. The descendants of the Delawares and their historic allies
are now domiciled in Oklahoma, numbering about 1,200 ; in Ontario
about 400; with some scattered in Kansas and Wisconsin. Research
in this important field, long neglected, has been carried on since 1928
through the University of Pennsylvania Research Fund.

Two small plots of ground were set aside in 1755 by John Penn,
William Penn s grandson, as camping sites for Indian delegations
visiting the city. One plot, formerly part of the Penn lawn, is off
Second Street, behind the Keystone Telephone Building, between
Walnut and Chestnut Streets. The other is behind the Ritz Carlton
Hotel. Believed to have been deeded to the Six Nations, the grants in
recent years have been the source of much publicity and a certain
amount of legal bickering. In 1922 five Indian chiefs from New York
visited Philadelphia to ascertain the legal status of their claim upon
the onetime reservations. At this time, John Caskell Hall, a descendant
of William Penn, "rededicated" the Second Street tract as an Indian
camping site in the presence of Pennsylvania s Governor and Phila
delphia s mayor. The ceremony was considered, even by the visiting
chiefs, as nothing more than a rhetorical gesture.

Philadelphia is unimportant archeologically. Although most of the
city stands upon a very ancient land mass, possibly rich in paleonto-
logical and archeological remains, no evidence that man existed in
the area prior to the coming of the Indian has been found. The
nearest approach to a paleontological discovery was a section of a
petrified tree dug up in 1931 by workmen excavating for the Eighth
Street Subway. Even that find has not yet proved to be of scientific
value, since neither its age nor its origin has been determined.

HISTORY

And thou, Philadelphia, the virgin settlement named before thou
wert born, what love, what care, what service and what travail has
there been to bring thee forth, and to preserve thee from such as
would abuse and defile thee.

WILLIAM PENN

PROLOGUE

TINY ship, with weather-
beaten sails billowing above
her cluttered deck, limped
into Delaware Bay on the after
noon of October 24, 1682, and beat
slowly upriver against a northerly
wind. She was the 300-ton Wel
come, bound from Deal, England,
to New Castle, Delaware, with
Capt. Robert Greenway in com
mand and William Penn as one
of her 70 passengers,
low at the stem, the vessel was

Penn s Ship Welcome"

High-sterned, and perilously
crowded with men, women, and children. Cows, pigs, and sheep took
up much of her deck space ; her alleyways were glutted with masses
of baggage, household utensils, and boxes of provisions. Her tween-
decks exuded the miasma of contagion ; and from everywhere came
the stench of crowded humans and penned-up livestock.

For eight weeks the Welcome., pushing her slender bow through
the North Atlantic seas, had battled gales and the scourge of small
pox. On September 1, she had raised anchor and stood down the
English Channel with 100 passengers, among them one who had come
aboard at Deal bearing the deadly germs. Within a few weeks nearly
half the crew and passengers were down with the plague. The
bodies of 30 victims had been committed to the sea before land was
sighted.

Under such discouraging circumstances did William Penn first look
upon American soil, and to the travail of storm and death there was

HISTORY-PROLOGUE

now to be added the opposition of wind and tide. Though within the
capes, the Welcome had to struggle against headwinds for three days
before reaching New Castle.

On the morning of the 28th (the Welcome actually had arrived the
evening before) Penn landed in New Castle, there to be greeted by
his cousin, Capt. William Markham, resplendent in naval uniform,
and by a gathering of Dutch, Welsh and English settlers. Tall, hand
some, and still of slender figure, Penn made an impressive appearance
on that autumn Saturday as he formally took possession of the Dela
ware territory by receiving the "turf, twig and water" symbols of
ownership, and renewed the commissions of incumbent magistrates.

Impatient to see his Province of Pennsylvania, he proceeded that
afternoon to Upland (now Chester) settled by the Swedes about 40
years before and landed at the mouth of Chester Creek, named by
the Indians Mee-chop-penack-han, or "the stream where large pota
toes grow." Here he was entertained over the weekend at Essex
House, home of Robert Wade, a Friend whom Penn had known in
London.

Sometime during the first week in November, Penn and a party of
friends rowed up river to the tongue of land formed by the converg
ing Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers, where the town of Philadelphia
was being laid out. They continued past the Schuylkill s mouth, pro
ceeding up the Delaware to where Dock Creek led into a large green
clearing on the west bank of the river. The place was called Coaquan-
nock by the Indians because of its tall pines. In the vicinity such
small Swedish settlements as Wicaco and Tacony had been estab
lished.

Some of the land desired by Penn was owned by these early
Swedes, and still more belonged to the original owners the Indians,
particularly the Unamis of the Lenni-Lenape nation. Adjustments
were made later with the Swedes ; but since Penn s agents already
had acquired considerable acreage from the Indians, the clearing on
the Delaware was even now taking on the semblance of a real estate
development.

Under the supervision of Capt. Thomas Holme, the surveyor gen
eral whom Penn had sent to America with the advance guard of
settlers, trees were being felled and cut into logs, plots were being
leveled, streets graded, houses built, and the city was being laid out
in accordance with Penn s plan.

During the next few weeks Penn was busy. He visited New York to
pay his respects to representatives of the Duke of York (from whom
he had received the Lower Counties), made frequent trips to Phila
delphia to observe the growth of his "greene countrie towne," and in
Chester worked on the plan of government for his Province. Mean
while he kept in contact with his agents in London, circularizing

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Europe with pamphlets in English, German, and other languages
which pictured the beauties of America and outlined the ad
vantages to be gained by coming to the new land.

As a result of this promotion campaign, immigrants poured into
Pennsylvania during the ensuing years. Among them were so many
Germans that James Logan, Penn s secretary, expressed a fear that it
would become a German colony. One of the features attracting
Europeans was Penn s Great Law and Frame of Government, which
made provisions for free education, promotion of the arts and
sciences, religious toleration, freely elected representatives, and trial
by jury in open court.

Many of the earliest settlers in Philadelphia found existence far
from comfortable. Great numbers of them had to live for a time in
dug-outs gouged from the Delaware s banks. There was no let-up in
building ; during the first year after Penn s arrival more than 100
dwellings of brick, logs, and wide clapboards were constructed, among
them homes with balconies as well as porches. Brick houses were few
at first, but the number increased rapidly as soon as bricks could be
manufactured locally, making importation of that material unneces
sary.

Within a year of Penn s landing the growing town boasted 600
houses. The Blue Anchor Inn, built in 1682 on the bank at the mouth
of Dock Creek, and serving as Philadelphia s tavern, trade head
quarters, and community center, was no longer the most substantial
building in town. Some of the homes were becoming almost pre
tentious, wharves were growing in size and number along the Dela
ware, and surrounding farms by the hundreds were being cleared
and tilled. Penn, with pardonable pride, was able to write to his
friends in England : "I have led the greatest colony into America
that ever man did upon a private credit. I will show a province in
seven years equal to her neighbors of forty years planting."

Thus was founded the City of Brotherly Love not only a haven
for the persecuted, but also a sound business venture promoted by
one who had a clearer understanding of human nature than most
men of his time. This latter trait was especially made manifest in
his dealings with the Indians. "Be grave," he had importuned his
commissioners before coming himself to America, "they (the Indians)
like not to be smiled upon."

PENN AND THE HOLY EXPERIMENT

BORN October 14, 1644, the son of Admiral Sir William Perm,
Pennsylvania s founder received his early education at a small
free school at Chigwell, near Wanstead, England. A brooding
lad, with a leaning toward spiritual thoughts, his behavior frequently
exasperated his energetic sire. On October 26, 1660, after being tu
tored at home, young Penn was sent to Christ Church College, Ox
ford. Here he associated with members of a growing sect known as
Friends, or Quakers, and became a convert. In this environment he
heard Quaker leaders discussing plans for a colony across the sea.
Members of the established Anglican Church already had such a
settlement in Virginia ; the Puritans had a refuge in New England ;
and the Quakers now dreamed of escaping persecution by establish
ing a colony in America.

At first intimation of his son s interest in the Quaker faith, Sir Wil
liam became greatly perturbed. Then, when young Penn was expelled
for refusing to wear a surplice in chapel, he ordered his son home
and attempted to break the boy s will by physical discipline. In ref
erence to the incident, Pennsylvania s founder later spoke bitterly
of the "Usage I underwent when I returned to my father ; whipping,
beating, and turning out of doors in 1662."

But punishment proved useless, so young Penn was sent on a tour
of France. At Saumur he spent a year and a half studying in the
Huguenot College under Moses Amyraut. Upon his return to England
he studied law for a while, then accompanied his father to sea with
the British fleet. Naval life did not appeal to him, however, and in
1666 (the year of the great London fire) he was sent to Ireland to
manage his father s Shannigary estate. Once again Penn came under
Quaker influence, and this time he was committed irrevocably to the
faith.

In 1668, at the age of 24, he began to preach and write, producing
the pamphlet The Sandy Foundation Shaken, which offended the
Anglican clergy. That same year he was confined in the Tower of
London for nine months because of his religious activities. A few
years later he was a prisoner in Newgate. "My prison shall be my
grave before I will budge a jot," he declared stubbornly. After his
release he continued to campaign, winning a wide reputation as a
Quaker leader and as author of No Cross, No Crown and Innocency

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

With Her Open Face. His father at last in 1670 was forced to recon
cile himself to the son s work, but that reconciliation did not come
until the elder Penn lay upon his deathbed.

On April 4, 1672, Penn married Gulielma Maria Springett. There
followed an idyllic interlude, marred only by repeated persecution
of the Quakers. In 1680 more than 10,000 were thrown into prison,
243 dying in loathsome cells. On others exorbitant fines were imposed,
or their estates confiscated. By this time Penn s wife had given birth
to seven children, three of whom, including twins, died in infancy.

In 1681, as payment for a debt of 16,000 owed by Charles II to his
father "for money advanced and services rendered," Penn received
the grant of a vast territory in the New World. Thus his role in
history entered a newer, brighter, and more glorious period.

In signing the patent, the King stipulated that "two beaver skins
be delivered at our castle of Windsor on the first day of January in
every year, and also the fifth part of all gold and silver ore found."

The patent was signed March 4, 1681, and on April 2 Charles issued
a public proclamation to the inhabitants of the Province, enjoining
them to yield obedience to Penn and his deputies. At the same time
Penn addressed a message to the colonists, expressing the hope that
he would be able to join them without delay, and urging them to
pay their dues to his deputy governor, Captain Markham, who left
for America that summer.

On April 25, 1682, he completed his famous "Frame of Govern
ment." He called the document The Frame of Government of the
Province of Pennsylvania in America, together with certain laws
agreed upon in England by the Governor and divers Freemen of the
aforesaid Province to be further explained by the First Provincial
Council that shall be held if they see fit. In the constitution he de
clared the divine right of government was twofold, to "terrify evil
doers and to cherish those that do well." He also pointed out that
"any government is free to the people under it, whatever be the frame,
where the laws rule and the people are a party to those laws."

Meanwhile the Free Society of Traders was incorporated, with a
capital stock of 10,000 for the purpose of developing the Province.
Penn sold the society 20,000 acres in a single tract. The company did
not prosper, but the generous terms under which the land was offered
resulted in many purchases in London, Bristol, and even in Dutch
and German cities.

On May 5, 1682, Penn s Code of Laws was passed in England to be
altered or amended in Pennsylvania. In this historic document, 40
statements were promulgated which, in large measure, became the
fundamental law of the Province. Among the provisions were that
elections should be voluntary ; taxes were to be levied by law for
purposes specified ; complaints were to be received upon oath or af-

HISTORY PENN AND THE HOLY EXPERIMENT

firmation ; trials were to be by a jury of twelve men, peers of good
character and of the neighborhood. If the crime carried the death
penalty, the sheriff was to summon a grand inquest of twenty-four
men ; fees were to be moderate ; each county was to have a prison
that would serve also as a workhouse for felons, vagrants, and idle
persons ; and public officers and legislators were to take oath to speak
the truth and profess belief in Jesus Christ.

Penn was now ready to turn his back upon England and start a new
chapter in the wilderness of America. So, winding up the last of his
affairs, he boarded the Welcome at Deal on September 1, 1682, and
set sail for Pennsylvania. For three quarters of a century Europe had
looked with covetous eyes upon that virgin wilderness, and for about
40 years there had been attempts to colonize it. Now it was to become
the scene of action of one of history s most colorful characters the
testing ground for his "holy experiment."

The Years of Discovery

A MAJESTIC river skirted one boundary of the wilderness com-
J -*- monwealth in which Penn was to make his great experiment. Im
portant to the Indians before the arrival of the whites, the Delaware
River later played an important part in the development of town and
Province, city and State.

The first European known to have viewed the stream was Henry
Hudson, who on August 28, 1609, sailed his Half Moon up the bay
while seeking a northwest passage to China. The second recorded
voyage to Delaware Bay was made in July 1610, by Capt. Samuel
Argall, English navigator. Argall named the bay Delaware, in honor
of Thomas West Lord de La Warr who but recently had arrived
in Jamestown as Governor of Virginia.

In 1614 the Dutch States General passed an ordinance claiming ex
clusive trade privileges to all America. That same year Capt. Corne-
lis Jacobson Mey, representing the United New Netherland Company,
explored Delaware Bay, giving to the east cape the name of Cape Mey
(May), and to the west cape the name of Cornelis, which he after
wards changed to Hindlopen later corrupted to Henlopen. When
Mey returned to Europe, Capt. Cornelis Hendricksen, an associate of
Mey, determined to explore the Zuydt, or South (now Delaware)
River more fully. He went as far north as the mouth of the Schuyl-
kill, and in his report to the States General declared he had dis
covered a bay and three rivers.

In 1621 the States General chartered the Dutch West India Com
pany with sovereign powers, giving it a trade monopoly and rights
to colonize on the coast of Africa from the Tropic of Cancer to the
Cape of Good Hope, and on the American coast from the Straits of

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Magellan to Newfoundland. The territory claimed by the company in
North America was called the Province of New Netherland. Thus
culminated a long-drawn fight by the Amsterdam merchant, William
Usselincx, for a powerful colonizing, navigation, and trading organi
zation. The company did not prove successful. Usselincx was later
appointed Swedish agent in Holland.

The company sent its first ship to America in March 1623, under
command of Captain Mey. The latter erected Fort Nassau on the New
Jersey side of the Delaware at Timber (now Sassackon) Creek, op
posite what is now League Island. Here trade with the Indians was
carried on for a time, the site being alternately abandoned and re-
occupied by the Dutch until 1651, when they moved to Fort Casimir
at New Castle, Del. This was the first European attempt at permanent
settlement on the Delaware.

Some time after the formation of the Dutch West India Company,
the disappointed Usselincx persuaded Gustavus Adolphus, King
of Sweden, to grant him a commission to form a Swedish West India
Company. Letters patent were issued July 2, 1626, and the project
was recommended to the people of Sweden and Germany. Gustavus
himself pledging the Royal Treasury up to 450,000 riksdalers. The
Diet confirmed the measure in 1627, but the German war delayed
organization. Gustavus was killed in battle, in 1632, and the plan was
dropped temporarily. Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna, regent and guard
ian for the little Queen Christina, soon renewed the patent of the
company, with Usselincx as director. Pamphlets and circulars outlin
ing the project were distributed throughout Europe. Several wealthy
Dutchmen became interested in the enterprise, and by 1637 actual
preparations were under way to found a Swedish colony on the Dela
ware.

Meanwhile, in America, the Dutch West India Company had per
mitted a landed aristocracy to develop. Wealthy Dutchmen, acquir
ing large grants from the company, set themselves up as patroons or
feudal chiefs of extensive territories. Among those interested in colon
izing the Delaware was David Pieterszen (or Pieterszoon) De Vries.
The site of Philadelphia, however, lay untouched by white coloniza
tion, in fact, unseen until on January 10, 1633, De Vries sailed his
ship up the river beyond the SchuylkilFs mouth, anchoring off what
is now Camden, N. J. The Indians were then at war with one another,
and De Vries, afraid to trust them, did not go ashore, but dropped
down the river to Chester Creek, where his vessel was ice-bound for
two weeks. He then sailed down the Delaware and went on to Vir
ginia. Returning to the river in March, he captured a few whales, but
because of their small yield in oil he decided to return to Holland.

That same year Arent Corssen, commissary at Fort Nassau, was
commissioned by the Dutch governor at New Amsterdam to buy from

Workman s Place
A Bit of Stockholm

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

the Indians a tract of land on the Schuylkill. Upon this land, about
a half mile north of the present Penrose Ferry Bridge, Fort Beversrede
later was erected. In the meantime, difficulties sprang up between the
patroons of New Netherland and the Dutch West India Company. It
finally was agreed that the company would purchase the property
and rights of the patroons, and on November 27, 1634, all the claims
to the land on both sides of the Delaware passed to the West India
Company.

The influence of the Swedes on the Delaware was now to be felt.
The New Sweden Company, a hybrid organization financed equally
by Dutch and Swedes, founded its first colony in 1638, on the present
site of Wilmington, Del. The first governor, Peter Minuit, had been
the Dutch governor at New Amsterdam for six years, until replaced
by Wouter Van Twiller. As governor of New Sweden, Minuit erected
Fort Christiana and purchased from the Indians all the land on the
west bank of the Delaware as far north as the Schuylkill. Pursuing a
policy of fair dealing with the Indians, Minuit gained their good will
and succeeded in obtaining almost all the fur trade.

Settlement of the Swedes upon the Delaware was sharply resented
by the Dutch at New Amsterdam, who declared the Zuydt River of
New Netherland had long been in their possession. Minuit was suc
ceeded in 1640 by Peter Hollandaer (or Hollander) , who purchased
the land extending from the Schuylkill north to Falls of the Delaware,
at what is now Trenton.

Then came John Printz, a huge man of 400 pounds. Printz was to
become the greatest of New Sweden s governors. After a career in five
universities and meritorious service in the Baltic wars, he had been
knighted and sent to America. In 1643 he built New Gotheberg (or
Gottenburg) a log fort, and a cluster of rude shelters for the im
migrants on Tinicum Island, now part of Tinicum Township, Dela
ware County. For himself he erected a fine brick house called "Printz
Hall," which stood as a landmark for a century and a half. The fort
was soon destroyed by an accidental fire.

Printz, known among the Indians as the "Big Tub," ruled Tinicum
for ten years. He liked neither the Indians nor the Dutch, and his
hatred of the latter was intensified when in 1645 the New Amsterdam
governor sent Andreas Hudde to erect Fort Beversrede. Despite his
grievances, Printz developed a brisk trade in pelts and tobacco, and
made plans for the building of mills and forts. He married off his
daughter, Armegat, to the valiant Johan Papegoja, vice governor of
the Swedes on the Delaware. This was the first marriage ceremony
between white persons within the present limits of Pennsylvania.
Printz then returned to Sweden, leaving affairs in the hands of his
new son-in-law. Papegoja was soon relieved by John Classon Rysingh.

At last the friction between Dutch and Swedes resulted in open

HISTORY PENN AND THE HOLY EXPERIMENT

violence. A new governor, "Headstrong" Peter Stuyvesant, had come
to New Amsterdam. Passionate, honest, and blunt, Stuyvesant stumped
through the affairs of the New World on his wooden leg, hating the
Swedes with characteristic intensity. He removed the Fort Nassau gar
rison to Fort Casimir, and when told of the fall of his new fort, he
gave way to a mighty rage. In the autumn of 1655, with an expedition
of seven vessels and 600 men, he entered the Delaware, lowered the
Swedish flag everywhere and hoisted the Dutch in its place, reestab
lishing the mastery of Holland throughout the lower valley.

Rysingh returned to Sweden and died in poverty. The leading Swed
ish settlers followed him home, while others surrendered their fur
trade and moved upstream ahead of the conquering Dutch. Thus the
wavelets of Swedish migration beat upon the shores of the Delaware,
to leave the church, Gloria Dei, as a monument to their courage and
their faith.

But there was never any extensive settlement by either Swedes or
Dutch. In the entire section of Tacony, as the Swedes called what is
now Philadelphia, court records in 1677 showed 65 males between the
ages of 16 and 60. The Dutch as well as the Swedes were destined to
lose their hold in this part of the New World, and at last evil days
fell upon "Old Wooden Leg" Stuyvesant. Geographically, the English
had him bottled up and were pressing their advantage. "Alas," he
wrote in despair to the West India Company, "the English are ten to
one in number to us, and are able to deprive us of the country when
they please."

English Encroachment

A S early as 1634, two Englishmen, Thomas Young and Robert
-^~*- Evelyn, journeyed as far north on the Delaware as the present
site of Philadelphia. They built a small fort at the mouth of the
Schuylkill River, but remained there only five days. The next year,
by order of the Governor of Virginia, an expedition under Capt.
George Holmes attempted to seize Fort Nassau on the New Jersey
side. The attempt was frustrated by the Dutch, who captured Holmes
and sent him to New Amsterdam in chains. In 1641, sixty Puritans
from New Haven went up the Delaware with the intention of settling
permanently at the Schuylkill s mouth. (All Delaware River way
farers recognized the value of that particular spot, the embryonic
Philadelphia) . The Puritans erected a blockhouse, but before long
it was burned to the ground by raiders in the Dutch service, and the
Connecticut colonizers were sent to New Amsterdam.

At last, after the long years of claims and counter-claims, of voyages
of exploration and attempts at colonization, came the Treaty of Breda
in 1667, whereby England gained possession of the territory now con-

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

tained in the States of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and New
York. Vital changes in affairs of the New World were linked inti
mately with developments in the Old. On March 20, 1664, Charles II
presented to his brother James, Duke of York and Albany, the lands
between the Connecticut and Delaware Rivers. James gave to Sir
George Carteret and John, Lord Berkeley, courtiers and favorites,
possession of the territory between the Hudson and the Delaware.
Carteret had held the Island of Jersey for the Cavaliers against the
might of Cromwell, and so the new province, at first named Nova
Caesarea, was then called New Jersey.

The fortunes of Col. Richard Nicolls, a follower of the Duke of
York, also entered a period of brightness under the favor of the royal
brothers. Nicolls dispossessed Stuyvesant in 1664 but he treated the
Dutch and Swedes on the Delaware with consideration. He established
the Duke of York s system of laws, which provided for trial by jury,
religious freedom, and equality of taxation.

After Nicolls, Col. Francis Lovelace governed on the Delaware
(1667-1673), and then the Dutch gained ascendancy in 1673, follow
ing the fortunes of a fresh war overseas. They maintained this posi
tion for only a year, during which time Peter Alrichs was deputy
governor of the Colonies on the west side of the Delaware. With the
Treaty of Westminster, in 1674, the English again were masters on
this side of the Atlantic.

Four years later, in 1678, the English ship Shield sailed up the
Delaware, passing the Indian place, Coaquannock, which lay under
a thin mantle of snow on the river s western bank. The site of Phila
delphia was then an almost unbroken wilderness, save for a few
scattered clearings and an occasional log cabin sending its wreaths of
smoke upward through the trees.

The Shield, bound up-river for the new settlement of Burlington
(N. J.), tacked close in to shore so close that some of the rigging
scraped against branches of trees lining the water s edge. One of the
crew gazed in awe at the broad flat forests stretching away from the
placid Delaware, then turned to a shipmate and exclaimed : "Here
is a fine place for a town !"

EARLY SETTLEMENT

ON April 23, 1682, Captain Holme set sail from London
on the Amity., having been commissioned by William Penn as
surveyor general of Pennsylvania. Holme arrived on the site of
Philadelphia late in June, and immediately began the task of laying
out the city on the elevated ground between the Delaware and Schuyl-
kill Rivers.

The starting point of the city rose from tide level to an altitude of
no more than 50 feet, its forest-covered surface drained by a half
dozen creeks. Most of the area, except for early Swedish clearings
along rivers and creeks, was primitive wilderness ; Indian encamp
ments had encroached very little upon the tall pines.

Several plots had already been surveyed before the arrival of
Holme, and a small number of buildings had been erected, princi
pally along Dock Creek. Choice sections of water-front land were ob
tained from the Swedes, who were given other tracts in exchange,
and during midsummer a large area in what is now Bucks County
was purchased from the Indians.

The acreage obtained from the Swedes included frontage on both
rivers. In plan at least, the city was extended westward to the Schuyl-
kill River and from Vine Street to South two miles east to west,
and one mile north to south. In the shadow of the Coaquannock
woods Philadelphia thus slowly began to rise, while in England Wil
liam Penn was busily engaged in preaching the gospel of emigra
tion and making last-minute preparations for departure.

Among his many schemes for development of the city and Province,
Penn set great store on the Free Society of Traders, a land and com
mercial company chartered in London. Its president was Nicholas
Moore, a London doctor, who came to Philadelphia shortly after
Penn s arrival and later became speaker of the assembly and chief
justice. The treasurer was James Claypoole, an able and energetic
man who also made his home in the New World.

One of the plans of the society was to erect an autonomous "Manor
of Frank, which should hold its court-baron, court-leet and view of
frankpledge." For this purpose to the society was granted a tract of
20,000 acres about 20 miles northwest of the city. By June 1682, the
total stock subscribed to the company had reached 10,000, but the
undertaking later collapsed for a reason still undetermined. Possibly

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

the society had made plans on too vast a scale. At any rate, manorial
reservations and courts were not adaptable to democratic society.

In order to attract wealthy individuals, Penn offered parcels of
5,000 acres for 100, with 50 acres additional for every indentured
servant brought to Pennsylvania. An opportunity was given entire
families to purchase tracts of 500 acres, to be paid for in annual in
stallments over a period of years. Moreover, Philadelphia was to be
built up "after the proportion of 10 acres for each 500 acres pur
chased, if the place would allow it." (Instead of becoming a colony
of landed gentry, Philadelphia became a center for tradesmen, labor
ers, and seekers after homesteads.)

Penn had been expected in Philadelphia for a long time before
he arrived. The reason for his delay was that he was busy on his
Frame of Government constitution. He consulted many persons,
notably Algernon Sidney, who wished England to become a republic
and who finally gave his life for his liberal principles. Sidney did
not approve some of Penn s ideas, although both were Whigs, and
each was in his own way eager to help mankind. Penn made as many
as 20 drafts of his constitution, each a considerable advance over the
first, which would have created a landed aristocracy.

Under Penn s rule there was to be a governor, a provincial council,
and an assembly. The council was to be composed of 72 freemen, who
were to serve for three years, one-third being replaced each year. The
governor was to have three votes in the council, but no power of veto.
The council alone had the right to originate bills. The governor and
council together constituted the executive power, and by division into
committees were to manage the affairs of the Province. The assembly
was to consist, for the first year, of all the freemen of the Province,
and after that of 200 persons to be elected each year.

It soon became evident that changes were necessary. Under the
existing arrangement, the governor was impotent, and therefore the
right of veto was granted him in 1696. Penn also modernized the
method of impeachment, and was the first person to lay down the
principle that any law which violated the constitution should be void.
The final draft was completed April 25, 1682.

When Penn and his contingent of settlers finally arrived, they
found the season well advanced and the problem of shelter for their
first winter in the new land a grave one. Of the situation Pastorius
wrote: "The caves of that time were only holes digged in the ground,
covered with earth, a matter of 5 or 6 feet deep, 10 or 12 feet wide
and about 20 feet long. Whereof neither the sides or the floors have
been planked. Herein we lived more contentedly than many nowa
days in their painted and wainscoted palaces, as I, without the least
hyperbole, may call them in comparison of the aforesaid subter
raneous catacombs or dens."

HISTORY EARLY SETTLEMENT

Building construction was carried on with renewed vigor in the
spring. For himself Penn had ordered a house commanding a view
of the Delaware, but it was not until March 10, 1683, that he took
up residence in Philadelphia. By this time the Province had been
divided into Philadelphia, Chester and Bucks counties, and both the
Great Law and the Frame of Government had been adopted by
the assembly, which had its first session in Chester, December 4, 1682.
During 1683 a number of settlers made their way into the wilder
ness. More than 20 vessels loaded with immigrants arrived in Phila
delphia before the end of the year. Penn s great plan apparently was
moving toward the success for which he had prayed and labored.
His gratification at the progress of his Province found expression in
many letters. "Colonies," he wrote, "are the seeds of the Nation." He
called the Delaware a "glorious river," and declared that the Schuyl-
kill being "boatable 100 miles above the falls and opening the way
to the heart of the Province, is likely to attract settlers in that di
rection."

In sending back to England a copy of the city plan, he wrote:

This I will say for the good Providence of God, that of all the many
places I have seen in the world, I remember not one better seated,
so that it seems to me to have been appointed for a town, whether
we regard the rivers or the conveniency of the coves, docks, springs,
the loftiness and soundness of the land and the air held by the people
of these parts to be very good. It is advanced within less than a year
to about fourscore houses and cottages, such as they are, where mer
chants and handicrafts are following their vocations as fast as they
can, while the countrymen are close at their farms.

Thomas Paschall, a pewterer, may be taken as a typical colonist.
He came from Bristol, and with his family of seven children set
tled on a 500-acre tract between what are now Angora and Mount
Moriah Cemetery. Paschallville was named for him. "Here is a place
called Philadelphia where is a market kept as also at Upland," he
wrote in 1683. Attending a fair at Burlington, N. J., he saw "most
sorts of goods to be sold and a great resort of people. The country
is full of goods." He declared that within a year 24 ships had sailed
up the Delaware, which he termed "a brave, pleasant river as can be
desired." The same year saw the arrival of at least 50 ships, bringing
hundreds of Welsh settlers and the first of the German immigrants.

From the very beginning the Welsh seemed to prefer the Schuyl-
kill. In a short time other Quaker colonists arrived from Wales, pur
chasing 5,000 acres of unsurveyed land, a part of a larger tract set
aside by Penn for the exclusive use of the Welsh. Penn s charter per
mitted him to erect manors, and perhaps the Welsh expected to have
"manorial jurisdiction." However, only for a time did they enjoy
special privileges of local self-government. The tract of 40,000 acres
which they ultimately obtained was often called the Welsh Barony.

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Here were founded the townships of Merion, Radnor, and Haverford,
west of the Schuylkill. Many notable Philadelphians trace their an
cestry to the first settlers of the Welsh tract.

Gwynne Friends canie later than the Quakers who settled on the
Welsh tract. Hugh Roberts, "a man of much enthusiasm," went to
Wales and stirred up the ancient Britons to a realization of the ad
vantages of the new Province. As a result a new group arrived and
purchased from Robert Turner a tract 18 miles from the heart of
Philadelphia.

Not all the Welsh immigrants were Quakers, however. A large num
ber of Welsh churchmen from Radnorshire settled at Radnor, some
times called Welshtown, and built the famous St. David s Protestant
Episcopal Church. Here the old Tory, Judge Moore, of Moore Hall,
and the patriot, Gen. Anthony Wayne, worshiped and were buried,

Pastorius and the Founding of Germantown

ON JUNE 10, 1683, the ship America, with Capt. Joseph Wasey in
command, sailed from Deal, England, with a scholarly gentleman
aboard a man who was to play an important role in the history of
Philadelphia. He was Francis Daniel Pastorius, founder of German-
town and forerunner of a great wave of immigration. Pastorius and
his party of nine arrived in Philadelphia on August 20, six weeks
earlier than the main body of the first Germantown colonists, the so-
called Mennonite weavers. These, coming from Crefeld, arrived on
the Concord, commanded by Capt. William Jefferies, on October 6,
1683. They were not of German origin, as is commonly supposed, but
were Dutch Quaker descendants of Mennonites who had taken up
residence in the Rhine country after being driven from the Nether
lands.

The Krisheimers (or Cresheimers) likewise had their origin in the
Netherlands, afterwards migrating to Switzerland and then to Ger
many before coming to America. Preceding the bulk of German mi
gration to Germantown and its environs, the Krisheimers and Cre-
felders did much to industrialize the Wissahickon region and develop
agriculture along Cresheim Creek before the turn of the eighteenth
century.

Pastorius was born at Sommerhausen on the Main, Franconia, Sept.
26, 1651, three years after the close of the Thirty Years War. His
name in Low German was Scepers, but was Latinized into Pastorius.

He attended four universities and spent years in study, travel, and
association with cultured persons, becoming one of the great scholars
of his time. One of the Frankfort Pietists, he was an important in
fluence in the great religious awakening that took place in the second
half of the seventeenth century.

HISTORY EARLY SETTLEMENT

Pastorius had as a fellow-passenger on the trip from Deal, Thomas
Lloyd, who was accompanied by his wife and nine children. The
weather was foul, whales struck the ship, and sailors went crazy ; hut
Pastorius and Lloyd paced the deck, conversing in Latin and discuss
ing their hopes for the new colony.

The America brought over 80 persons, among them Catholics,
Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists, Episcopalians, and one Quaker.
Pastorius at first lived in a cave dwelling, but soon built a "little house
in Philadelphia 30 feet long and 15 feet wide." Further describing
his home, he wrote : "Because of the scarcity of glass, the windows
were of oiled paper. Over the house door I had written : Parva
domus, sed arnica bonis, procul este prophani (A little house, but a
friend of the good ; remain at a distance, ye profane) ."

Six days after his arrival, Pastorius obtained from Penn a warrant
for approximately 6,000 acres on the east side of the Schuylkill. The
tract was divided between the German Company or Society (the so-
called Frankfurters) and the Cref elders. German Town settlement
was laid out with a main street 60 feet wide, and cross streets 40 feet
wide. For each house a lot of three acres was provided. Pastorius
doubling the acreage for his own dwelling. The little settlement
grew, and in 1685, Pastorius reported that 12 families, numbering 41
persons, were living in the colony.

Germantown was incorporated as a borough in 1689, by a patent
William Penn had issued in England. Pastorius acted as the bor
ough s first bailiff. Two members of the Op de Graeff family, and
Jacob Fellner, were selected to serve as magistrates. These, together
with eight yeomen, formed a general court which sat once a month,
making laws and levying taxes.

In August 1700, Pastorius turned over to the agents of the reorgan
ized German Company all the property in his charge. Then he be
came lawgiver, schoolmaster, burgher, scrivener, and writer of prose
and verse. He served as schoolmaster of the Friends School from
1698 to 1700. He was the prototype of the titular character in Whit-
tier s Pennsylvania Pilgrim.

Perm s Policy of Good Will

TN LONDON on March 4, 1681, Penn had written triumphantly to
- Robert Turner : "This day my country was confirmed to me under
the great seal of England." On April 8 he sent a letter to America,
assuring the Swedes on the Delaware and all other settlers in his
Province that "You shall be governed by laws of your own making,
and live a free, and if you will, a sober and industrious people."

Under the Duke of York, the Swedes had obtained title to large
tracts of fine land. Penn either purchased their properties or gave

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

better lands in exchange for them. One instance of this policy is
furnished in his treatment of the Svenssons or Swansons. These were
Sven, Olave, and Andrew, the sons of Sven Gunnasson, all of whom,
including the father, had settled at Wicaco, in the vicinity of what
is now Front Street and Washington Avenue. Penn gave the Swansons
good land on the Schuylkill, and they surrendered the Wicaco title.

On April 10, 1681, Penn sent his cousin, William Markham, as
deputy governor, to take possession of the Province. Markham was
to read the King s proclamation and the proprietor s letter to the
inhabitants, call a council, settle boundary disputes, erect courts, and
preserve order. Markham was bold, resolute, and devoted to the
proprietor. He is believed to have landed at Boston. By June 26 he
was in New York, where Lieut. Anthony Brockholls, president of
the council, governing in the absence of Sir Edmund Andros, yielded
his authority on the Delaware in the name of the Duke of York

At Upland (or Mecopanoca, as the Indians called it) , nine men,
selected by Markham, met in council on August 3. A court was set
up, and government was established. Thomas Revail was chosen clerk
of the court, and John Test named sheriff. The court took the place
of the Kingsesse or Kingsessing Court on the West Bank of the Schuyl
kill Philadelphia s Blockley Township. There were two Swedes in
Penn s first council : Justice Otto Ernest Cock, an old Tinicum man,
and Capt. Lasse Cock of Passyunk. Among the English members was
Robert Wade, of Upland, first Quaker west of the Delaware. His
place, Essex House, was a popular resort for Friends.

Others in the Council were the Burlington settlers : Morgan
Drewet, of Marcus Hook ; William Warner, William Clayton, William
Woodmanson, Friends of the Upland section ; and Thomas Fairman,
surveyor, who had built a house in the projected town of Shacka-
maxon on a 300-acre tract. Fairman had boats and horses, and was
of great service in the founding of Philadelphia.

Philadelphia is a name taken out of ancient history (from Lydia,

in Asia Minor) and means "brotherly love," a term that expresses

the very essence of Penn s philosophy. Another ancient city also was

said to have been in Penn s mind, not for its name, but for its plan

Babylon, with its miracles in masonry.

At any rate, Penn did astonish the world by the Babylonian big
ness of his plans. He told Markham to allocate 10,000 acres as a site
for the new city. Holme s assistant, Henry Rollings worth, is said to
have left a journal, believed destroyed by the British at Elkton in
1777, in which he declared that notwithstanding the manifest advan
tages of the Philadelphia site, Penn would have located his capital
at Upland if he had not feared that place was too close to the
northern boundary of Lord Baltimore s grant.

According to Watson, Penn said : "Let the rivers and creeks be

HISTORY EARLY SETTLEMENT

sounded on my side of the Delaware River, especially Upland, in
order to settle a great towne." Watson also mentions the once pro
jected site of "Old Philadelphia" near the "Bakehouse," on the south
side of Poquessing Creek in Byberry, which was abandoned, it is
said, because of sunken rocks known as "the hen and chickens."

"Pennsbury (in Bucks County) was rejected after survey," says
Westcott, "probably because the water was insufficient." Other sites
were considered, but all were rejected for Coaquannock, the grove of
tall pines between the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers.

Boundaries and Treaties

A LTHOUGH the infant colony continued to make steady progress,
** Penn soon became troubled by boundary disputes. In June.
1683, the year after his arrival, Maryland commissioners crossed from
Chesapeake Bay to the Delaware on a grand hunt for the fortieth de
gree of latitude, which had been fixed by Charles I as the northern
boundary of the Maryland grant.

At New Castle the Marylanders borrowed a ship sextant. To their
intense joy they found, according to their calculations, that they were
far below the fortieth degree. With Lord Baltimore and 40 armed
men, they proceeded to Upland that autumn, telling Markham that
Upland, and probably Philadelphia itself, was in Maryland territory,
and the Quakers would have to vacate. The Marylanders charged
Perm s London lawyers with trickery in an effort to obtain a water
exit at the mouth of the Susquehanna.

Markham pointed out that Penn had no seacoast, and all he wanted
was an outlet to the Atlantic. Penn, Markham informed them, had
an instrument with which to lay out the bounds, but the instrument
was out of order. The Marylanders laughed at this, and told Markham
they already had determined the latitude at Upland by means of the
borrowed sextant, and that it was 39 47 5".

Markham reminded them that whatever Charles I might have
granted to Cecil Calvert, Charles II had granted to William Penn
the land "from 12 miles distance northward of New Castle Towne."
The Marylanders replied that "His Majesty must have long com
passes." Markham refused permission for the expedition to proceed
farther up the Delaware, and Lord Baltimore demanded and re
ceived the refusal in writing. As the Chesapeake party journeyed
homeward, they stopped at Marcus Hook to warn the residents
against paying quit-rent to Penn.

The dispute in the London courts over Penn s southern boundary
lasted as long as did the proprietorships of the contending families.
A compromise in 1760 fixed the line at 39 43 26.3", and in 1767
Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon ran the line that exists as the
boundary today.

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Concerning this trouble with Lord Baltimore, Penn wrote to Lord
Halifax in England :

The only interruption I meet with is from the unkindness of
my neighbour proprietor, who not only refuseth compliance to the
King s commands, and the grant he and the duke have gratuitously
made me, but as impatient of the decision of our joynt sovereign,
would anticipate that by indirect ways of his own. He taketh himself
to be a prince, that, even to his fellow subject and brother proprietor,
can by right determine difference by force, and we have been
threatened with troops of horse.

Penn s relations with the Indians, however, were always amicable.
Before his arrival in America, he had entrusted to Markham the task
of making several land treaties with the red men, and also had sent
letters addressed to them to be read at treaty conferences, When he
came to Pennsylvania he visited the various tribes, cultivating their
good will and establishing friendships that were to last throughout
his lifetime.

He sat with them at feasts, watched their games, took part in their
sports, and smoked (though he detested smoking) the pipe of peace
with them. To white audiences Penn may often have seemed verbose,
pompous, and somewhat of a bore, but the Indians received him as
a man without guile, a man in whom dwelt a passion for fair play.

Among relics preserved by The Historical Society of Pennsylvania
in Philadelphia is a wampum belt of white and purple shells. This
commemorates the treaty "not sworn to and never broken." The
Indians gave it to Penn in token of their love and friendship, to
last "as long as the sun and moon shall endure." The emblem tradi
tionally has been identified with the celebrated Elm Treaty of
Shackamaxon, which treaty may have been negotiated in the autumn
of 1682 or the summer of 1683, on the site marked by a erigantic elm
until 1810, and now by a marble obelisk. This meeting with the Dela-
wares, Susquehannocks, and possibly the Shawnees has been incor
rectly portrayed on canvas by Benjamin West, and embroidered with
fiction by careless writers. Some of the most dependable historians
are prone to regard the Great Elm Treaty as a beautiful legend rather
than as a historic fact, because the time and place of the meeting
have been a source of so much dispute. No written record was pre
served ; Penn never specifically mentioned it in anv of his numerous
letters ; and repeated searches disclosed no land deeds associating
Shackamaxon with Penn and the Indians.

These arguments, however, do not have sufficient force to dislodge
the monument of marble from the site of Shackamaxon s famous elm.
And this is as it should be. In time s inexorable perspective, Penn
has to some extent lost fame as a colonizer, as an administrator, and
as a true leader in the cause for which, earlier in life, he braved

HISTORY EARLY SETTLEMENT

the wrath of kings and suffered the ignominy of prison. However,
no historian can annul the covenants of amity written by Penn
under countless unmarked trees. Whether or not he held a treaty
conference with the Indians at Shackamaxon is immaterial ; he
treated with them often, and in various places. The monument should
be regarded not as a memorial to a single historic episode, but as a
symbol of that quality in Penn which alone would give him im
mortality the quality that made him the beloved Miquon of Indian
council fires long after land-hungry heirs had succeeded him.

Later Years of Proprietorship

IN 1684, Penn sailed for Europe, to remain there 15 years. During
this protracted sojourn in England and on the Continent, he ex
perienced many important changes in his private and public life.
Becoming involved in royal intrigue, he was arrested on several oc
casions and had to submit to humiliating investigations. He was
ousted from the proprietorship of Pennsylvania on March 10, 1692 ;
not until August 9, 1694, was the Province restored to him.

On February 23 of the latter year his wife died, and was buried
beside four of their children. A fifth child died in 1696. In February,
1696, Penn married Hannah Callowhill, daughter of a Bristol linen
dealer, a woman of character and determination. Of his second union
there were six children : John, born in the slate-roofed house in
Philadelphia ; Thomas, Hannah, Margaret, Richard, and Dennis. He
was 64 when his youngest child was born.

Eager now to return to Pennsylvania, the Founder set about
winding up his affairs in England. He made a preaching tour through
Ireland, stayed for a while at the Shannigarry estate, and then sailed
for America with his wife and daughter, Letitia. They took passage
on the Canterbury, which left Cowes Road, Isle of Wight, on Sep
tember 9, 1699. The passage was long and tedious, and by the time
they arrived in Philadelphia winter had set in. It was not a pleasant
home-coming, though Penn s heart must have thrilled at sight of the
busy water front, the long rows of red-brick houses, and the tidy
little farms girdling his compact town.

At Chester he had found yellow fever epidemic, and in Phila
delphia he was to find the assembly a difficult body of men with
which to deal. This latter fact was not long in making itself ap
parent. Two bills presented by Penn one to prohibit the sale of
rum to Indians, the other to provide for the decent marriage of
Negroes were rejected with humiliating blimtness, The council
was even more hostile. Penn soon realized he was proprietor in
name only. To the Indians he was still the great sachem, the King
of Men, but to the settlers in Philadelphia and the growing Province
he was an over-scrupulous old man obstructing progress.

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

For a while the Founder lived in the slate-roofed house at Second
Street and Norris Alley (now Sansom Street) , afterward moving to his
Pennsbury estate along the Delaware River in Bucks County. Here he
lived in more or less political seclusion, though his restless nature
took him abroad throughout the Province on visits to Indian villages
and to outlying settlements. He maintained a six-oared barge on the
river ; he kept blooded horses, a well-stocked pantry and cellar.
Always a lover of good victuals, he now began to take on consider
able weight.

This bucolic existence was rudely interrupted in 1701 by news
that the English Parliament was attempting to bring Pennsylvania
under direct royal control. Though keenly desirous that Penn should
hurry to England and thwart the bill, the assembly appropriated
money for the purpose only after repeated and maddening delays.
By that time Penn s finances were in a deplorable condition, and even
the large acreage of his Pennsbury estate had dwindled.

Word of the Founder s imminent departure was treated with in
difference by Philadelphians, but Indians by the score came into
the little city to say farewell to their On as. Penn appointed Col.
Andrew Hamilton, the former Governor of East and West Jersey,
as deputy governor of Pennsylvania, and James Logan as Colonial
secretary. Then, in October, 1701, he set sail for Portsmouth, England,
with his wife and family.

Penn intended to remain abroad only long enough to straighten
out the affairs of the Province. However, forces which had no con
nection with problems of state kept him from ever returning to
America. By 1705 he had obtained unquestioned autonomy for Penn
sylvania, through a grant obtained from Queen Anne, despite the
Crown s growing tendency to check proprietary power in the New
World. His private affairs, however, became so involved in claims
and counter-claims that eventually he became a voluntary inmate
of a debtor s prison.

The autumn of 1708 found him living quietly with his wife and
some of their children at Brentford, England. Penn was now in his
middle sixties, extremely corpulent, and constantly ailing. His health
declined rapidly and his mind became affected. In spite of this mental
and physical decay, there persisted a stubborn spark of that energy
which in middle age had driven him to wild frontiers, and now in
the twilight of life guided his tottering footsteps in restless walks
through the garden.

In the spring of 1712 he suffered a paralytic stroke while on a
visit in London. He had a second stroke in Bristol that autumn, and
a third at Ruscombe in January 1713. During 1715 he suffered several
minor strokes ; his memory for long periods at a time thereafter
was a complete blank. He died July 30, 1718, at the age of 74, and

HISTORY EARLY SETTLEMENT

was buried August 5 at Jordan s Cemetery near Chalfont St. Giles,
Buckinghamshire.

Ben Franklin Appears

THE next score of years saw the waning of Penn s empire in Penn
sylvania, and the gradual decline of Quaker dominance in the
political affairs of Philadelphia. These years also witnessed civic im
provement, expansion of foreign industry, and periodic epidemics
of malignant diseases. While Philadelphia itself was engaged in pav
ing streets, organizing fire companies, and developing industries,
pioneers on the remote frontiers were struggling with a stubborn
wilderness.

Probably the greatest public figure to make an impression upon
Philadelphia s consciousness during this era was Benjamin Franklin.
His influence began to be felt shortly after his arrival from Boston
in the summer of 1723, but it was not until after his two-year so
journ in England that he became a really important factor in Phila
delphia affairs.

Franklin had little sympathy with the pacific leanings of the
Quakers, and less with their stern sectarian morality. He badgered
them and ridiculed them. Though he earned the lifelong enmity of
many, he managed to win over others, together with the Germans
and the Irish, in his relentless campaign against British pretensions.

He entertained a lasting dislike for Thomas Penn, who took over
the proprietorship of Pennsylvania after the death of his mother,
Hannah. Of the Founder s son, Franklin in 1758 wrote : "I conceive
a more cordial and thorough contempt for him than I ever felt for
any man living, a contempt that I cannot express in words." Ten
years before, Thomas Penn had written of Franklin : "Mr. Franklin s
doctrine that obedience to governors is no more due them than pro
tection to the people is not fit to be in the heads of the unthinking
multitude. He is a dangerous man and I should be glad if he in
habited any other country. However, as he is a sort of tribune of the
people, he must be treated with regard."

Printer, scientist, journalist, lawmaker, business man, and philoso
pher, Franklin was concerned with every trend and every movement
affecting Philadelphia from long before the Revolutionary War until
his death in 1790. At the outbreak of the French and Indian War,
he went to the frontiers to superintend personally the building of
forts, and through his untiring efforts among Pennsylvania farmers
General Braddock was supplied with wagons for the march upon
Fort Duquesne.

After the French and Indian War he was conspicuous in the con
troversy with the proprietary government, meanwhile receiving a
membership in the Royal Society for his contributions to science.

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

For some years he represented the Colony in England, and upon
his return in 1762 was considered the foremost personage in America.

Franklin hardly had become settled at home when the Paxton
Massacre occurred at Lancaster. A band of enraged Scotch-Irish set
tlers in Lancaster County, aroused by an Indian uprising on the
frontier, had slaughtered an unresisting group of Conestoga (Susque-
hannock) Indians who had sought refuge in the Lancaster jail. As a
result of this atrocity, about 150 peaceful Indians from nearby regions
fled in terror to Philadelphia. The Lancaster men, known as the
Paxton Boys, from the township of that name, recruited a large force
and began to march on Philadelphia, determined to slay these ref
ugees.

Franklin quickly organized a force of 1,000 armed citizens to pro
tect the Indians. Even the peace-loving Quakers declared their will
ingness to aid in the defense. There was no bloodshed, however. The
Paxton Boys reached Germantown, and there Franklin and three
others conferred with their leaders and persuaded them to return
home.

In the autumn of 1763, John Penn, last of the proprietaries, arrived
in Philadelphia to assume his duties as governor. He was followed in
a few days by Mason and Dixon, who immediately undertook their
boundary line survey.

Meanwhile, most Philadelphia merchants, like those of other lead
ing ports, were engaged in a brisk smuggling business. England had
attempted to obtain a monopoly of Colonial trade by means of the
Navigation Act, but this measure was flagrantly evaded. Shipping
men in Philadelphia we^e building up fortunes by trading with
countries other than Britain, in violation of the law. As long as King
and Parliament were occupied in warfare, no serious attempt was
made to enforce the act.

Not long after the French and Indian War, however, Great Britain
began to tighten her reins of government in the Colonies in order to
bring them under direct control, and at the same time enjoy increased
revenue by taxation. Although some members of parliament saw
danger in this step, the King and landed interests did not. On this
side of the Atlantic, men of vision read clearly the handwriting upon
the wall, and prepared to resist usurpation.

In 1765 the Stamp Act was passed by Parliament. This measure
stipulated that certain types of legal, commercial, religious, and
academic papers could not be used in the Colonies unless stamped
bv the British Government. As soon as word reached Philadelphia
that the bill had become law, a wave of indignation spread through
out the city. Merchants assembled at the courthouse to adopt non
importation resolutions; and on the day the law went into effect,
law offices, newspapers, and other publishing houses closed their

HISTORY EARLY SETTLEMENT

doors, while the populace refrained from eating imported foods or
wearing imported clothes. Stamps were destroyed whenever they were
found, and ship captains carrying them were burned in effigy and at
times threatened with bodily harm.

King and Parliament soon came to realize they had stirred up a
gigantic hornet s nest. To pass a law was one thing ; to enforce it was
another. Strong opposition to the Stamp Act rose belatedly among
several of the ministry, and its days thereafter were numbered.

Friends Meeting House
"Gray-clad they came to worship

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Portrait of Benjamin Franklin (by Joseph Wright)
"Statesman, Scientist and Philosopher"

THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD

ON March 18, 1766, the hated Stamp Act was repealed hy Parlia
ment. The joyous tidings were brought to Philadelphia on May
20 hy the hrig Minerva, commanded hy Captain Wise. Im
mediately there was public rejoicing. The people gave Wise an ef
fusive reception, and huge bonfires blazed throughout the night as
the town celebrated the great event. The following day toasts of al
legiance were drunk to the King at a public dinner held in the
State House, and on June 4 the King s birthday was loyally com
memorated with a great open-air feast on the banks of the Schuylkill.

The general feeling of amity toward the mother country turned
to indignation, however, when it became apparent that the Crown
had no intention of abandoning the rich revenues to be derived from
the Colonies. The repeal of the Stamp Act had a string attached to
it in the way of an accompanying Declaratory Act, which reiterated
the right of Parliament to tax the Colonies in any way it deemed
fit. Those colonists who were disposed to minimize the significance of
this proviso were disillusioned when the Townshend Acts, levying
heavy duties on paper, glass, tea and lead, were passed by Parliament,
June 29, 1767.

The reaction of the colonists to this new imposition manifested it
self in a boycott of all British goods. The trenchant arguments of
John Dickinson s famous Farmer s Letters, a series of articles, of
which the first appeared on December 2, 1767, and the last on Febru
ary 15, 1768, in William Goddard s Pennsylvania Chronicle, helped
to stiffen the determination of the colonists to resist taxation
without representation. Philadelphia, as the metropolis of the Colo
nies, fittingly assumed the lead in the movement of resistance, which
grew in intensity during the following six years.

The situation became increasingly ominous when Goddard s
Chronicle on September 27, 1773, reported that a shipload of British
tea was on the way to Philadelphia. Successive amendments had
modified the acts of 1767 to a tax on tea only, importation of which
now had become the main issue. By permitting the financially em
barrassed East India Company to ship untaxed tea to American con
signees, the British government was forcing the issue, in that a three
penny Colonial tax was to be imposed upon the commodity. The
Colonies retaliated by refusing to permit the landing of the tea. In

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Boston citizens disguised as Indians boarded a newly arrived tea ship
one night and dumped the cargo into the harbor. In Philadelphia
the resistance, though less destructive, was no less determined.

News of the Boston Tea Party reached Philadelphia on December
24. On the following day word was received that the Polly, a ship
from London, commanded by Captain Ayres and carrying a consign
ment of tea to Philadelphia from the East India Company, was ly
ing off Chester. This fanned the flames of resentment into brighter
glow. A committee of action was organized, and threats were openly
made that any pilot who dared to bring a British tea ship to Phila
delphia would be hanged. Promises to reject the consignment were
obtained from the two Philadelphia tea firms involved.

Meanwhile the Polly continued her course up the Delaware to
Gloucester, N. J., where Captain Ayres was told politely but firmly
that he would not be permitted to land his cargo. After conferring
with the committee, he agreed to leave the ship and go over to Phila
delphia to determine more fully the popular feeling. On the next
day, December 27, a large public meeting was held in the State House,
and it was unanimously resolved that the tea should be rejected and
returned at once to England, and that Ayres should be allowed one
day in which to provision his ship for the return voyage. After mak
ing a formal protest, Ayres agreed to comply with the demands of
the committee, and on December 28 boarded the Polly at Reedy
Island, whence he set sail for London with the cargo of rejected tea.

This incident, together with the Tea Party at Boston, constituted
acts of defiance which the London government could no longer afford
to ignore. As a consequence, Parliament enacted a bill to close the
port of Boston to all shipping. This act was put into effect in June
1774, by the arrival of royal troops under General Gage and the com
ing of British men-of-war to the New England port. Paul Revere had
reached Philadelphia in May, bringing a letter concerning the King s
threat to close the Port of Boston, and earnest requests from the
Boston leaders for support.

In Philadelphia public excitement increased daily. At a meeting
of leading citizens held in the City Tavern, a resolution favoring
support of Boston was adopted. Letters were dispatched to the
Southern Colonies to enlist their support, and the Governor was asked
to convoke the assembly. On June 1 a popular demonstration against
the Boston Port Bill was staged. Stores were closed, the chimes in
Christ Church were muffled, and flags were hung at half-staff. Neces
sity for drastic action was fast becoming acute.

House. in 1776
Where freedom was fledged"

State House in 1876

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE
The First Continental Congress

T A MEETING held June 18, 1774, at the State House, the calling
of a general congress for all the Colonies was decided upon. A
committee of correspondence for the city and county was formed,
with John Dickinson as chairman. The counties were urged to send
delegates to a preliminary state conference to be held at Carpenters
Hall on July 15.

This conference, attended by 77 delegates from 11 counties, was
presided over by Thomas Willing, as chairman ; Charles Thomson
served as secretary. The meeting asserted the right of the Colonies
to resist the unjust measures of Parliament and requested the Provin
cial Assembly to appoint delegates to the forthcoming Continental
Congress. Meeting July 21, the Provincial Assembly named the fol
lowing as delegates to the Continental Congress : Joseph Galloway,
Samuel Rhoades, Charles Humphreys, Edward Biddle, George Ross,
and Thomas Mifflin.

Since the Provincial Assembly was holding sessions in the State
House, the First Continental Congress was perforce obliged to con
vene in Carpenters Hall. The opening session was held on Septem
ber 4, 1774, with 44 delegates first assembled and within a few weeks
the number increased to 52, who represented eleven of the Thirteen
Colonies. Peyton Randolph of Virginia was chosen president, and
Charles Thomson secretary. Other prominent delegates were John
Adams, Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, John Jay, Patrick
Henry, and Samuel Adams.

In keeping with the gravity of the situation, deliberations of the
Congress were held behind closed doors, and continued through a
period of six weeks. When the body finally adjourned on October
26, resolutions foreshadowing the movement for independence had
been adopted. The most important of these were the Declaration of
Rights and the Articles of Association. The latter may be regarded
as the forerunner of the Articles of Confederation.

At the close of the Congress, the Provincial Assembly entertained
the delegates at a banquet in the City Tavern, at which time hopes
of reconciliation with the Crown were still expressed. The proceed
ings of the Congress, which had been submitted to the assembly for
approval, were unanimously ratified December 10, 1774.

By the opening months of 1775, tension between the mother
country and the Colonies had increased. The Articles of Association
adopted by the Continental Congress especially aroused the ire of
King George, who saw in this covenant an overt act of treason against
the Crown. On April 19 the long-brewing storm broke at last when
the King s troops clashed with the Minute Men at Lexington and
Concord. The War for Independence had begun !

HISTORY REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD

News of the hostilities in Massachusetts reached Philadelphia 011
April 24, and the machinery of war was immediately set in motion.
Military committees were organized for the enlisting and drilling
of soldiers. The Second Continental Congress convened May 10 in the
State House, in a session which lasted until December 30. As the
delegates arrived in town they were greeted by officers of the mili
tary companies with their bands. In addition to the delegates who
had figured prominently in the first Congress, there were present
John Hancock, who subsequently replaced Peyton Randolph as presi
dent of the body, and Benjamin Franklin, who had lately returned
from London. Seventy-eight delegates representing the Thirteen
Colonies attended the Congress, which adjourned August 1, reas
sembled September 5, and finally adjourned December 30. Through
out its sessions in 1775, the Congress assumed to a great extent the
responsibility of government, and appointed George Washington
commander-in-chief of the army of the United Colonies.

Receiving his commission on June 17, Washington left for Cam
bridge, Mass., to take command of the Continental Army. He was ac
companied by Thomas Mifflin, Joseph Reed, and Philip John Schuy-
ler. The light-horse troop, since known as the First City Troop, and
all the officers of the city militia served as Washington s escort as far
as Kingsbridge, N. Y.

Beginning with the Second Continental Congress, Philadelphia be
came the center of the movement for independence. There was no
longer any hesitation among local patriots in regard to the course
to be taken. Young and old alike were eager to offer their services to
the cause of freedom. A Committee of Safety was formed, consist
ing of 25 members, with Franklin at its head. The committee was
organized May 11, 1775, and was empowered to call out troops and
provide for the defense of the Province.

Except for brief intervals of disturbance occasioned by the prog
ress of the war, the Congress sat in Philadelphia from 1774 to 1783.
Military, financial, and legislative affairs of the Colonies were ad
ministered here; Philadelphia s geographical position, midway be
tween the North and the South, made it the logical choice as the war
time capital.

The Declaration of Independence

Vj^THILE the Congress was in session, the question of independence
** assumed greater importance in public debates. Although
many of the more conservative leaders held that the time was not
yet ripe for so drastic a step, public opinion was veering steadily to
ward action. Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson,
and others succeeded in convincing the majority of the people that

Declaration Table iri Independence Hall
. . . tve mutually pledge to each other our Lives . . .

HISTORY REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD

the time was past for any conciliation with Britain and that complete
independence was the only worthwhile goal. It was this growing con
viction which led delegates in the Second Continental Congress to
sign the death warrant of British authority in the Thirteen Colonies.

On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee, acting on instructions from
the Virginia Convention, offered to Congress the resolution that
"these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and in
dependent States, and that they are absolved from all allegiance
to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them
and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."
The resolution was debated in the Congress for three days, and then
held over until July 1 in order to allow the Colonies sufficient time
in which to instruct their delegates. Meanwhile two committees
were appointed by the Congress : one to prepare a declaration of
independence, the other to draw up a plan of confederation for the
Colonies.

The committee appointed to draw up a declaration consisted of
Thomas Jefferson (who had replaced Richard Henry Lee of Vir
ginia), John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston, and
Roger Sherman. As head of the committee, Jefferson prepared the
draft at his lodgings in a house which stood on the southwest corner
of Seventh and High (now Market) Streets.

The draft of the Declaration had been reported to the Congress by
the committee, but was held over pending the vote on Lee s resolu
tion. After nine hours of debate on July 1, there were still four
Colonies not in favor of the resolution. Pennsylvania and South Caro
lina voted against it, Delaware was divided, and the New York dele
gates were unable to vote pending instructions from home. It was
decided to postpone the final vote until the next day.

By the evening of July 2, however, Delaware and South Carolina
had voted in the affirmative. Pennsylvania had reconsidered its ac
tion and had voted in favor of the motion by a slim margin. New
York alone of all the Colonies failed to participate in the voting.
Two days later, on July 4, the Declaration of Independence was for
mally adopted, after some alterations had been made in Jefferson s
original draft. John Hancock, as presiding officer, and Charles Thom
son, as secretary, signed the document. On the morning of July 8,
John Nixon read it in public in the State House yard. The crowd
responded with enthusiastic cheers, the militia fired their guns in
salute, and the Liberty Bell in the State House clanged lustily. Bells
were rung all that day and night as the city gave itself up to celebrat
ing the birth of the Nation. The royal coat-of-arms, which had hung
on the wall of the State House, was torn down and burned in a great
bonfire in the State House yard. Thus ended, in an uproar of rebel
lious jubilation, British rule in the Colonies.

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE
The Wartime City

"TkESPITE Philadelphia s preoccupation with political matters, the
*-^ social and economic growth of the city had steadily increased in
the decade since 1768. Civic improvements in the way of additional
fire companies, newspapers, shops, and theatres continued to be made.
Ships loaded with immigrants from the British Isles sailed up the
Delaware. In the years just prior to the Revolution, several thousand
Irish immigrants arrived in the city. Several enterprising merchants
were making Philadelphia an ever more important center of com
merce and finance. Improvements had been made along the Delaware
for the protection of shipping.

With the war under way, civic activities moved into the back
ground. Every effort was made to strengthen the city s defenses and to
speed the enlistment of troops. The old British barracks in the
vicinity of what is today Third and Green Streets had been evacuated
by the royal troops in 1775, and were now used as a training camp
for local recruits of the Continental Army. In July 1776, five Phila
delphia battalions were sent to support Washington s forces around
New York, and saw service there for several weeks. River defenses
below the city were constructed, and a fleet of boats was armed to
patrol the Delaware.

The general optimism that had prevailed in Philadelphia during
the early months of the war began to fade as succeeding weeks
brought news of defeat in the north. The theatre of war was moving
nearer. Sick and wounded troops were being brought in greater
numbers to the city. Smallpox and camp fever broke out among the
soldiers and the civilian populace, causing many deaths. Trenches
were hastily dug in Washington Square to bury the bodies.

On November 19, 1776, the city was thrown into a state of alarm
by news that General Howe had driven back the Continentals in New
York and had captured Fort Washington on the Hudson. A month
later the British were at New Brunswick in New Jersey, and this
news caused a veritable panic in Philadelphia. Fear that the city
would be captured led many families to load their belongings on
wagons and leave for safer places. The Congress hastily departed for
Baltimore, leaving a committee in charge. All able-bodied men were
ordered to muster for the militia, as martial law was declared.

Fortunately, Washington s bold tactics at Trenton and Princeton
in the last weeks of 1776 relieved the situation, and for a time the
city was safe from capture. During the middle months of 1777, ani
mosity against the activities of local Tories was manifested by the
arrest of about 40 pro-British citizens, many of whom, such as
John Penn, Jared Ingersoll, and Benjamin Chew, were men of promi
nence in the city. Some Tories were jailed, others were banished.

(Above) Betsy Ross House Today

(Left) Before Its Restoration
Here linger rich traditions of the nation s early days.

On June 14, 1777, the Congress decreed that the first American
flag should have 13 stripes, alternately red and white, with a circle
of 13 white stars on a field of blue. The first Fourth of July anniver
sary was celebrated with enthusiasm. A salute of 13 guns was fired in
the afternoon, and a great dinner was given for the Congress and
the leading military and civil leaders. Music was furnished by a band
of captured Hessians. In the evening the Congress reviewed a parade
of troops and observed a display of fireworks.

Meanwhile, Howe s army, which had been moved south to Chesa
peake Bay, had landed near the head of the Elk River in Maryland
and was advancing northward. The city was again in danger.

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE
The Philadelphia Campaign

T EARNING on August 22 of Howe s advance, Washington prepared
"to meet the British. His troops, concentrated north of Phila
delphia, were marched into the town on August 24, prior to meeting
the enemy at the Brandywine Creek. The army made an imposing
sight as it marched through the city, with Washington riding at the
head and Lafayette at his side. The troops crossed the Schuylkill
and moved south toward Wilmington.

By constant pressure against Washington s right flank, Howe forced
the Americans to fall back. On September 11 the artillery duel across
the Brandywine at Chadd s Ford could be heard in Philadelphia.
By more skillful maneuvering, Howe had succeeded in placing his
forces between Washington s positions and Philadelphia. As the battle
progressed, fears increased in the city. After the fierce night attack
of the British at Paoli on September 20, little hope was held for
success. The Congress had fled to Lancaster on September 27, 1777,
and to York on September 30. The battle of the Brandywine was a
distinct defeat for the Americans, and enabled the British to occupy
Philadelphia.

By September 25 Howe s army had reached Germantown, and the
next day Cornwallis s division marched into Philadelphia. Local
Tories emerged from hiding to welcome the British. On October 4,
eight days after Howe s occupation of Philadelphia, Washington
launched a surprise attack on British positions around Germantown
and Mount Airy. After three hours of fierce combat, the American
attack was repulsed. Washington withdrew his men to the upper
Perkiomen, while Howe strengthened his position north of Phila
delphia.

Towards the end of October 1777, Washington again advanced
nearer to the city, concentrating his troops around Whitemarsh. On
December 3 Howe moved a large body of troops out of Philadelphia,
intending to take the Americans by surprise at Whitemarsh. Warned
beforehand, Washington was prepared for the attack. After several
sharp skirmishes, Howe abandoned his offensive and marched his
men back to Philadelphia on December 8, while Washington moved
his troops across the Schuylkill and lay at Gulph Mills until Decem
ber 19, when he marched to Valley Forge.

The hills at Valley Forge, overlooking all the approaches from
Philadelphia, constituted a vantage point that precluded any success
ful surprise attack by the British, and there Washington established
his winter quarters, remaining until evacuation of Philadelphia by
the enemy the following summer.

A tragicomic incident occurring on the Delaware River off Phila
delphia during this period has gained immortality by reason of

HISTORY REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD

Yankee cunning and Colonial wit. The affair took place while Wash
ington was bivouacked at Valley Forge and the British were billeted
in Philadelphia.

Some "rebels" on the Delaware north of the city conceived the
idea of sending down on the ebb tide a number of kegs loaded with
gunpowder and so arranged that any impact would cause them to
explode. The purpose was to sink or damage British ships then lying
at anchor in the river off Philadelphia.

A heavy frost came the night the kegs were put into the water
upstream, and the ships in the meantime were hauled into the docks
unwittingly removed out of harm s way. One of the first kegs to
come down the river, however, was observed by an inquisitive barge
man, who attempted to lift it aboard. The innocent-appearing object
exploded, killing the man and several of his companions. The noise
and confusion caused considerable alarm throughout the city ; British
troops massed at the water front, firing at every obstacle they saw
floating by.

Rumors flew thick and fast. It was asserted that the wily Conti
nentals were drifting down the river doubled up in kegs, determined
to retake Philadelphia somewhat as the ancient Greeks in the
wooden horse took Troy. While squads of British soldiers on the
bank were keeping up an incessant fire at the kegs, others went out
on the river in vessels, bent upon checking the "invasion" at close
quarters. It is related that just about the time the furor began to die
down, an old marketwoman dropped a keg of cheese into the water ;
and the strange "battle" was renewed with vigor.

The incident is commonly referred to as the "Battle of the Kegs,"
after Francis Hopkinson s doggerel of that title. The Philadelphia
poet s version puts these words in the mouth of a terrified redcoat :

"These kegs I m told, the rebels hold,
Packed up like pickled herring ;
And they ve come down to attack the town,
In this new way of ferrying."

Of General Howe, Hopkinson gleefully relates :

Now in a fright he starts upright,
Awak ed by such a clatter ;
He rubbed both eyes and boldly cries ;
"For God s sake, what s the matter?"

At his bedside he espied
Sir Erskine, at command, sir ;
Upon one foot he had one boot,
The other in his hand, sir.

"Arise, arise!" Sir Erskine cries,
"The rebels more s the pity
Without a boat are all afloat
And ranged before the city. ..."

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Save for minor skirmishes and forays, military operations around
Philadelphia were suspended during the winter and spring of 1778.
While the American troops were enduring cold and hunger in the
snow at Valley Forge, the British were snugly billeted in Philadelphia
during the long winter months. Howe s officers whiled away the time
pleasantly. Balls, theatre-going, and gambling were the chief diver
sions. The troops were quartered in the old British barracks, in pub
lic buildings, and in private homes. The artillery was parked on
Chestnut Street from Third to Sixth Streets, and in the yard of the
State House. Until British transports arrived in the Delaware with
provisions, conditions in the city were straitened. Food and other
commodities were scarce, and there was much privation among the
poor. Pillaging of private homes was a common occurrence.

The crowning social event of the British occupation was the Mis-
chianza pageant, held May 18, 1778, as a farewell to General Howe,
who was returning to England after relinquishing his command to
Sir Henry Clinton. Lasting throughout the day and evening, the Mis-
chianza was a combination of regatta, military parade and tourna
ment, ball and banquet, attended by Tory belles and British officers.

When Howe departed for England on May 24, preparations had
already been made to abandon the city. Clinton called a council of
war, and by June 18 had moved his army across the Delaware to
New Jersey and was marching to New York. News of the British
evacuation reached Washington at Valley Forge within a few hours ;
and before the last of the enemy had left, the American advance
guard had entered the city and was picking up British stragglers in
the streets. The general aspect of the town was one of disorder,
squalor, and desolation after the nine months of British occupation.
Many houses had been plundered and burned.

The Congress returned to the city on June 25 and convened in In
dependence Hall. Benedict Arnold, who later was to become in
famous for his treacherous conduct at West Point, was appointed
military commander of the city by General Washington. The follow
ing months were marked by extreme bitterness against the Tories, by
treason trials, law suits, and heated controversies.

French support of the American cause changed the tide of war and
led to the final capitulation of the British at Yorktown. On April 16,
1783, the conclusion of peace and Britain s acknowledgment of Ameri
can independence were officially proclaimed in Philadelphia amid
great public rejoicing.

With the return of peace, industry and commerce soon revived.
Despite high prices, money became more abundant, and the general
prosperity of the city increased. By the middle of June, 1783, 200
vessels had sailed up the Delaware River. While many fortunes had
been lost by the Revolution, many others had been acquired. The

Shippen-Wistar House
they spoke of ships and sealing wax and cabbages an d kings

old Tory families for the most part had lost their affluence and social
standing, and were now supplanted by a new aristocracy composed
mainly of Whigs.

The Bank of North America, first to be chartered by the Congress,
was opened on January 17, 1782, on Chestnut Street near Third. Two
years earlier, Robert Morris and others had founded the Bank of
Pennsylvania. In 1786 the first medical dispensary in America was
opened in the city by Dr. Benjamin Rush. In the following year, the
archetype of present-day chambers of commerce was established as
the Pennsylvania Society for the Encouragement of Manufactures
and Useful Arts. Mail and stagecoach service to Reading and Pitts
burgh was inaugurated.

During this period, the population of the city had grown from
about 30,000 in 1778, during the British occupation, to about 42,000.
New houses and shops were built to replace those destroyed during
the war, and it was not long before the city had all the aspects of a
thriving center of trade, with clean and neatly ordered streets and
substantial homes.

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE
The Constitutional Convention

WWTITH political activity centering on problems of internal organi-
zation, a growing need for a framework of stable government
began to be felt. The earlier Articles of Confederation had proved
inadequate for an integrated national government. Men of promi
nence were urging that a convention be called to consider a new sys
tem of unification. Finally, by a resolution of the Congress, the Con
stitutional Convention was called to meet on May 14, 1787, for the
ostensible purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation.

Presided over by Washington, the Convention met (behind closed
doors) in Independence Hall. Delegates from half of the States
did not arrive in the city until ten days after the opening. Soon after
the proceedings began, the sentiment increased for discarding alto
gether the obsolescent Articles of Confederation, and the drafting of
a new constitution was urged.

This new measure engendered considerable excitement among the
delegates. Heated debates continued for many weeks, feeling ran high.
Franklin, now grown old and garrulous, had to be accompanied con
stantly by a delegate, whose duty it was to keep him from talking too
freely about the secret sessions.

Supporters of the doctrine of State sovereignty violently assailed
the new Constitution, the provisions and amendments of which finally
were adopted by the Convention. A committee, consisting of James
Madison, Alexander Hamil+on, William Samuel Johnson, Rufus King,
and Gouverneur Morris, was appointed to arrange and draft the docu
ment, which was ready for signing on September 17. The Convention
recommended to the Congress that the new instrument be submitted
to the sovereign people for ratification. This was accordingly done
and the Constitution became the basic law of the United States when
it was ratified by the ninth State on June 21, 1788.

In connection with the Pennsylvania State convention, called
on November 21 to ratify the Constitution, considerable disorder
occurred. Two of the State delegates, Jacob Miley of Dauphin County
and James McCalmont of Franklin County, incurred the displeasure
of the people by deliberately absenting themselves from the conven
tion hall in order to prevent a quorum. Rioters did considerable
damage to their property, and the authorities, including Benjamin
Franklin, made no real effort to find and punish the guilty parties.

The following Fourth of July, ratification of the new Constitution
was celebrated with fitting enthusiasm. Ships decorated to represent
the ratifying States were anchored in the Delaware River from Cal-
lowhill to South Streets. General Mifflin led 5,000 soldiers and civilians
in a parade through the streets. One of the features of the parade was
a float with a great dome supported by 13 columns.

HISTORY REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD

The new city charter, superseding the old charter of 1701, became
operative in March, 1789. It inaugurated a system of popular self-
government, establishing the electoral offices of mayor, aldermen,
and members of a common council.

During the last decade of the century, Philadelphia was the seat
of National Government. However, with the removal of the Federal
Capital to Washington in 1800, and the State Capital to Lancaster
in 1799, Philadelphia ceased to be the center of National and State
politics.

James Wilson s Grave at Christ Church
"they sleep among the immortals"

Friend

Vpril HI I ; -;

p%^t ; - ^f I
tHi rl^f^ ^UlP

s-"

A CENTURY OF GROWTH

THE first decade of the nineteenth century was marked by grad
ual expansion of the city, with emphasis upon municipal affairs,
industry, and commerce. Hunting Park was laid out, and what is
now Nicetown became a pleasure resort known as Bellevue, where
sports events and picnics were held. The tongue of land between the
rivers was now fairly well developed, and much of the city s activity
was spreading westward beyond the Schuylkill. Traffic across the
stream had been handled adequately by ferries until the Revolution
ary War, when a temporary bridge on floating barges was constructed
at Market Street late in August 1776. It was used by the Continental
Army when enroute to the Brandywine in 1777.

This bridge was removed at the approach of the British ; replaced
when the enemy evacuated the city ; and then washed away by a
freshet in 1780. It was replaced by a wooden bridge completed in
1805 and covered the year following. This served for a half century,
when it was reconstructed to bear the increased weight of railroad
traffic. Fire destroyed it in 1875, and for several years traffic was
served by a temporary bridge. Then, in 1881 the City Council passed
an ordinance for the construction of a wrought-iron cantilever span.
In the meantime bridges had been built at Gray s Ferry, at Callowhill
Street and at Chestnut Street.

Impetus was given civic improvements as early as 1800 by the in
stallation of water mains under the city s streets. During that year
the Schuylkill Arsenal was built, and in 1809 the South Street ferry
across the Delaware to connect Philadelphia with Kaighn s Point,
Camden, was opened. Within the decade came the Navy Yard, the
Chamber of Commerce, and the Pennsylvania Company for Insur
ances on Lives and Granting Annuities. Meanwhile, Stephen Girard
was making his influence felt in banking circles. He purchased the
building of the United States Bank, Third Street below Chestnut, and
converted it into the Girard Bank, with a capital of $1,200,000.

In cultural activities the city made headway. Literary clubs,
theatres, and dancing schools, flourished. The Pennsylvania Academy
of Fine Arts was founded, together with the Wistar Museum and the
Academy of Natural Sciences.

The War of 1812, between Great Britain and the United States, was
supported enthusiastically in Philadelphia, where volunteers were

HISTORY CENTURY OF GROWTH

recruited without difficulty. Among the Philadelphians to distin
guish themselves in the war were Maj. Gen. Jacob Brown, who cap
tured Fort Erie, and Capt. Thomas Biddle, commander of artillery at
Lundy s Lane. While some of the Philadelphia troops were serving
on the Canadian border, others under Col. Lewis Rush served on the
Delaware peninsula. In 1815, there were 21 companies on duty there
under Gen. Thomas Cadwalader. When news was received of the
capture of Bladensburg by the British in 1814, entrenchments were
thrown up by civilian volunteers on the outskirts of the city. Militia
was held in readiness at Kennett Square and at Gray s Ferry. Numer
ous engagements with British men-of-war were fought in Delaware
Bay by Philadelphia naval officers commanding Philadelphia ships.
These were the days when Decatur, Bainbridge, Stewart, Porter,
James Biddle, and others won renown for themselves and the Navy.

When news of the Treaty of Ghent reached Philadelphia in 1815,
the city returned to peacetime pursuits. During the next 20 years
roads, canals, and railroads opened new avenues of trade with the
West. The first railroad in Philadelphia was constructed in 1832
connecting the city with Germantown, six miles away. A few years
later the Camden and Amboy Railroad to New York was completed,
as w T as the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore line. The Schuyl-
kill Canal was opened to traffic in 1825.

New banks were organized, among them the Philadelphia Savings
Fund Society. Jefferson Medical College, the Philadelphia College of
Pharmacy and Science, the Franklin Institute, and the Apprentices
Library were founded. In September 1822 the visit of Lafayette as
"guest of the Nation" was the occasion of a gala celebration.

The third decade saw the first public school for Negroes opened
(1820), the Historical Society of Pennsylvania was organized (1824),
the first locomotive came from the Baldwin Locomotive plant (1831),
the greatest parade thus far held in the city to celebrate the cen
tennial anniversary of Washington s Birthday February 22, 1832,
and the manufacture of the first illuminating gas for general consump
tion (by a private company in 1836) . The concern was soon bought
up by the city, which began operating other gas-works set up in
various districts.

An epidemic of cholera marked 1832. Hundreds died before
the scourge could be checked. Fifty inmates of the Arch Street
Prison alone died of the disease within a few days. Religious and
race riots also, prevalent throughout the country in 1834, had their
repercussions in Philadelphia, where a Negro meeting-house was torn
down by rioters in August of that year.

The disturbances were caused by growing agitation for the abolition
of slavery, with sporadic outbreaks of violence occurring almost every
year until the Civil War. In 1838 a mob destroyed Pennsylvania Hall,

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

a large edifice used for public meetings by the Pennsylvania Society
for the Abolition of Slavery. Meanwhile, stations on the "Under
ground Railroad" for the assistance of runaway slaves were main
tained in the Philadelphia area, especially after adoption of the
Fugitive Slave Law.

Riots again broke out in 1840, when the Philadelphia and Trenton
Railroad Company attempted to lay tracks on Front Street in Ken
sington, a populous section of the city. Opposition manifested itself
in the tearing up of rails, burning of houses, and general rioting, in
which many persons w r ere injured.

Despite prevailing disorders during the 1840 s, social reforms and
civic improvement continued. These included abolition of imprison
ment for debt, and granting of property rights to married women.
It was during this period also that Port Richmond was incorporated,
the School of Design for Women founded (1844) and Girard College
for orphan boys established (1848). A year prior to the latter date,
in 1847, the American Medical Association was formed.

The Native American or "Know-Nothing" movement, directed
mainly against foreign-born of the Roman Catholic faith, resulted in
the bloodiest riots in the city s history. Kensington, with its large
Irish population, was the starting point of the disorders. The Irish
resented the insulting implications of the Native Americans ; conse
quently, when the latter held an open-air meeting on May 3, 1844,
at Second and Master Streets, the Irish broke up the gathering. Three
days later, another meeting at American and Master Streets ended in
a pitched battle, during which a member of the Native Americans
was fatally wounded ; by the end of the day three deaths had resulted.

The next day fighting was continued with renewed fury. Six of
the Native Americans were killed. At Nanny Goat Market, near
American and Master Streets, the Hibernia Hose House and a num
ber of dwellings were burned by the Native Americans in reprisal.
The Catholic Church of St. Michael, Second and Jefferson Streets,
was burned to the ground, as was the adjoining girls school con
ducted by Catholic nuns. Although troops under Gen. George Cad-
walader attempted to quell the rioters, another mob that same even
ing attacked the Catholic Church of St. Augustine, Fourth Street be
low Vine, setting fire to the church building and adjoining rectory.

On July 4 there was a recrudescence of rioting. Although the Native
Americans held a big parade without any disturbance arising, a
rumor reached their ears that the Catholics had concealed firearms
in the Church of St. Philip de Neri, on Queen Street in Southwark.
This news so intensified the feeling that, on July 5, enormous crowds
gathered near the church, which was heavily guarded by troops.

Tension still ran high in the neighborhood of the church two days
later. The troops were ordered to disperse the assembled crowds. Re-

HISTORY CENTURY OF GROWTH

sistance was shown and the troops opened fire. Some of the rioters
returned the fire. Two soldiers and seven civilians were killed, and
many others were wounded. The Southwark commissioners decided
that withdrawal of troops would ease the situation. The soldiers were
withdrawn, and hostilities gradually ceased.

During the Mexican War, Philadelphia supplied several regiments
of volunteers, who saw service in Texas and Mexico. Gens. George
Cadwalader, Robert Patterson, and Persifor Smith participated in
the war, as did many other Philadelphia officers who later distin
guished themselves in the Civil War.

The year 1848 was marked by the first visit of Abraham Lincoln to
the city, and by the Whig National Convention at which Zachary
Taylor was nominated for the Presidency. In 1849 the Philadelphia
County Medical Society was founded. The next year saw the begin
ning of Philadelphia s police force, with the appointment of two
assistants to the constable. In 1851 the Spring Garden Institute and
the Shakespeare Society were founded.

Consolidation of the City

WW7TTH the growth of the city and its adjoining districts, each of
** which had separate municipal powers, a situation arose that
necessitated the annulment of authority of the petty district govern
ments, and their consolidation with the city. Southwark, Spring
Garden, Moyamensing, Northern Liberties, Richmond, Kensington,
West Philadelphia, Belmont, Germantown, Roxborough, Frankford,
Manayunk, Bridesburg, Kingsessing all of these and other districts
and boroughs formed a congeries of independent and conflicting
municipalities. These overlapping governments and jurisdictions gave
rise to many abuses and costly inefficiencies that hampered develop
ment. The old charter restricted the city to conditions no longer con
sistent with the times. In 1850 the city and suburban population was
more than 360,000. But the city proper, as delimited by the charter
of 1789, had a population of only 121,000. Thus, while the city was
steadily growing, its governmental structure was lagging behind.

Convincing proof of the evils arising from this disjointed local
government was given in connection with the riots of 1844. Because
of the absence of unified authority the rioters in Southwark were
immune to interference from the rest of the city s governing bodies,
as none of the latter had jurisdiction outside its own separate baili
wick. Under such a system a criminal could commit a felony in one
district and evade arrest by crossing the street into the adjoining dis
trict. These evils accumulated to such an extent that, despite com
munity opposition, measures were finally taken to consolidate the
adjacent districts with the city.

The Act of Consolidation was passed January 30, 1854, and was

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

signed on February 2 by Governor Bigler. Boundaries of the city were
extended to include the entire county, and the new City of Philadel
phia took over all the property and debts of the incorporated dis
tricts. Twenty-four wards were established with a select councilman
for each, and a common councilman for every 1,200 taxable inhabi
tants. The mayor was elected for a term of two years. Executive
duties were transferred from the councils to the various city depart
ments. The first mayor to head the consolidated city was Robert T.
Conrad, Whig.

With consolidation, the city entered upon a new era of progress.
Save for several financial panics and business depressions, it enjoyed
an interrupted development. On July 24, 1844, Lemon Hill, com
prising a tract of 45 acres, was bought by the city and later dedicated
as an addition to Fairmount Park. On April 28, 1857, the city pur
chased the Sedgeley Park estate, and in 1866 the Lansdowne estate,
adding these to the park also. In 1856 the first Republican National
Convention was held at Musical Fund Hall, when John C. Fremont
was nominated for the Presidency. The Academy of Music was opened
in 1857. It was also in 1857 that Mayor Richard Vaux organized the
fire and police systems. This same year the Schuylkill Navy was
organized, and two years later the Zoological Society. In 1860 Cole-
man Sellers made the first photographic motion pictures.

During this period the city s developments suffered a temporary
setback because of a serious economic depression. The first symptoms
appeared when the Bank of Pennsylvania closed its doors in Sep
tember, 1857. Within a few hours several other banks suspended
specie payments. Excitement ran high, and police were called out to
protect the banks from depositors clamoring for their money. Rival
mass meetings were held in Independence Square either to protest
against or to urge laws to suspend specie payments. George M. Whar-
ton, John Cadwalader, and other leading citizens were opposed to
legalization. The legislature, however, passed the bill.

The financial panic threw the city into such confusion that many
business houses closed their doors, and thousands of unemployed
soon were walking the streets. A general shut-down of mills and
factories augmented the number of idle workers and increased the
general unrest. A mass meeting of 10,000 workmen was held in In
dependence Square to demand action from State and municipal au
thorities toward remedying conditions. In view of the gravity of the
situation and the pressure from the unemployed, Mayor Vaux insti
tuted a program of public works and municipal improvements, al
though the council had favored a drastic reduction of municipal ex
penditures on the ground of economy. Mayor Vaux contended that
the city s funds should be spent freely in order to relieve distress
and allay the discontent then arising among the workers, some of

HISTORY CENTURY OF GROWTH

whom already were shouting their slogan : "Bread or fight !" The
sane liberalism of the mayor and other responsible citizens did much
to relieve the suffering of the people and bring about a restoration of
normal conditions.

While the depression that followed the panic of 1857 caused a gen
eral stagnation of business during the following year, railway con
struction in the city was continued on an increasing scale. No fewer
than 14 charters were granted for the construction of railways, and
workmen were kept busy tearing up streets and laying tracks. The
West Philadelphia line on Market Street was put into operation.
Shortly afterwards the Tenth and Eleventh Streets route was com
pleted, as were the lines on Spruce and Pine Street s, and Chestnut
and Walnut Streets. Considerable opposition was manifested for a
time to the running of street cars on Sundays, but this difficulty sub
sequently w r as overcome.

John Brown s raid at Harper s Ferry caused intense and high ex
citement in the city. When he was hanged, December 2, 1859, local
abolitionists gave vent to bitter indignation at the "murder." Feeling
ran so high that Mayor Alexander Henry refused the abolitionists per
mission to bring Brown s body into the city. Prominent business men
viewed with misgivings the predominance of anti-Southern sentiment,
convinced that much of their business with the South would be se
riously curtailed by such hostility. A number of young Southerners
studying at local medical schools withdrew and returned home as a

protest against the furor raised
by the abolitionists. It was only
by the strength and vigilance of
the police force that serious riot
ing was prevented.

Musical Fund Hall

"memories of Jenny Lind

and Adelina Patti"

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE
Philadelphia and the Civil War

HP HE abolitionist movement, the birth of the Republican party,
-* John Brown s raid these and other events that had occupied
the attention of Philadelphians during the years preceding the Civil
War slipped into the background as war clouds gathered over the
Nation. By 1860 relations with the South were approaching a crisis.
The threat of war, present so long that people had come to regard it
as nothing more than a remote possibility, now grew serious.

The general sentiment in Philadelphia was one of conciliation, a
feeling inspired mainly by the desire of financial and industrial
leaders to maintain their lucrative trade with the South. Because of
its proximity to the Mason-Dixon line, Philadelphia received the bulk
of Southern business. There were more than 25 millionaires in the
city, many of whom owed their wealth to this trade. Baldwin loco
motives were used on all railroads below the Mason-Dixon line, and
Southern belles showed a preference for shoes and wearing apparel
made in Philadelphia. The city gave the South most of its manu
factured products, and took in return such raw materials as cotton,
turpentine, and lumber. In the latter part of 1860, however, there
was a considerable falling off in this trade.

Despite the efforts of prominent business men to maintain a posi
tion of neutrality, public sentiment in the city began to veer definitely
away from the South. This was due in large part to the Quakers, who
from Colonial times had bitterly opposed slavery. With others it was
a question of preserving the Union, even at the cost of armed conflict.

As the war fever increased, social distress added itself to com
mercial dislocation. Southerners and their sympathizers formed a
considerable part of the population. Many of the city s prominent
families had intermixtures of Southern blood, and with the mounting
agitation these families were rent asunder. It was brother against
brother, and friend against friend.

Abraham Lincoln s appearance in the city as President-elect, his
raising of the Stars and Stripes on Independence Hall, February 22,
1861, and the pomp and circumstance attendant upon the event
earned him his first real popularity in Philadelphia. Until then he
had been considered merely a crude Illinois lawyer. So far as this
city was concerned, his inauguration started a chain of events that
overshadowed everything previous to it. The firing on Fort Sumter
April 12, 1861, and Lincoln s call for volunteers two days later, set
the city ablaze with enthusiasm.

Philadelphia became a veritable armed camp, with the arsenals
working overtime to supply material and munitions. Every section of
the city was filled with cantonments of soldiers. The Navy Yard
seethed with the activity of "quipping men-of-war for active sea serv-

HISTORY CENTURY OF GROWTH

ice. Every member of the old military units in the city became a hero
overnight. The armories were overtaxed with men and munitions. A
bill appropriating $500,000 for the militia was passed by the legis
lature. The city council appropriated large sums for the care of
soldiers families. The city at last had determined upon one goal
defense of the Union.

Among those taking a prominent part in the drive for volunteers
were Commodore Charles Stewart, hero of the War of 1812, and Maj.
Gen. Robert Patterson. Although 70 years of age, Patterson entered
active service and commanded troops on the Potomac above Harper s
Ferry. The Scott Legion, named for Gen. Winfield Scott, and the
Buena Vista Guards tasted some of the bitterest fighting of the war.

Monument to

Negro Soldiers

"from cotton fields

to Flartders fields

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

The First City Troop also played a leading part, many of its members
becoming officers in the Union Army. The State Fencibles, the Na
tional Guards, Washington Grays, and other units saw active service.

During this period Philadelphia was one of the principal concen
tration points for New England troops. The Girard House was com
mandeered temporarily by the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, which
joined the Buena Vista Guards and the Scott Legion at the front.
One regiment would hardly leave Philadelphia for the scene of hos
tilities before another arrived in the city to take its place. Late in
April 1861, General Patterson led his First Division, Pennsylvania
Volunteers, to Washington the first Philadelphia unit to arrive in
the Capital.

About the same time, business in Philadelphia entered a period of
wartime boom. Trade with the South which had been lost was more
than offset by the inrush of war orders. Baldwin s, hitting a peak of
production, turned out 456 locomotives during the war. The South-
wark Navy Yard, employing more than 1,700 mechanics, hummed
with activity. Other shipyards worked at top speed, as did the Schuyl-
kill and Frankford Arsenals, the textile mills, and the armament
factories. Emergency arsenals and storehouses were established in
various parts of the city.

Meanwhile, the steady trek to the battle front was under way.
Among the first troops to reach Fort McHenry were three Philadel
phia regiments under command of Gen. George Cadwalader. The
units were composed of volunteers who had enlisted for three months.
The First City Troop saw service under General Patterson on the
Potomac and elsewhere. In all, about 5,700 short-enlistment soldiers
from such organizations as the Philadelphia Grays, Cadwalader Grays,
Washington Grays, Independent Grays, State Fencibles. and Mc-
Mullin s Independent Rangers were under fire.

When the Confederate Congress voted an appropriation of $50,-
000,000 and called for 100,000 men, President Lincoln sounded a
counter call to arms for enlistments of three years, or for duration
of the war. The early Philadelphia regiments were mustered out and
reorganized. The honor roll of the Union Army was to be studded
with names of Philadelphia men, including nearly 400 officers who
fell in action during the war. Alumni and students of the University
of Pennsylvania, Central High School, and Girard College distin
guished themselves on the fields of battle.

Although the city was preoccupied with war activities during the
four years of conflict, events of local importance continued to fill the
calendar. Religious services in the Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul
were held for the first time on April 20, 1862. League Island was
purchased by the city this same year, and an epidemic of scarlet fever
swept the city in 1863.

HISTORY CENTURY OF GROWTH

After a year and a half of war, the cause of the Union still seemed
to be hanging in the balance. Prominent citizens felt that a more
concerted effort was needed to strengthen the forces of the Govern
ment. It was decided to form a patriotic organization whose members
would pool their resources for raising and equipping additional regi
ments for the Union Army. A meeting was called at the residence of
Benjamin Gerhard, 226 South Fourth Street, on November 15, 1862,
when measures were adopted for the formation of a Union club. The
original founders were Gerhard, George Boker, Morton McMichael,
Judge J. Clarke Hare, Horace Binney, Jr., and Charles Gibbons. The
present title. Union League, was adopted on December 27, 1862.

The league made its headquarters at 1118 Chestnut Street, the site
now occupied by Keith s Theatre. The first president was William
Morris Meredith, Attorney General of the State. By February 1863,
the membership had grown to more than 500. A fund was subscribed
by members to form and equip regiments for the Union, and the
League became a potent factor in the city s contribution to the defeat
of the Confederacy. It published thousands of copies of patriotic cir
culars and pamphlets, and in other ways maintained the city s war
time morale. In May 1865, the league moved into its present quarters
at Broad and Sansom Streets.

One of the outstanding figures of Civil War days in Philadelphia
was Jay Cooke, banker. Formerly with E. W. Clark & Co., Cooke
established his own banking house of Jav Cooke & Co. in Januarv
1861. Until news of the defeat of the Union Army at Bull Run
reached the city on July 22, 1861, Cooke s company had been allotted
only a small part of the Government bond issues, New York and
Boston bankers having received the greater part of the allotments.
During the excitment that followed upon the Union defeat, Cooke on
his own initiative canvassed every financial institution in the city,
and in a few days had obtained pledges to a loan to the Government
of $1,737.500. Cooke became subscription agent for the national loan
on March 7, 1862, and in 1863 he was appointed fiscal agent for the
Government by Secretary of the Treasury Chase.

Cooke organized a small army of agents to cover the country, and
began a national advertising: campaign remarkable for its scope and
originality. It is estimated that he raised from a billion and a half
to two billion dollars during the four years of war. Total profits of
Jay Cooke & Co. on bond issues f^om July 17, 1861, to March 3, 1865
(according to official statement of Secretary of the Treasury Hu.q;h
McCulloch April 23, 1868) were $6,873,934.96. Commission on gold
sales amounted to $293,782.

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE
Defense of the City

"D Y 1863 Philadelphia had settled down to a routine varied only
*-* by newspaper reports of casualties and losses and gains of the
Federal armies. All the glamor and excitement of the early days had
been replaced by the prosaic day-to-day business of seeing the war
through to the end. Factories still worked to capacity on war orders,
but it was generally believed that the conflict was nearing its con
clusion. The Union League and other organizations began to make
preparations for a gala Fourth of July celebration.

Then came rumors that all was not well with the armies of the
Union. News dispatches began to hint that the Confederate forces
were advancing farther north each day. Confederate cavalry was
thrusting nearer to the lower reaches of the Susquehanna River. Con
sternation mounted in the city at the imminence of danger. When
word first arrived that Lee s army was marching through Maryland,
Philadelphia was thrown into a turmoil. Business was disrupted, shops
were closed, and people gathered in groups, fearing the worst.

On June 15 President Lincoln issued a new call for 100,000 militia
to be enlisted for six months. Governor Curtin and Mayor Henry also
issued calls for volunteers. The mayor ordered all business suspended,
and urged every able-bodied man to volunteer for emergency service
in preparing the city against attack. Breastworks were thrown up at
strategic points in the outskirts. As fast as volunteers were forthcom
ing, they were equipped and sent to Harrisburg, where other Union
forces were assembling.

Meade s smashing repulse of Lee at Gettysburg occurred on July
1-3, but it was not until the 7th that accurate reports of the battle
reached Philadelphia. Gettysburg proved costly to the city of Penn.
Thousands of its citizens fell, killed or wounded, during the three
days. Although won at high cost, the victory saved Philadelphia and
determined the outcome of the war.

Upon the battlefields of Bull Run, Antietam, and Ball s Bluff many
Philadelphians laid down their lives. At Ball s Bluff the Philadelphia
Brigade experienced its first fire, to begin a period of meritorious
service that was to end in glory at Petersburg. Except for three up-
State companies, the brigade was composed of local volunteers. It also
saw service at Gettysburg, turning back a Confederate charge. Sur
vivors fought with other regiments until the final victory at Ap-
pomattox. When the brigade was disbanded on June 28, 1864, its
battle-flag bore 39 shot-holes.

An equally gallant combat unit was the Pennsylvania Reserves, to
which Philadelphia contributed 20 companies of infantry and four
batteries of artillery, numbering in all 3,000 men. Gen. George A.
McCall succeeded Gen. George B. McClellan as its commander. Later,

HISTORY CENTURY OF GROWTH

Gen. Samuel Wylie Crawford, a surgeon in the Regular Army, led the
remnants of the force down from Little Round Top into the "wheat-
field" on the bloody second day at Gettysburg. Regiments of Phila
delphia Negroes won honor and glory for themselves during the war,
displaying great courage on the fields of battle.

The two most conspicuous military figures of Philadelphia during
the war were Maj. Gen. George Brinton McClellan, commander of the
Army of the Potomac from 1861 to 1862, and Maj. Gen. George Gor
don Meade, who commanded the Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg
and during the remainder of the war. Among the Philadelphians who
figured prominently in naval activities were Rear Admirals Charles
Stewart, John A. Dahlgren, David D. Porter, and George Campbell
Read ; Commodores Joseph Beale, William McKean. William Trux-
tun, Garrett Pendergrast, and John C. Febiger ; and Commander
Abner Reed.

Military hospitals were maintained in the city and suburbs for the
care of the sick and wounded. Local women displayed great ability
and devotion in volunteer relief work. The Christian Commission,
organized by George H. Stuart, John Wanamaker, and others con
nected with the Philadelphia Young Men s Christian Association also
did valuable relief work.

Philadelphia, during these dark days, was the scene of America s
first important fair the Council Fair of the Sanitary Commissions
from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. It was held in Logan
Square, and began June 7, 1864. President Lincoln was unable to at
tend the opening ceremonies, but he and Mrs. Lincoln visited the
fair on June 16, together with Governor Packer of New Jersey, Gov
ernor Cannon of Delaware, and Governor Curtin of Pennsylvania.

On the morning of April 3, 1865, the Philadelphia Inquirer issued
a bulletin announcing the fall of Richmond. Later dispatches con
firmed the occupation of the Southern capital by Grant s troops. This
event was the signal for spontaneous demonstrations on the part of
Philadelphia s war-weary citizens. The bell in Independence Hall
pealed forth the message of jubilation, as thousands formed im
promptu victory processions. School children marched through the
streets, waving flags and singing songs. Steam whistles shrieked
throughout the city, adding their strident tones to the tumult. A
cannon was placed on the top of the Evening Bulletin building and
fired incessantly all afternoon. Business was at a standstill, and at
night the city was ablaze with lights and the jrlare of countless bon
fires. The Union was saved, and war was about to end. What more
fitting cause for jubilation ! On April 10, news of Lee s surrender at
Appomattox threw the city into another riot of celebration. The
names of Grant and Meade were cheered, while guns thundered all
through the day.

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Gaiety and rejoicing changed to sorrow, however, when news of
President Lincoln s assassination arrived on April 15. From a city be
decked with gay colors, Philadelphia was transformed overnight into
a place of mourning. Office buildings, shops, and dwellings were
draped with black. Requiem services were held in all churches. On
Saturday, April 22, when the President s body arrived from Washing
ton, the many bells of the city were tolled. The hearse was escorted
by a vast procession to Independence Hall, and the body lay in state
in the room where the Declaration had been signed.

Early the following morning the hall was opened to the public. By
midnight more than 85,000 persons had viewed Lincoln s remains.
Multitudes paid their last respects to the great man in prayer and
fasting. The next afternoon the casket was borne to the Kensington
Depot, and placed on a train to resume its journey through sorrowing
throngs to its last resting place in Springfield, 111., Lincoln s home
town.

The Post-War Years

A MID the turbulence of national and local politics, returning
-^*- soldiers, loyalist demonstrations, financial panics, and a mush
room growth of saloons, Philadelphia entered upon a post-war era
of expansion. Rise of the saloons was probably one of the most sig
nificant features of the immediate post-war period. Owned for the
most part by Germans and Irish, the saloons at first served only the
finest brews, aged until wholesome and then drawn from the keg at
spring-water temperature. Later, as competition became keen, iced
beer was served almost as soon as brewed. In 1887, when the Brooks
High License Law was passed, there were nearly 6,000 saloons in the
city. A power in politics ever since the days of the first tavern, the
saloon was now a force to be reckoned with in every local political
struggle.

The Democrats and the Andrew Johnson Republicans set the city
aflame with political controversy when they held their famous "arm-
in-arm" convention on August 14, 1866. The picturesque name sprang
from an incident at the gathering in which two convention delegates,
one a Unionist and the other a former Confederate, marched down
the aisle of the Convention Hall arm-in-arm.

Johnson s appearance in the citv with Grant and Seward was the
signal for a series of disorders. Although John W. Geary, Republican
candidate for Governor, carried the city in the following October by
a plurality of 5,000, Col. Peter Lyle, a staunch Democrat, was elected
Sheriff. In November 1868, Grant s presidential plurality in the city
was 5,818, notwithstanding that Daniel Fox, Democratic candidate,
had been elected mayor the preceding month.

HISTORY CENTURY or GROWTH

With the opening of the Chestnut Street bridge on June 23, 1866,
the city s westward expansion began. An increase in population from
562,529 in 1860 to 673,726 in 1870 necessitated the development of
outlying districts across the Schuylkill. Factories, homes, churches,
and schools sprang up. The central city section had already begun to
take on the appearance of a metropolis. The main streets, such as
Market, Chestnut, and Broad, were crowded with buildings and shops
of substantial size.

Many large industries were making Philadelphia one of the most
important centers of trade in the country. Firms such as the Cramp s
Shipbuilding Company, the Baldwin Locomotive Works, and others
had placed the city in the vanguard of industry and commerce. Dur
ing this period, George W. Childs, who had acquired the Public Ledger
from William M. Swain., built the new home of the newspaper at Sixth
and Chestnut Streets. This building was one of the largest newspaper
plants of the time.

In 1870 the Germans in Philadelphia evinced great interest in the
Franco-Prussian War. A mass meeting of Negro citizens celebrated
the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution. In the
same year the city fire department was organized, and the Philadel
phia Record first appeared.

Numerous public disturbances occurred in 1871. Much animosity
was aroused in certain sections by the enfranchisement of the Negroes.
Riots broke out in the Fourth and Fifth Wards, during which two
prominent Negroes, Isaiah Chase and Prof. Octavius Catto, were
slain. Racial bitterness was so intense that the militia was called out
to restore order.

The death of General Meade on November 6, 1872, threw the city
into mourning. His funeral was held with impressive ceremony, and
notables from the entire country, including President Grant, attended.

The failure of the banking houses of E. W. Clarke & Co. and Jay
Cooke & Co., on September 18, 1873, precipitated a financial panic
that resulted in the closing of a number of large banks in the
city and throughout the country. Another local bank, the Franklin
Savings Fund, in which many of the poorer citizens had placed their
meagre savings, went into bankruptcy on February 6, 1874. The pre
vailing financial disorders and the accompanying depression of in
dustry and commerce produced much labor unrest. Strikes occurred
frequently during this period, and labor agitation for an eight-hour
working day was carried on with vehemence.

The new Masonic Temple, at Broad and Filbert Streets, was dedi
cated in the presence of a large gathering on September 26, 1873.
Three events marked July 4, 1874. These were the laying of the cor
nerstone of the new City Hall in Penn Square, the breaking of ground
in West Fairinount Park for the Centennial Exhibition, and the open-

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

ing of the Girard Avenue bridge over the Schuylkill. Built at a cost
of nearly a million and a half dollars, this bridge was probably the
widest in the world at the time.

The Centennial

4 S the year 1875 drew to a close, preparations were made to wel-
-^*- come the advent of the Nation s centennial year. On New Year s
Eve the city was ablaze with lights. Particularly resplendent was
Carpenters Hal], which displayed in a sign lighted by candles the
words : "The Nation s Birthplace." A brilliant display of fireworks
was set off at Southwark. Festivities were centered in the area from
South Street to Girard Avenue, and westward to the Schuylkill.

As midnight approached, Independence Hall was surrounded by
dense crowds. At 11:45 Mayor William Stokeley addressed the as
semblage ; and after a prayer by the Rev. Walter Scott and a speech
on the Centennial Exhibition by Benjamin Harris Brewster, the bell
in Independence Hall tolled for the departing year. As the last note
died away, Mayor Stokeley raised a Colonial flag aloft, while a band
played The Star Spangled Banner and the Second Regiment fired
salute after salute.

The Centennial Exhibition, commemorating 100 years of American
Independence, opened on May 10, 1876, in Fairmount Park. President
and Mrs. Grant, with Dom Pedro de Alcantara, Emperor of Brazil,
and his wife as guests of honor, presided at the opening, which was
attended by notables from all over the world and a crowd of 100,000.
The dedication ceremonies were held in the space between the Main
Building and Memorial Hall, two of the 180 buildings erected on the
grounds. A 200-piece orchestra and a chorus of 900 voices accom
panied the action of the President as he unfurled the flag. After the
unfurling a 100-guii salute was fired and chimes were rung. The
President and Dom Pedro started the mammoth Corliss engine in
Machinery Hall, and then a reception was held for them in the
Judges Pavilion.

Thirty-eight foreign nations and 39 States and Territories were
represented. Of these Massachusetts led with an appropriation of
$50,000 ; New Jersey voted $10,000, and Delaware $10,000. The 250
judges of the exposition, of whom 125 were foreigners, were divided
into 28 groups. All through the summer months the city was thronged
with visitors. Record attendance for a single day was reached on
Pennsylvania Day, September 28, when 275.000 persons passed through
the turnstiles. Governor Tilden of New York attracted a crowd of
134,588 on Empire State Day; while his rival for the Presidency,
Rutherford B. Hayes, drew 7 an equally large crowd on Ohio Day,
October 26. Hundreds of special events, such as the first public dem
onstration of the telephone, were held during the six months of the

HISTORY CENTURY OF GROWTH

exhibition. The German population dedicated a monument to Hum-
boldt, the West Point cadets visited the fair in a body, and a number
of regattas were held on the Schuylkill. On November 10, 1876, the
Exhibition was officially closed by President Grant.

The year 1876 marked the beginning of a new period of archi
tectural expression. Not only to Philadelphia, but to the Nation at
large, the Exhibition had given impetus to the Ecole des Beaux Arts
influence, together with other styles tending toward eclecticism in
building design. The period was marked also by business expansion
and labor troubles.

In July 1877 the great railroad strike that had spread over the
country broke out in Philadelphia. Employees of the Reading and
Pennsylvania Railroads, organized in the Brotherhood of Locomotive
Engineers, struck for better wages and improved working conditions,
such as full crews on all trains, and abolishment of the double train.
There was little rioting, however, as major disorders were prevented
by police and the National Guard.

In Pennsylvania the strike ended July 27, after freight and pas
senger service had for a short time been suspended. The men went
back to work with an understanding that the issues would be settled
by arbitration. Both sides claimed a victory.

Electric lighting came into use in stores and offices in the later
seventies and early eighties. The city council opposed the use of
electricity for municipal lighting, maintaining that its cost would be
too great. The Brush Electric Light Company, however, offered in
1882 to light Chestnut Street for one year without charge. The offices
of the Public Ledger, at Sixth and Chestnut Streets, and those of the
Record, on Chestnut Street near Ninth, were equipped with electric
lights in that year. Within a brief period nearly all the central city
section adopted the new method of lighting. About the same time
came the telephone. The Bell company established its first central
office in the city at 400 Chestnut Street in 1878. In 1884 two other
companies, the Baxter Overland Telephone Companv and the Clay
Commercial Telephone Company, opened offices on Chestnut Street.
As with the telegraph, which had come into use more than 30 years
earlier, the electric light and telephone soon became indispensable
adjuncts to city life. During the next two decades the city, despite
political bossism, enjoyed uninterrupted development.

The Bullitt Act, giving the city a new charter, was passed by the
legislature in 1885. This reduced the number of city departments
from 28 to eight, and placed them under the direct supervision of
the mayor, who was empowered to appoint the department directors.

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century such figures as
Matthew S. Quay, Boies Penrose, Alexander McClure, David and
Peter Lane, William R. Leeds, and Israel Durham occupied the

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

political limelight. Graft and corruption were rife in connection
with traction franchises and the administration of the city gas works.
Many large fortunes were made during this period by clever manipu
lators working in connivance with the political bosses. John Wana-
maker, always on the side of civic virtue, attempted to overthrow the
Quay machine in 1898-99, but was unsuccessful. The machine was
too well organized. Would-be reformers were told bluntly by the
"bosses" to stop wasting their breath.

In 1892 the first trolley car was operated on Catharine and Bain-
bridge Streets. The Reading Terminal at Twelfth and Market Streets
was opened the following year. In 1894 Broad Street became the first
thoroughfare in the city to be paved with asphalt. In 1897 the Com
mercial Museum was officially opened by President McKinley. The
next year came the Spanish- American War, in which many Phila-
delphians and organizations, including the First City Troop, saw
service. The first motor car to appear in the city was brought from
France in 1899 by Jules Junker, a local merchant.

Smith Memorial
"We are engaged iri a great civil war"

THE MODERN METROPOLIS

MANY innovations marked the transition from the old city of
the nineteenth century to the high-tensioned metropolis of to
day. By 1900 the population exceeded one and a quarter mil
lions, of which native Americans constituted 75 percent. The influx
of immigrants from Europe and of Negroes from the South, together
with the steadily increasing birthrate, had transformed the city proper
into a hive of human heings living in congested streets. The wealthier
families began their exodus to the outlying districts of the city and
to the suburbs along the Main Line of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

With the advent of the automobile, the city s roughly paved streets,
intended for horse-drawn vehicles, were replaced gradually by thor
oughfares of asphalt.

During the first decade of the twentieth century a new crop of
skyscrapers added height to Philadelphia s skyline. Among the tallest
of these were the Land Title Building and the Real Estate Trust
Building at Broad and Chestnut Streets ; the North American Build
ing, Broad and Sansom Streets ; the Pennsylvania Building, Fifteenth
and Chestnut Streets ; the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, Broad and Wal
nut Streets ; Wanamaker s, Thirteenth and Market Streets, and the
Morris Building, Chestnut Street west of Broad. Row upon row of
brick dwellings were being constructed. The Market Street subway-
elevated (opened in 1907) and additional trolley lines were built to
link the new sections with the city center.

Events of importance during this period were the Republican Na
tional Convention in June, 1900, at whirh President William Mc-
Kinley was renominated and Governor Theodore Roosevelt of New
York designated as Vice-Presidential nominee ; the purchase by
Gimbel Brothers of the Girard House, at Ninth and Chestnut Streets
(May, 1900), as a site for an addition to their department store ; the
first Mummers Parade (January 1, 1901) to welcome the twentieth
century ; the opening (March 1901) of a new Gray s Ferry Bridge
over the Schuylkill ; the first official message sent (January 1902)
over the Keystone telephone system ; and purchase (March 1902)
of the site of Lit Brothers store. Also in 1902, the Philadelphia Rapid
Transit Company was chartered ; the new Central High School at
Broad and Green Streets was dedicated by Theodore Roosevelt, who

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

had succeeded to the Presidency after McKinley s assassination ; and
Keith s Chestnut Street Theatre was opened.

The Poor Richard Club was organized July 23, 1907 ; and on July
1, 1907, the first contract between the city and the Philadelphia
Rapid Transit Company was executed. In April 1908 Shibe Park,
home of the Philadelphia American League baseball club, was
opened. The same year saw the establishment of Oscar Hammerstein s
Philadelphia Opera House, which opened with a presentation of
Bizet s Carmen, and the dedication of the Y. M. C. A. Building on
Arch Street. In 1909 regular passenger service over the new elevated
tracks of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad was begun from the
Reading Terminal.

Motormen and conductors of the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Com
pany declared a strike for higher wages in May 1909. Another fol
lowed in February 1910, the men receiving instructions not to return
to work until their union was recognized by the company and the
hourly wage-rate increased from 20 to 25 cents. During the strike,
which lasted about five months before an agreement was reached,
there was much rioting and disorder. Hundreds of cars were dam
aged, many persons were injured, and numerous arrests of strikers
and union officials were made.

In the same year, the first airplane flight from New York to Phila
delphia was made by Charles K. Hamilton, under the auspices of the
New York Times and the Philadelphia Public Ledger ; the Historical
Society of Pennsylvania opened its new building at Thirteenth and
Locust Streets ; the Aquarium in Fairmount Park was completed ; and
the census of 1910 showed an increase of population to 1,549,008.

During this period and up to the third decade of the century, local
political affairs were controlled by dynasties of boss-rule, in which
such figures as Boies Penrose, James P. McNichol, and the Vare
brothers, George, Edwin, and William, were predominant. Headed
by these bosses, the Republican organization enjoyed uninterrupted
control of Philadelphia politics, save for a temporary setback when
Rudolph Blankenburg, independent reform candidate, won the mayor
alty election in 1911 against the Republican machine controlled by
Penrose, in alliance with McNichol. The tie-up between the political
bosses and the utilities had been scandalously close ; both had waxed
rich at the expense of the citizenry. But under Blankenburg s admin
istration many of these abuses were discontinued. In their stead, there
was maintained a steady campaign of municipal development carried
on in such a forthright manner that even the political machine could
not criticize it.

The great fortunes founded in the previous century by such finar

HISTORY MODERN METROPOLIS

cial, industrial, and commercial pioneers as Cyrus H. K. Curtis, Francis
and Anthony Drexel, John Wanamaker, Edward T. Stotesbury, Justin
Strawbridge, Isaac Clothier, William L. Elkins, and Peter A. B.
Widener had by now become consolidated, and formed an integral
part of the city s growth. Newcomers were carving their fortunes in
banking, real estate, motion picture theatres, oil, and other fields.

In 1913, militant women suffragists crusaded in the city to win for
their sex the right to vote and participate in the direction of public
affairs. Prominent in the movement was Mrs. Lucretia Blankenburg,
wife of Mayor Blankenburg. President Taft and his Cabinet attended
the Union League s fiftieth anniversary banquet in February of that
year, and in October President Woodrow Wilson dedicated the re
stored Congress Hall.

Philadelphia During the World War

A SLIGHT earthquake shook the city in February 1914. A few
months later, in midsummer, a far greater earthquake, non-
seismic in origin, rocked the entire continent of Europe and the
whole world, with repercussions of gradually heightening intensity in
Philadelphia during the following four years.

The war seemed very remote from the city until the steamship
Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine on May 7, 1915. Then
public sentiment, which had been rather divided in its sympathies
for the belligerents, began to swing towards the side of the Allies.
Meanwhile, Philadelphia industries were obtaining lucrative contracts
for munitions and war material from the Allied powers. Wages
mounted as factories operated day and night to turn out their mer
chandise of death.

A phenomenon of the times was the sudden swarm of "jitney"
blisses which appeared on Broad Street and other main thorough
fares in 1915. Indifferent street-car service and the novelty of riding
in automobiles, which at that time were still luxuries out of reach
of many citizens, accounted for the popularity of the "jitney" (the
name sprang from a slang term meaning five cents, the amount of
fare charged by the new conveyances) . Eventually, opposition insti
tuted by the traction company, under Thomas E. Mitten, forced the
"jitneys" out of business.

On January 22, 1917, the last contingent of Philadelphia troops
which had been sent to the Mexican border the previous July in the
campaign against Villa was ordered home. As if in preparation for
the inevitable, many civilians were joining the National Guard units,
which were conducting sham battles and drills. Army and Navy re
cruiting stations were opened, and the Philadelphia Navy Yard was
closed to the public. Expectation that America would enter the war
grew stronger.

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Prices began to soar as commodities became more scarce and prof
iteering grew rampant. Potatoes sold at $3.60 per bushel. Crowds
kept vigil before bulletin boards of the large newspaper offices, await
ing developments. A mass meeting was held in Independence Square,
where citizens pledged themselves to uphold the national honor
against German aggression. The city adhered to its pledge when Con
gress declared war on the Central Powers on April 6. The machinery
of mobilizing the city for war was set in motion immediately. Within
two months the First Liberty Loan campaign was in full swing, the
Red Cross drive for funds and volunteers had started, and local draft
boards were already conscripting civilians for the Army. In the first
local draft quota, 161,245 Philadelphians were sent to training camps.

On April 10, 1917, a terrific explosion occurred at the Eddystone
Ammunition Works, between Philadelphia and Chester. More than
100 men and women workers, many of them Philadelphians, were
killed in the blast, and more than 300 maimed and injured. So ter
rific was the concussion that the small town of Eddystone was all but
demolished, and thousands of homes in Chester and Philadelphia
were shaken.

During the primary election on September 19, 1917, bitter factional
strife broke out in the Fifth Ward. Patrolman George Eppley was
shot and killed at Sixth and Delancey Street while protecting two
citizens from imported gunmen. The murder resulted in the indict
ment of several public officials on conspiracy charges, though the
most prominent among them were acquitted. Feeling against the gun
men implicated in the murder ran so high that a change of venue was
necessary. Several of the defendants were convicted of second-degree
murder and imprisoned.

The city entered upon its war work with feverish activity. Great
industries, such as the Baldwin Locomotive Works and the Midvale
Steel Company, were transformed into arsenals of the Army and
Navy, turning out war materials. The largest ship construction plant
in the world was established at Hog Island, on the southeastern fringe
of the city. The first keel was laid on February 12, 1918 ; and the
first ship, a cargo vessel of 7,500 tons, slid down the ways on August
5, as Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, accompanied by the President, christened
it the Quistconk.

High wages were paid to both men and women workers in industry.
This tended to some extent to offset the rising cost of living caused by
the scarcity of commodities and the rationing of fuel and foodstuffs.
As intensive drives for recruits and money were carried on, exhorta
tions such as "Give Till It Hurts !" and "Your Country Needs You !"
became the slogans of the time.

One of the most notorious figures in wartime Philadelphia was

HISTORY MODERN METROPOLIS

Grover C. Bergdoll, scion of a wealthy family of brewers. BergdolFs
refusal to be drafted into the infantry created a cause celebre which
even today remains unsettled. Prominent as a daring aviator and au
tomobile racer, Bergdoll demanded to be assigned to the aviation
corps. Placed under arrest, he escaped from the custody of Federal
agents and fled to Germany.

The city had just reached the height of its production of men,
money, and material for war, when news of the Armistice arrived on
November 11, 1918. All activity was suspended immediately, as the
entire population gave vent to unbounded joy. The months im
mediately following were occupied with celebrations of victory and
the welcoming home of soldiers and sailors. The prevalent elation was
dampened, however, by an epidemic of influenza which caused
thousands of deaths in the city.

The Boom Years

A NEW city charter went into effect on January 5, 1920. By its
-^*- terms the two city councils, select and common, were merged into
one, and, instead of each ward having its councilman, the city was
divided into councilmanic districts, each comprising several wards.

By 1922 Philadelphia had resumed its normal momentum of civic
activity. The deafening obbligato of riveting-machines and roaring
motor-trucks introduced the Golden Age of Prosperity. New resi
dential communities sprang up in the outlying districts of Frankford,
Olney, Logan, and elsewhere. A branch of the Market Street subway-
elevated extending to Frankford Avenue and Bridge Street began
operation November 5, 1922, linking the new residential sections to
the central city. Tall office buildings and apartment houses appeared
with each succeeding year. On Market and Chestnut Streets, palatial
movie theaters were constructed to keep pace with the ever-growing
population, which had increased to nearly 2,000,000.

The streets became congested with automobiles and motor-trucks.
With the advent of prohibition, bootleggers, speakeasies, and gang
sters sprouted like fungi. Vice, racketeering, and official corruption
increased to such an extent that in January 1924, at the request of
Mayor W. Freeland Kendrick, Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler obtained
a leave of absence from the Marine Corps to accept the post of
Director of Public Safety. For more than a year General Butler led
an intensive drive against organized crime, whipping into greater
efficiency the police department and its personnel.

Construction of the Delaware River Bridge began in 1922, and
it was opened July 1, 1926. Work on the North Broad Street Subway
started in August 1924. "The City Beautiful" as exemplified in the
Parkway the city s most ornate thoroughfare became a reality,

Dewey s Flagship "Olympia" at the Philadelphia Navy Yard
"overshadowed by the Maine"

thanks to the talents of Jacques Greber and Paul Philippe Cret, its
designers.

Culturally, too, the city was expanding. Under the direction of
Leopold Stokowski, the Philadelphia Orchestra had developed into
one of the world s outstanding symphonic organizations. The Curtis
Institute, the Art Alliance, the Academy of the Fine Arts, the Free
Library, the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, and
other institutions were increasing Philadelphia s prestige as a center
of culture and learning.

A stimulus to civic betterment was the founding of the Phila
delphia Award in 1921 by Edward W. Bok, editor of the Ladies
Home Journal. A trust fund of $200,000, established by Mr. Bok, pro
vides the $10,000 award that annually goes to the man or woman
living in Philadelphia or its vicinity who has performed the service,
or brought to culmination the achievement considered most con
ducive to the advancement of the city s best interests.

The Sesqui-Centennial Exposition

"OLANS for celebrating the 150th anniversary of American inde-
pendence with a great international exposition were first formu
lated in 1920, during the first administration of Mayor J. Hampton

HISTORY MODERN METROPOLIS

Moore. In April 1921 Mayor Moore requested an appropriation of
$50,000 for furtherance of the plans. The public remained apathetic
until the inauguration of Mayor W. Freeland Kendrick, in 1924, and
his election to the presidency of the Sesqui-Centennial Exhibition
Association. Sufficient funds to begin work on the undertaking were
raised by public subscriptions and through appropriations by the
city council. The site chosen for the exposition was a section of 1,000
acres in the southern part of the city, adjacent to the Navy Yard.

From the outset, administration of the exposition was strongly
criticized because of the political graft involved. William S. Vare,
construction contractor and political boss, along with his coterie
of real estate speculators, had convinced the officials that the best
site for the exposition was on their marshlands, upon which it was
almost impossible to build. There resulted a paradoxical situation
in which owners of the swamp were paid by the association not only
for the right to fill it in, but also a rental for using it as a site for the
exposition.

By the time this location finally was chosen, many speculators had
learned the value of caution. Several artifically stimulated real estate
booms had taken place in various parts of the city, after erroneous
information had been given out. Those who bought up tracts near
rumored sites of the fair found themselves in possession of land miles
from where it eventually was held.

The exposition opened on May 31, 1926, although work on some
of the buildings and exhibits was not completed until July 15. A
host of visitors was attracted to Philadelphia during the six months
of the exposition. Hundreds of displays, pageants, special exhibitions,
and sporting events provided endless attractions and interests. (The
Municipal Stadium, erected for the exposition, was the scene of the
famous championship boxing match between Jack Dempsey and
Gene Tunney on September 23, 1926, and the Army-Navy foot
ball game in 1936.) Almost every State in the Union and many foreign
nations were represented at the exposition, either with special pavil
ions and exhibits or with temporary displays. Notables from many
countries attended, among them Queen Marie and the Princess Ileana
of Rumania, Crown Prince Gustavus Adolphus and the Princess
Louise of Sweden, and President Calvin Coolidge and Mrs. Coolidge.

Innovations in architectural design and building illumination, as
well as the latest inventions of applied science, were features of
the exposition. Such new devices as electric refrigerators, audible
motion pictures, radios, and sound amplifiers marked the progress
achieved in invention during the 50 years since the Centennial Ex
hibition of 1876. The national air races and aviation exhibits also
were outstanding features.

When the exposition closed on November 30, the city had expended

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

a total of $9,667,896.83 on the enterprise. Owing to the vastness of
the undertaking, financial difficulties were encountered, but a fairly
satisfactory settlement of all expenses and liabilities was eventually
made.

The fact that a once-proposed subway-elevated line to Roxborough
is still in the category of "plans" is traced to the Sesqui-Centennial.
A large sum of money had been set aside by the city council for
use in constructing the subway-elevated line. A referendum, taken
among the citizens of Roxborough, turned the money over to the
exposition as an investment, although it is now generally considered
as having been a gift.

The first commercial transatlantic telephone call between Phila
delphia and London was made on January 29, 1927, when Josiah
H. Penniman, provost of the University of Pennsylvania, spoke to
Lord Dawson of Penn at the other end of the wire. The Free Library
on the Parkway was opened June 2, 1927. On March 26, 1928, the
Art Museum at the head of the Parkway was opened, and the new
Broad Street Subway was placed in operation on September 1 of that
year. On August 14, 1929, the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge was opened,
and the North Philadelphia Station of the Reading Railroad Com
pany was dedicated on September 28. The Rodin Museum on the
Parkway, gift of the late Jules E. Mastbaum, was dedicated on Novem
ber 29, 1929, and the Martin Maloney Memorial Clinic at the Univer
sity of Pennsylvania on September 20, 1929.

Philadelphia and the Great Depression

Philadelphians who awoke on a crisp autumn morning in
late October, 1929, suspected that by the afternoon of that day
the great American dream of unlimited and uninterrupted prosperity
would be rudely dispelled by the crash of the stock market and the
plunge of the entire Nation into the lowest depths of misery, priva
tion, and despair. Not many could have foreseen that the next four
years would be among the darkest in the city s history, and that hun
dreds of thousands of unemployed would walk the streets.

Despite rosy assurances which had been freely broadcast for more
than three years that "recovery was just around the corner" and
"the worst was over," banks continued to close, bankruptcies in
creased, financiers and business men committed suicide, bread lines
in Philadelphia grew longer as unemployment increased, and the
future appeared to be ever more hopeless. There seemed to be no
remedy for the situation. Each day that passed saw conditions grow
worse instead of better, until even the most optimistic became even
tually the most rabid of pessimists.

Meanwhile, numbers of desperate workers were being converted to

. HISTORY MODERN METROPOLIS

radicalism. In 1931, a large May Day demonstration of radical labor
organizations was broken up by the police ; many arrests were made.

Probably the most impressive result of the depression in Philadel
phia, politically, was the change in party sentiment from Republican
to Democratic and the conviction among die-hard conservatives that
the time had come for property rights and interests to give way to
human rights. The election of November 1932 recorded an amazing
Democratic vote, although the city had been regarded as the strong
hold of entrenched Republicanism since the Civil War, and among
the adherents of the new administration were those who had been
pillars of the old. Meanwhile, greater numbers of desperate workers
were being converted to radicalism. In 1931 a large May Day demon
stration of radical labor organizations was broken up by the police
and many arrests were made.

The election of November 1932 recorded an amazing Democratic
vote, although the city had been regarded as the stronghold of en
trenched Republicanism since the Civil War.

Upon assuming office in March 1933, President Roosevelt adopted
measures to "fight the depression as we fought the war." Federal
funds were appropriated for the relief of the destitute in Phila
delphia, and later for the employment of the jobless. Through the
efforts of the Civil Works Administration and later the Works Prog-
gress Administration, thousands of Philadelphians caught in the mael
strom of the depression were enabled to earn a livelihood for the
first time since the depression. Local business was greatly stimulated
through the increased purchasing power of thousands of WPA em
ployees.

With the repeal of prohibition, State liquor stores were opened in
Philadelphia in 1934, giving employment to many persons and in
creasing the revenue of the State. With repeal of some of the "Blue
Laws" a year later, Sunday baseball games became legalized, while
movie houses and other amusements were permitted to operate on
the Sabbath.

Tacony-Palmyra Bridge
a tie that binds the states 1

Slum Scene
the place of abandoned hope

HISTORY MODERN METROPOLIS

In spite of hard times, a number of new and imposing buildings
were erected, such as the new Pennsylvania Station, Thirtieth and
Market Streets ; the new Post Office, directly opposite ; the Franklin
Institute, with the Pels Planetarium, on the Parkway ; the new
Custom House, Second and Chestnut Streets ; the Lincoln-Liberty
Building, Broad and Chestnut Streets; the Philadelphia Saving Fund
Society Building, Twelfth and Market Streets ; and the Administra
tion Building of the Board of Education, Twenty-first Street and
the Parkway.

One of the highlights of 1936 in Philadelphia was the Democratic
National Convention, held in the Municipal Auditorium during the
week of June 23. Democratic delegations from all the States and
Territories thronged the once mighty stronghold of Republicanism
during the week of the convention. President Roosevelt was renomi-
nated by tumultuous acclamation ; and on Saturday evening, June
27, the President made his acceptance speech before a huge crowd in
Franklin Field. Of the throng of nearly 200,000 persons, only 105,000
could be crammed into the stadium, the rest packing the streets out
side.

Local Republicanism received its worst defeat on November 3,
1936, when President Roosevelt and the Democratic ticket swept the
city with a plurality of more than 200,000. As the election returns
began to come in that night, crowds of gleeful Democrats paraded
through the musty courtyards and arcades of City Hall, north and
south on Broad Street, and east and west on Market, Chestnut, and
Walnut Streets. Traffic was at a standstill as one of the most spectacu
lar and uproarious political demonstrations ever held in Philadelphia
rocked the central section.

Some progress in slum clearance was made during the first six
months of 1937. As a result of the collapse of two slum dwellings
in late December 1936 when 7 occupants were killed, a systematic
program for clearing substandard areas of the city was started. More
than 1,200 dwellings and buildings unfit for habitation were con
demned and demolished by order of the municipal authorities. How
ever, no provisions were made for rehousing the tenants.

Celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Constitution of the
United States was officially inaugurated May 14, 1937, with opening
ceremonies in Independence Hall, during which the original draft
of the Constitution was exhibited, and the Liberty Bell was rung
by Mayor S. Davis Wilson, who used a gavel made of wood from old
trees at Valley Forge.

OLD WAYS AND OLD TALES

MANY nationalities and religions have contributed over a period
of more than 250 years to the traditions, social customs, habits
of dress, entertainment, and folklore of Philadelphia some
elements of which still stand out like broken strands of silk in an old
tapestry.

Although the Swedes were the earliest colonists in Philadelphia,
the Quakers, who followed soon afterwards, were most instrumental
in giving direction to the trend of daily life. They brought to the
New World a philosophy of simplicity and conservatism. Their rather
drab style of dress and staid deportment soon were to be influenced,
however, by the influx of Germans, Scotch-Irish and Welsh. By 1712
the note of rigid simplicity, at least in its superficial aspect, had
begun to change. Human vanity, rather than religious restraint, be
came the dictator of fashion.

The well-dressed Philadelphia belle of that era wore a silk petti
coat, distended by hoops, and a tightly laced stomacher ornamented
with gold braid. The sleeves were short and edged with wide point
lace. Curls fell at her neck, and her head was protected by a light
silk hood. On her feet were satin slippers. Her escort wore a silk
coat, its skirts stiffened with wire and buckram. His waistcoat was
long-flapped, with wide pockets, and short sleeves terminating in
large, rounded cuffs. A point-lace cravat protected his throat. His
shoes were square-toed, with small silver buckles ; his silk stockings
reached above his knees to meet his silk breeches. On his tie-wig
perched a small cocked hat trimmed with lace.

Tradesmen dressed simply. Their garb was generally of stout gray
cloth, trimmed in black, with worsted stockings, and leather breeches
and shoes.

Colonial days in Philadelphia witnessed rapid changes in styles
and fashions. While pro-French feeling was at its height, the styles
of France came into vogue. With the elaboration and brightening
of fashions, the Quakers became so alarmed that at a Yearly Meet
ing of Friends they rigidly enforced their rules regulating dress.

Today the gray garb of the Quaker founders has disappeared al
most entirely, except in some nearby rural sections. In the city, some
elderly ladies still cling to a modified form of the prescribed apparel,
while others dress in real Quaker style.

OLD WAYS AND OLD TALES

Colonial Philadelphia did not remain a citadel of conservative life
for long, however. Even in pre-Revolutionary days the city became
famous for its entertainment, good food, rare wines, and fine clothes.
Many well-to-do Quakers were not averse to tasting these worldly
pleasures.

The city became noted for its sumptuous dinners, which were in
sharp contrast to the formerly frugal pioneer repast. John Adams,
describing one of these feasts, said : "It was a Quaker hostess who
pressed upon me at a single meal : duck, ham, chicken, beef, pig,
tarts, creams, jellies, truffles, floating island, beer, porter, punch, and
wine."

Tea drinking likewise marked social life, and dancing occupied
the attention of the younger set. In 1740 several young men, members
of families living near Christ Church, established a dancing assembly,
which met every Tuesday during the winter. Concerts were given
from time to time.

In 1748 a group representing the more aristocratic families founded
the Philadelphia Assembly. Subscriptions sold for 40 shillings per
year. The assembly s social affairs usually lasted from 6 p. m. to mid
night, with card tables provided for those who did not dance. Refresh
ments consisted of punch and "milk bisket." The present day As
sembly Ball, held annually in the second week of December, is a
development of the original Philadelphia Assembly.

During the British occupation of Philadelphia in 1777-8, there
was a continuous round of suppers, dances, gay theatre parties, and
entertainments of all kinds. The most notable was the Mischianza,
an elaborate pageant in which British officers and Tory civilians
participated. Much of the gaiety, as far as the patriotic Philadel-
phians were concerned, was undoubtedly simulated.

After the war, Philadelphia returned to a comparative sobriety.
Isaac Weld, a French writer, commenting on the citizenry in general,
said in 1795 : "There is a coldness and reserve, as if they were sus
picious of some designs against them. This chills the very heart of
those who come to visit them." Other foreigners and visitors from
other States likewise criticised the Philadelphia attitude toward
strangers.

Sports and Amusements

the diminishing of the Quaker influence, sports and arnuse-
ments increased in scope and variety. From the earliest days,
however, such sports as riding, swimming, fishing, and skating were
countenanced even by the sedate Quaker founders. Many leaders in
the life of the growing city could be seen in those days skating on
the Delaware River.

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Sleighing, a sport that found favor with the early Colonials, has
survived. The Wissahickon Valley in winter still resounds to the
jingle of sleighbells ; while in summer the creek, once the haunt
of Indians and pioneer fishermen, is popular with anglers.

Horse racing in Philadelphia made its appearance in Colonial
times, and soon became general on the city s streets. Finally it was
stopped by law. Race Street was so named because it led directly
to the race grounds. Cockfighting was popular with the more aristo
cratic families, while bull baiting and bear baiting were patronized
by the working population.

Boxing, a sport later to hold the attention and intereist of thou
sands of Philadelphians, at first was inhospitably received. A prize
fight advertised in 1812 was stopped by constables and aldermen, but
12 years later an English pugilist was able to interest many Phila
delphians in the "manly science whereby gentlemen after a few
lessons will be enabled to chastise those who may offer violence and
protect themselves from attacks of ruffians. "

Thus, as Philadelphia acquired a more cosmopolitan population
and became correspondingly more liberal in its customs, there came
into popular favor many of today s amusements. Billiards, originally
denounced as a means of gambling, became a favorite pastime, along
with bowls, ten-pins, quoits, bullets or lawn-bowls, and shuffleboard.
Even the time-honored English game of cricket had its enthusiasts,
though they were not many. Baseball, the national game, made its
bow in Philadelphia in 1860.

A favorite game of the younger boys, still indulged in to a certain
extent, was "pecking eggs," an amusement popular at Easter time.
Any youngster s challenge, "Upper ! Upper ! Who s got an egg ?"
yelled at the top of his lungs, would be promptly answered by a con
tender. Then would ensue a session in which the boys tested the
strength of their eggs by striking them together, point to point, but
not before a careful examination of the opponent s ammunition, to
make sure that no china or guinea egg or perhaps an egg shell
cleverly filled with plaster had been surreptitiously introduced.
Whichever egg was cracked by the impact became the property of
the boy who owned the uncracked one.

Another interesting game was "plugging tops." The tops were made
of lignum vitae and fitted with long and sharp steel points. The
object of the game was to split the opponent s top while it was spin
ning on the ground by spearing it with another top.

"Shinny" or "bandy," a rudimentary form of hockey, was a sport
for the hardy. "Duck on Davy" was a game in which the players at
tempted from a distance to knock a small stone off a larger one.

OLD WAYS AND OLD TALES
Annual Celebrations

UT of a maze of recreational pursuits and customs, one has be-
a tradition not only to Philadelphians but to the entire

Nation. This is the Mummers Parade, first held on January 1, 1901.

to celebrate the arrival of the new century. It has become as integral

a part of Philadelphia s lighter life as the Mardi Gras has of that of

New Orleans.

The Mummers Parade is the outgrowth
of a custom imported from England in the
early nineteenth century. At that time,
during Christmas week and on Christmas
Eve, the streets of Philadelphia were alive
with brightly costumed groups of "mum
mers." They went from door to door, ex
plaining in rhyme the meaning of their
strange garb, and requesting donations.
The ancestor of the mummers celebration
was apparently the English saturnalia
celebration, under the direction of the
Lord of Misrule, a fantastic personage

known to the Scotch as the Abbot of Un-
Mummer

The Mummers tradition has been perpetuated by numerous clubs
organized exclusively for the New Year s Day affair. Prizes are offered
by the city and by various civic and business associations. Through
out the year the clubs work diligently upon their costumes in pre
paration for the clebration. Then, on New Years Day, the city s long.
straight thoroughfare, Broad Street, becomes a pattern of moving
color. Groups in fancy dress, with elaborate headgear and huge capes,
march over miles of paved roadway.

String bands, comic divisions, and groups which burlesque current
figures and events weave in gay abandon along the Mummers right-
of-way. At varying intervals in the procession are elaborately deco
rated floats. Along the sidewalk throng hundreds of thousands of
spectators. On New Year s Day Philadelphia s spirit is truly festive.

In recent years many Mummers have been stricken with pneumonia
because of exposure to the cold in their flimsy costumes. As a result.
a movement was started to change the time of the celebration to
spring or summer, in order to insure the comfort of spectators and
participants alike. However, the tradition of holding the parade on
New Year s Day was too strong. An exception was made during the
Democratic National Convention in 1936, when the Mummers paraded
on a hot night in June before more than 1,000,000 persons.

As the "Cradle of Liberty," Philadelphia has long cherished the

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Fourth of July as a day of celebration. One feature is a speech by
the mayor delivered at Independence Hall. There was a time when
Independence Day was marked by the incessant noise of exploding
firecrackers, with an attendant loss of life and limb. A present-day
ordinance bars this method of celebrating, except for controlled pyro
technic displays in parks and recreational centers. Philadelphians on
Independence Day now go to the banks of the Schuylkill to watch
the regatta, spend the day picnicking in the country, or motor to
resorts along New Jersey s seashore.

On July 14, the "Independence Day" of the French Republic, mem
bers of the city s French societies march to the statue of Joan of Arc
at the eastern end of Girard Avenue Bridge. Here a speech is de
livered and a wreath placed upon the statue.

May Day in Philadelphia is greeted by the usual terpsichorean dis
plays at various colleges. In bygone years it was claimed unofficially
by fish hucksters and shad fishermen as their particular holiday.
Maypoles were placed outside the taverns along the water front, and
the day was given over to dancing, drinking, and feasting. Labor s
traditional May Day celebration is observed in a mild manner by
Philadelphia workingmen, who prefer picnics and shore trips to
the standardized oratory frequently offered by old-line labor leaders.
The left-wing groups, however, assemble annually on Reyburn Plaza
in a demonstration of their strength and unity.

Fire Companies

JHILADELPHIA S earliest fire insurance companies, (the first one
- was established in 1752) formed as protecting associations for the
benefit of subscribers, offered generous rewards to encourage volunteer
fire brigades. An alarm was the signal for a race between two or
more brigades, the winner earning the right to save the building and
collect the reward. The losers waited on the sidelines, no doubt
hopeful that the flames would get beyond control, in which event
they would be called into service and share in the reward. Frequently
there were scrimmages between the companies on the way to a fire,
while in the interval, the blaze continued unchecked.

Each insurance company, using its individual device, marked the
houses under its protection with plaques placed high on an outside
wall, so that the fire brigades knew bv whom they would be rewarded.
The unfortunate householder who had neslected to subscribe might
see the apparatus race to his burning home, and then turn back when
the volunteers failed to espy a plaque.

With the formation of the city s paid fire department in 1871 these
"fire marks" no longer served any purpose, but many of them may
still be seen on the older houses, especially in the central part of

OLD WAYS AND OLD TALES

the city. These plaques depict a hydrant, a hose, or some other form
of early fire-fighting equipment.

Legends and Superstitions

PHILADELPHIA S rich heritage of folklore, the legends inherited
-*- from the many races settling in the tongue of land between the
Schuylkill and Delaware, today is preserved largely in historical an
nals. Some of the quaint beliefs, superstitions, and mythology of
the early and later settlers are still retained, but the majority have
passed like the Indian legends that preceded them.

To understand the legendary background of Philadelphia, a glance
at the racial and religious ancestry of the city is necessary. The
Quakers generally were free from superstitions, yet a few odd beliefs
that arrived with the rather somber followers of Penn are still cher
ished by their descendants. Although Philadelphia s Quaker popula-

Fire Plaques
. . and rang the
midnight fire
alarm . ."

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

tion is now comparatively small, some Friends still consider it a bad
omen to move into a new house on "Sixth Day" (Friday) .

The early Swedes who preceded the English Quakers in the Phila
delphia section had various legends and superstitions that were looked
upon with disfavor by later settlers. Descendants of the first Scandi
navians still repeat tales of phantom ships and of sailors carried away
in the night by winged devils.

Welsh Quakers who followed William Penn in his search for
religious freedom early acquired a 40,000-acre tract of land to the
west of Philadelphia. This area became known as the Welsh Barony.
Despite the fusion of other nationalities, it still retains a strong
Welsh influence. One of the richest residential sections in the United
States, this suburban territory lends a credulous ear to tales of
haunted houses, lonely roads infested with ghosts, and spirits rising
from dark graveyards.

The Welsh settlers were endowed with the native imagination of
the Celt. Descendants of those in the remoter farmlands have retained
a belief in the supernatural. Charms are supposed to provide im
munity from disease, and are sought as a means to reconcile estranged
lovers.

One of the early Welsh beliefs was that if a person suffering from
a disease were to pass between the forks of a split tree, his malady
would disappear in transit. This superstition is now in the limbo of
forgotten things. Until about 1850, settlers of Welsh ancestry also
believed that horned cattle uttered prayers upon their knees at mid
night on Christmas Eve.

Several interesting legends have clung to the city and the memories
of its inhabitants, and in a measure have become sectional traditions.
One of these centers about the old Chalkley House, or Chalkley Hall
as it is more popularly known, the residence of an old Quaker family
in what is now Frankford. The legend described a tempestuous
romance, disavowed by the Chalkley family, between one of the
Chalkley girls and a suitor who failed to win the family s approval.
The affair culminated in the suicide of the girl, who had been dis
traught over her misfortune. For many years, residents of the dis
trict declared, the wraith of the unhappy young woman hovered
about the old mansion. Even with the advent of modern skepticism
and the apparent disappearance of many ghostly traditions of the
past, there are those who believe the girl s ghost still walks in
Chalkley Hall. A local historian who had been chatting with the
watchman of a factory nearby, was whimsically assured by the latter :
"That Chalkley ghost comes around once in a while at night."

Unlike most other cities in its treatment of so-called "witches" in
the seventeenth century, Philadelphia was not inclined to place
much credence in the stories of witchcraft that were prevalent.

OLD WAYS AND OLD TALES

In 1683 Margaret Mattson and Yeshro Hendrickson were brought
before the Provincial Council, in session at Philadelphia, on charges
of witchcraft. William Penn presided at the trial. Lasse Cook, or
Cock, an early Swedish settler in the Philadelphia area, acted
as interpreter. Among the witnesses questioned was Henry Drystreet,
who swore that he had been told, twenty years before, that Margaret
Mattson was a witch and had cast spells upon several cows. A woman,
Amnaky Coolin, told of an occasion when she and her husband were
at home boiling the heart of a calf that had died. The Mattson woman
came to the house and asked what they were doing. When they told
her they were boiling flesh, she said, "You had better boil the bones."
The verdict returned was : "Guilty of the common fame of being a
witch, but not guilty in manner and form as indicated."

Since that day no official cognizance has been taken of witchcraft.
The belief may still persist that hags ride through the air on broom
sticks in Pennsylvania, but the police and courts do not interfere
unless the broomstick falls upon someone s head.

Foods

IQUID notes of the Negro oysterman s cry once trembled upon
- the chill air of old Philadelphia during the "R" months. Then,
before the echoes of his voice had died away, there came in a differ
ent key the rousing tones of a lusty Negro, calling: "Here comes de
hominy man f um wa-ay daown b low de Navy Yahd, a-comin wid
he s hom-min-ee !"

During the hot summer, as though to compensate for the absence
of these hucksters and their wares, came the ice cream man, with
his "Tr-r-r-r-ra/i, /a, la, la ! Here s lemon ice cream and vanilla, too !"
And as the trundlebarrow with its cargo of delights appeared, dozens
of children ran to meet it, equipped with cup and spoon. Welcome
also were the cantaloupe man and the strawberry woman, who sang
their songs of luscious fruits to receptive ears.

Still to be heard on the streets on a frosty morning is the
rasping cry of "Horseradish, Hor-r-r-se-radish /" accompanied by a
loud whirr, as the aged vendor grinds his condiment fresh for each
customer on a portable machine operated by a foot pedal.

Philadelphians of earlier years waited anxiously for all the deli
cacies that add the festive touch to an ordinary meal ; but in recent
years restaurants and well-stocked stores have made it easy for con
noisseurs to obtain the food specialties that "tickle their palates."
And there are many dishes of local origin or preparation for which
Philadelphia has gained wide renown.

During the "R" months, from September to April, restaurants
specializing in sea foods enjoy great popularity, and Philadelphia al-

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

ways has had many such eating places. Lack of adequate transporta
tion facilities in the old days prevented the transport of oysters and
other sea foods inland, thus limiting the fisherman s market to sea
ports and to river towns near the sea. Philadelphia thus became an
important sea-food market, and Philadelphians during the years have
retained their fondness for bivalves and shad.

Of the latter species of sea food, the Delaware shad is fast dwind
ling, and within a few years will have disappeared entirely from
the market. The first shad of the season in early spring come
from southern waters, but they do not compare in flavor with those
caught later in the Delaware.

To many there is nothing that delights the taste more than a
fine, fresh Delaware shad, nicely broiled over the coals, or planked,
properly seasoned with salt, pepper, a piece of fresh butter, a dash of
lemon juice, ornamented with sprigs of parsley, and flanked on either
side by roe broiled a delicate brown. The shad is perhaps the only
fish that has given its name to the cut of a garment the shad-belly
coat of the Quaker.

A dish long associated with Philadelphia is pepper pot, a Colonial
soup which has become so popular that large canning factories now
prepare it for export. The pepper pot of Colonial Philadelphia
originally was made in such large quantities that the community
kettle of tradition was employed. Whether or not the amount had
anything to do with the quality is a moot question, but the fact re
mains that the soup became identified exclusively with the Quaker
City. Women trundled their carts through the streets, crying, "Pepper
pot ! Old time pepper pot !" selling the product of their kitchens
from door to door.

The recipe for this spicy dish was evolved in the early days to
utilize beef tripe. It may well be imagined how stintingly the first
colonists prepared every edible part of the imported beef. Finely cut
cubes of tripe were used as the basis for this soup, with red peppers
(possibly to "cover" the flavor of the meat), onions, potatoes, and
carrots to give it body and variety. The broth was thickened with
flour and small egg-dumplings, the whole being well seasoned and
served piping hot.

The early Dutch and Swedes along the Delaware also contributed
a prominent item to the list of dishes of Philadelphia fame. These
settlers accepted many of the savory foods of the Indians as sub
stitutes for those they had left at home, and concocted many dishes
popular today. One of these delicious early foods was scrapple, which
was called pon-haus.

Scrapple is made from the liquid of boiled pig s-head mixed with
corn meal and highly seasoned, then recooked until it has acquired
the proper consistency to be sliced when cold. This is a favorite

OLD WAYS AND OLD TALES

local breakfast dish. It is fried to a crisp brown, and served with
fried or poached eggs and fried potatoes. Philadelphia leads in its
production. Though its manufacture has spread to other parts of
the country, the early Colonial recipe alone has the zest really identi
fied with scrapple. There are several meat-packing houses in the
city, specializing in pork products, which prepare great quantities
of scrapple every year. Many farmers in the eastern part of the State
make their own.

And sticky cinnamon buns! Where can they be found better, in
all their sweet "gooey" tastiness, than in Philadelphia, the city of
their origin ? Made of sweet dough, the buns are generously sprinkled
with cinnamon, currants or raisins, and sugar. The dough is spread
out upon the baking board, rolled tight, and cut into sections from
two to three inches long. The buns are baked slowly, so that the syrup
formed by the heated filling will be absorbed by the dough, while a
thin coating will be left on the outside.

Mince pie, which has become a popular dessert in many parts of
the country, is another product that early found favor in Penn s
city ; it is said that a Quaker family from England popularized mince
meat in Philadelphia in 1830.

In Philadelphia ice cream first made its appearance about 1782.
More than a half century later an ingenious Philadelphian, Eben C.
Seaman, invented an ice cream freezer operated by steam power, and
this refreshing dessert became popular the country over. Philadel
phia is now the home of the largest ice cream manufactory in
the world, and its product is widely distributed. One feature that
distinguishes the local product is the use of the powdered vanilla
bean, rather than the extract.

From the beginning, Philadelphia has cherished a full pantry
and a substantial table. That fondness for good food, and plenty of
it, has not diminished with the years.

THE IMPRINT OF NATIONS

(Population figures based on 1930 Census)

THE varied characteristics of a majority of the nationalities of
the world have blended with and balanced one another to form
the personality of Philadelphia. Although many of them have
settled in compact national communities established by compatriots
who preceded them, yet the leaven of their customs and culture has
permeated the life of the whole city.

Settlers of Colonial and Revolutionary times, emigrating chiefly
from northern and western Europe and bound in many cases by a
similarity in tongue and customs, found few obstacles to intermar
riage ; thus they merged the characteristics of their respective nations
into a homogeneous whole. Ceasing to think of themselves as Ber-
liners, Londoners, or Amsterdammers, they became Philadelphians.

The Swedes, Dutch, English, and Germans were followed by im
migrants from virtually all parts of Europe and Asia. Numerically
strongest were the Irish, Russians, Jews, and Italians. From China,
and in smaller numbers from Japan, came immigrants who are vir
tually unassimilable. Through the years there was a steady influx of
Jews, reaching its peak during the early part of the twentieth century,
many coming from Russia and Eastern Europe. A few Jews from
other regions are believed to have preceded William Penn to Phila
delphia.

The formation of special quarters by peoples not easily assimilated
the Italians, the Jews, and the Greeks gives the city a certain
cosmopolitan air. Sights and sounds of the Old World characterize
these localities. European peasant customs and folkways, surviving
the pressure or compensating for the meagerness of the new environ
ment, frequently have left an imprint on the American-born children
of immigrants.

The population of Philadelphia, according to the 1930 census, is
composed of 69 percent native white, totaling 1,359,833 ; about 19
percent foreign-born white, totaling 368,624; and 11 percent Negro,
totaling 219,599. The other groups comprise the remainder.

Closest knit of all the various nationalities and races are the
Chinese. This is due, no doubt, to the disinclination of the whites to
accept them socially, as well as to an innate desire on their part to

THE IMPRINT OF NATIONS

be left strictly alone. There are approximately 1,500 Chinese in Phila
delphia, of whom about three-fourths reside on Race Street, between
Eighth and Eleventh Streets.

Although small racial groups usually scatter over the city, the
Greeks are an exception. Numbering only 3,415, they live for the most
part in the vicinity of Tenth and Locust Streets.

Early settlers came principally to escape religious persecution.
Hence, religion occupied much of their time and thoughts. Life was
slow, earnest, and conservative ; and Philadelphia came to embody
these characteristics. Not until the later groups arrived did the tempo
of existence become accelerated.

The primary motive for later immigration was a desire for economic
betterment. To that end the later contingents directed their talents
and energies, and to them must go much of the credit for building
industrial and commercial Philadelphia. With their Continental
habits of life and un-Puritanical conception of morality, they did
much to liberalize the outmoded Blue Laws which had made the
Quaker City unique among great metropolitan centers.

Numbering 270,000 according to the 1930 American Jewish Year
Book, the Jews represent a potent force in Philadelphia life. Rep
resenting, as they do, many nations, they can hardly be regarded as
a distinct race. The fact remains, however, that though they differ

Old Market on Second
Street at Pine

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

from one another in physical characteristics, background, and home
land, they are united hy the common bond of their religion.

Jews are found in the most densely settled sections of Philadelphia,
largely in Strawberry Mansion, Logan, Wynnefield, and the area be
tween Oregon Avenue and South Street from Third Street to Eighth
Street. Other localities with a considerable Jewish population are
the section bounded by Sixth and Eighth Streets, Poplar Street and
Susquehanna Avenue ; the area around Fifty-eighth Street and Osage
Avenue ; and the neighborhood of Fortieth Street and Girard Avenue.

Little is known of the Jews in Philadelphia prior to the Revolution,
although the first Hebrew congregation, Mikveh Israel (Hope of
Israel), was established here in 1747. Many prominent Philadelphia
citizens and American patriots have been members of Mikveh Israel.
Among them were Simon Gratz, merchant prince and philanthropist ;
Isaac Moses, who subscribed three thousand pounds to the Bank of
Pennsylvania so that the Continental Army might be provisioned for
two months ; and Haym Solomon, banker and broker, who came to
the Colonies from Poland and negotiated all Revolutionary War se
curities from France and Holland on his own personal security with
out loss of a cent to America. When Solomon died in 1784, the United
States was indebted to him to the extent of $300,000. This debt, al
though acknowledged by the Federal Government, has never been
paid.

Because the laws of many European countries forbade Jews to own
land, the early Jewish immigrants had little agricultural knowledge.
In 1726 a special act was passed in Pennsylvania permitting Jews
to own land and engage in trade and commerce. This act was in
directly responsible for much of Philadelphia s industrial and com
mercial growth.

Numerous European countries had also denied cultural and edu
cational advantages to the Jews, and, because of this, their apprecia
tion of both became more acute. Since such restrictions were not
maintained by William Penn, the Jews emigrated hopefully to the
New World colony he founded.

Without the Jews, Philadelphia would still have an orchestra and
an Academy of Music, but the impetus given to the musical move
ment in this city by members of the Jewish race cannot be denied.
The Italians, too, with their passion for all forms of music, especially
the opera, share in the credit for its local development. In the ticket
lines at the Academy of Music there are always large numbers of
Italians, their faces alight with anticipation.

The Italian population in Philadelphia numbers 182,368, of which
nearly 70,000 are foreign-born. Apparently preferring the foods and
customs of their homeland, these people do not assimilate as easily
as some of the other groups, and are inclined to settle in sharply de-

100

THE IMPRINT OF NATIONS

fined districts notably South Philadelphia and, to a lesser degree,
in sections of Chestnut Hill, Mount Airy, Germantown, and West
Philadelphia.

Like the Irish, they are much interested in politics, and they
formed an integral part of the huge Vare machine which dominated
Philadelphia for a number of years. As has been the case with other
large immigrant groups, they have been imposed upon by "ward-
heelers," who attach themselves to the bewildered newcomers almost
as soon as they arrive. These small-fry politicans help them to obtain
naturalization papers, and as a result the vote of the immigrant
usually goes to his "benefactor." Naturally light-hearted, and fond of
good music, spicy food, and sour wine, this group has done much to
soften the sterner ways of earlier Quaker and German settlers.

At the top of the Italian social scale are musicians, artists, phy
sicians, jurists, and writers. Others work as barbers, vendors, and
laborers. The restaurant business has attracted them, and Philadel
phia contains a number of establishments specializing in the foods
and wines of Italy.

The vast majority being of Catholic faith, they lend color to the
city with religious festivals. Street parades in which sacred statues
are carried frequently wind through the Italian quarter. Even in
sports the Italian clings to the games of his fatherland. Bocce, a
game related to bowling, is played extensively enough to warrant
space on the sport pages of large daily newspapers, as well as in
the Italian press.

Districts densely settled by Italians are those areas between Snyder
Avenue and Bainbridge Street from Twenty-third to Seventh Streets,
and the neighborhoods near Sixty-fourth and Carleton Streets and
Fiftieth and Thompson Streets.

The German-born population in Philadelphia, numbering 37,923
in 1930, appears to assimilate easily. Intermarriage is common, and
the average German is quick to adopt many American customs and
to acquire a facile knowledge of English. The large numbers of
"German- American" clubs and organizations in the Quaker City,
however, indicate a strong attachment to the Fatherland.

The Germans flock to their 200 singing societies in the city, and
seem glad to drop American ways for an evening devoted to songs of
the Rhine country. This Teutonic love for community singing, in
deed, has done much toward the development of music, especially
of choral work, in this city. That the German in Philadelphia is
reluctant to break away completely from the Old Country, its lan
guage, customs, and viewpoint, is further evidenced by the fact that
there are two daily and two weekly newspapers printed in German.

Rigidly trained in his homeland to respect all forms of con
stituted authority, and imbued with the Teutonic ideal of "Church,

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Home, and Children," the transplanted German makes a good citi
zen. Unspectacular by nature, he goes ahead with his plans in a
determined manner which makes not for brilliant but for lasting
accomplishments.

Philadelphia crime-news seldom features German names. Home-
loving as it is, the German population has played a considerable part
in gaining for Philadelphia its reputation as a "city of homes."

A large percentage of the German-born came to this city in the
years following the Great War, when economic conditions abroad had
become intolerable. Another wave of immigration from Germany fol
lowed the advent of Adolf Hitler as Reichsfuehrer. These immigrants
included many of the Jewish faith who sought relief from laws de
priving them of citizenship and (in many instances) property rights.
This latter group contained a number of educators and scholars seek
ing a land where free expression of ideas would be tolerated. They
have added in large measure to the cultural development of Phila
delphia.

Strangely enough, the principal causes of the latest German immi
gration to Philadelphia were identical with those of the first reli
gious persecution and poverty. Warfare had torn Germany in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ; and from the Palatinate, bor
dering the Rhine, came these first immigrants. Most important among
the early Teutonic settlers was Francis Daniel Pastorius, who came to
Philadelphia in 1683 as a representative of the Frankfort Land Com
pany. With him came a group which settled that section of Philadel
phia now known as Germantown. The Teutonic love of home life is
reflected today by this part of the city, Germantown, which is noted
as one of the finer residential sections. Other German neighborhoods
are in the vicinities of Fifth Street and Girard Avenue, Eighth Street
and Lehigh Avenue, Twenty-ninth Street and Girard Avenue, and
Olney.

Spicing the melting pot with Celtic aggressiveness are the Irish,
to the number of 51,941 foreign born who keep in close contact with
the hundreds of thousands of Irish descent among the city s popu
lation. Prime factors in the military and civil work of forming the
new Nation, they are attracted by the hurly-burly of politics per
haps because the element of competition in a political fight appeals
to their traditional pugnacity, or perhaps because a successful poli-
tican must be a successful "mixer," a type to which the Gaelic sense
of humor and love of conversation are peculiarly adapted. At any
rate, the Irish have made themselves a power in shaping the political
destinies of the Quaker City. Many societies named after Ireland s
counties help immigrants to establish themselves and to keep in con
tact with friends from their native soil.

Although the majority of Irish came to Philadelphia after the great

102

THE IMPRINT OF NATIONS

potato famine in Ireland in the middle of the nineteenth century,
and during the early days of the twentieth century, a number resided
here at the time of the Revolutionary War.

The city s Polish population, totaling 30,582 foreign born, is a stabi
lizing influence. Home-loving, hard working, and unobtrusive, they
maintain in large measure the customs and language of their native
country. Nevertheless, Poles prize American citizenship, and the
great majority are either citizens or have applied for citizen s papers.
Polish immigration on a large scale began in 1870, the main reason
for its growth being political persecution in the homeland. Most
Poles are members of the Catholic Church, and in Philadelphia their
children are educated in parochial schools situated in the Polish
districts. The Polish National Church, of recent origin in Pennsyl
vania, has grown steadily as a result of the large Polish immigration
of late years.

Impetus was given to Philadelphia shipping, and to the textile and
lace industries by immigrants from England, Scotland, and Wales,
who were among the earliest groups to settle in the city. Bound close
to one another and to America by a similarity of tongue and custom,
they assimilate readily. Like the Germans, however, the English are
intensely devoted to their homeland. The Empire and the things
which it connotes seem to be forever in the foreground of their in
terest.

Of these foreign-born groups in Philadelphia, the English number
24,415, the Scots 11,313, and the Welsh 865. These groups, for the
most part scattered throughout the city, are slightly predominant in
the vicinity of Kensington.

Old Philadelphia the Quaker City of Colonial, Revolutionary,
and Civil War days was much more influenced by the habits and
viewpoint of the English than is the case today. In the early days,
those of English birth or descent were in the majority, and the names
of most of Philadelphia s leaders in the commercial and professional
fields were of Anglo-Saxon derivation. Today, although not so im
portant in industry and commerce as formerly, those of British de
scent still guard the forbidding portals of the city s "400." In the
Quaker City Social Register, admittedly one of the most select in the
country, the names are preponderantly of English origin.

Canadians, exclusive of the 636 French-Canadians living in the city,
total 3,593. So similar a^e they to Philadelphians in thought, lan
guage, and custom that they can hardly be regarded as a foreign
group. They do not reside in any particular section, nor do they flock
into particular industries or professions.

Only 2,245 Swedes live in the city. They do not support a foreign-
language paper, and are well assimilated. Descendants of the early
Swedish settlers have lost their identity in the melting pot. Little re-

103

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

mains today of Swedish influence save ancient churches, and grave
stones bearing the names of men who lived, loved, fought, and died
in another and different Philadelphia.

The 970 Danes living here are almost lost in the city s swirl of
humanity. Arriving in Philadelphia around 1890, most of them now
have become an integral part of the American scene. Virtually the
only remaining vestige of their homeland lies in their cookery, al
though there are no Danish restaurants in Philadelphia. The same is
generally true of the city s 1,309 Norwegians.

The Russian population of Philadelphia, totaling 80,959, exclusive
of Russian Jews, is a close-knit group that rarely mingles in a social
way with other groups. Most of its members today work in oil re
fineries, leather plants, cigar factories, textile mills, and steel found
ries, but rarely in executive positions.

Mass immigration from Russia did not begin until 1905. Almost all
the newcomers sought the New World to escape poverty, compulsory
military service, and religious persecution aimed mainly at Russian
Jews. Locomotive works, foundries, and shipyards provided employ
ment for most of them. For convenience sake they settled near their
workshops, first in the area between Tenth Street and the Delaware
River from Spring Garden Street to Girard Avenue. Later they in
habited the section between Point Breeze and Snyder Avenues, from
Twenty-second to Thirtieth Street.

The peak in Russian immigration was reached in 1915-17. In 1921
the vanguard of "White Russians," those loyal to the Tsarist regime,
reached Philadelphia from New York. Approximately 50 White Rus
sians are living here today, and (in contrast with the major Russian
group) virtually all are engaged in either the arts or the professions.

Because of their disinclination to mingle outside their own circles,
Russians have not become prominent in civic affairs. However, they
have aided the artistic development of Philadelphia by their patron
age of dance and music recitals.

Coming to Philadelphia in great numbers during the latter part of
the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth, Philadel
phia s 7,639 Rumanians plunged into the active life of the city and
were soon assimilated. They readily adopted American ways and the
English language, and chose to live in widely separated sections of
the city rather than segregate themselves. This Americanization has
become complete in all phases except that of cuisine, for they still
prefer the foods of their mother country. Several restaurants cater
to the Rumanian palate.

The Rumanian population tends toward the "white-collar" occu
pations, music, and the arts in general. A lesser number are laborers.
Aside from their cooking, the one link Philadelphia Rumanians
maintain with their homeland is the celebration of May 10 in com-

104

THE IMPRINT OF NATIONS

memoration of Rumania s independence. On this occasion folk
dances are featured and native dress lends color to the affair.

Although Austrians arrived in Philadelphia as early as 1712, they
were but a handful in number and scarcely influenced the city s
thought. The majority came during the latter nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. At present, 10,707 live in Philadelphia. They are
closely allied by tongue and customs to the Germans. No definite sec
tions are inhabited by them, although the early settlers lived in the
neighborhood between Fourth and Eighth Streets from Girard Ave
nue to Norris Street. Many now live in the section between Twenty-
fifth and Twenty-eighth Streets from Spring Garden to Oxford Street.

Another group which had but little effect in shaping the city s life
and traditions is the Yugoslavs, of whom there are approximately
1,394. Most of these are factory workers or, in the case of young
womein^ domestics. Yugoslavs are concentrated in numbers in the
vicinity of Twenty-fourth and Wolf Streets.

Czechoslovaks number 3,868. Many of these are Bohemians, gener
ally of fair education. Many find employment in "white-collar" posi
tions. They live mainly in the section between Spring Garden Street
and Columbia Avenue from Front to Sixth Street.

Curb Market at Ninth and Christian Streets
"The Piazza del Mercato of Philadelphia"

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Philadelphia s 7,102 Hungarians are scattered throughout the var
ious trades and professions. They mix easily, and are readily assimi
lated. Hungarian and German are spoken by them, in addition to
English. Those coming from a section near the Polish border also
speak Polish. One Hungarian newspaper is printed in Philadelphia,
with a two-page English supplement for American-born readers.

Many of Philadelphia s 3,415 Greeks seem attracted to the restau
rant business above other commercial ventures. Greek domination is
especially true of the smaller quick-lunch establishments, as devoid
of elaborate cuisine as they are of tablecloths. The bulk of the
Greeks came here between 1900 and 1910. They settled in the Rich
mond section, along Gaskill Street between South and Lombard
Streets, and in the area between Eighth and Twelfth Streets from
Locust Street to Spruce Street.

Philadelphia contains many other racial and national groups, but
these are so few in number that their effect in molding the city s
appearance, customs, and institutions have been negligible. Outstand
ing among these minority groups are the Armenians, who are de
voted mostly to the rug business, and the Belgians, who engage
mainly in the textile industry.

Negro Progress

PHE story of the Negro in Philadelphia is a repetition of the saga
*- of struggle marking his progress elsewhere. Here, however, he
found the advantages of what in early days was a comparatively sym
pathetic environment.

A few Negro slaves were owned by the earliest Dutch and Swedes ;
but when the Quakers came to found Penn s city, they looked with
disfavor upon slaveholding, and many began almost immediately to
agitate for its abolition. A State law providing for gradual emancipa
tion was enacted in 1780, just 81 years before the outbreak of the
Civil War. Those who could afford it purchased slaves for the purpose
of freeing them, and then assisted the freedmen in adjusting them
selves to their new life. Others participated in the operation of the
Underground Railroad, a system which assisted escaping slaves to
reach the North and the Canadian border.

Work of the first freedmen was limited to the domestic field, but
by 1800 they were finding employment as seamen, mechanics, car
penters, wagonsmiths, and as skilled workers of other types. Despite
racial oppression, they became home-owners, supported their own
schools, contributed to beneficial societies, and financed their own
business enterprises. A group duplicated in no other city was the
guild of caterers, which had a monopoly on the catering business and

106

THE IMPRINT OF NATIONS

was so successful that some of its members reached affluence. The
business, carried on from generation to generation, deteriorated only
after modern youth became attracted to new fields.

In 1780 Philadelphia s Negro population of about 3,000 was con
centrated in the area between Fifth and Ninth Streets from Pine to
Lombard Street. The population doubled in the next 10 years, spread
ing westward across Broad Street to form a center of Negro business
activity at Sixteenth and Seventeenth Streets, and a residential dis
trict in southwest Philadelphia. The spread took a northward trend
in 1793, when about one-fourth of the Negro population was living
between Market and Vine Streets. The trend continued northward,
until now the north central section rivals South Philadelphia as a
Negro residential center.

Today about 2,500 Negroes are employed in the government of the
city and county, drawing annual salaries totaling approximately $2,-
000,000. They include policemen, detectives, school teachers, clerks,
inspectors, chemists, draftsmen, and janitors.

The mayoralty campaign of 1880 evoked the first sign of concerted
action on the part of the city s Negro voters. Led by William Still,
Robert Purvis, and James Forten, they revolted against the Republi
can Party. The Democrats rewarded them with appointments to the
city police force. Negroes became increasingly political-minded there
after, and today their vote is recognized asi an important factor. Al
though members of the race served on the Common Council as early
as 1893, James H. Irvin, elected councilman in 1935, has been the
only Negro to sit in the new City Council.

A writer on Negro society of the nineteenth century cites the
graciousness of manner and success in entertaining of the Negro
matrons in Philadelphia. A knowledge of music was general. Musical
instruments were found in every home and an interest and appre
ciation for melody and rhythm was cultivated. Often the first music
lessons were given in a church. Still the center of social activity, the
churches have taught the fundamentals of music to talented youth.
In this manner the voice of Marian Anderson, now a marvel to music
lovers the world over, was discovered.

As early as 1820 the African Methodist Episcopal Church in this
city founded a publishing company, which still operates under the
original charter. This institution, the A.M.E. Book Concern, is situ
ated at 716 South Nineteenth Street. Near its former site on South
College Avenue stands another important Negro institution, the
Berean Church, built in the nineteenth century. The Bethel
Methodist Episcopal Church, at Sixth and Lombard Streets, was built
by Bishop Richard Allen in 1794 ; first of its denomination in the
country, the church still stands on the original site. In 1791, St.
Thomas Church, first African Protestant Episcopal Church in

107

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

America, was founded by Absalom Jones. Originally on Second Street
below Walnut, the church is now on Twelfth Street below Walnut.
Both these men were responsible, in the main, for the formation of
the first Negro religious groups in the country operating alone and
independent of the white sects.

During the decade of 1860-70, there was a decrease of 17 percent
in the Negro population of Philadelphia. Following the Civil War
and emancipation, great hopes were entertained by Negroes for the
rapid cultural and social advancement of their race. Nowhere was
there a more fertile field than Philadelphia, seat of Quakerism in
the United States. A growing spirit of liberalism toward the Negro
was manifested here, many being disposed to grant him a chance to
make his way in the world. Slowly but surely, petty hindrances were
brushed away and the shackles of racial prejudice loosened. The
Negro population increased by degrees, starting in 1870. In the fol
lowing decade the increase amounted to 43.13 percent.

When the influx began, "old Philadelphians" -- Negroes that had
been serving aristocratic Philadelphia families for years regarded
the newcomers with disfavor, partly because Northern Negroes were
better educated and their standard of living was much higher. This
created among Negroes a class-consciousness that still exists.

Poor housing facilities and the rigorous Northern climate took its
toll of these migrants. Census returns in 1880, erroneous in
figures, seemed to indicate the race was dying out. But such was not
the case. The death rate, 32.5 per 1,000 for the period from 1830 to
1840, remained at approximately the same level, 31.25 per 1,000 for
the years 1884-90. Strong constitutions, improved living conditions,
and better educational and medical facilities reduced the death rate
to 24.42 per 1,000 by 1937.

Negro workers were hard hit during the depression that followed
the Wall Street crash in 1929, and the busineste and professional men
depending upon them for success suffered in their turn. Those in the
medical field were affected with especial severity. Negro doctors, de
pendent almost entirely upon their own people for patronage, found
thousands of these patrons unemployed and without funds. Both
white and Negro workers discovered during this period the common
bond of their economic status, and Negroes now form part of the
membership of labor unions, in addition to their own many fraternal
and social organizations.

Numerous social agencies are devoted to the interests of the race
in the city, the principal one being the Armstrong Association, a
member of the Welfare Federation. The city s Negro newspapers are
the Tribune, established in 1884, and the Independent, founded in
1930.

108

GOVERNMENTAL MACHINERY

FAR exceeding even the optimistic hopes of William Penn, Phila
delphia grew in area aind governmental jurisdiction until the
boundaries of the city coincided with those of Philadelphia
County. This was accomplished by the absorption of many small
towns that even as late as the middle of the nineteenth century were
suburbs of the city.

Francisville, Belmont, Kensington, Northern Liberties, Richmond,
Southwark, Penn, Manayunk, Bridesburg, Roxborough, Lower Dub
lin, Crescentville, Fish Town, Morrisville, Holmesburg, Haddington,
Spring Garden, Blockley, Byberry, Delaware, Fox Chase, German-
towin, Frankford, White Hall, Mount Airy, Franklinville, Mechanics-
ville, Hestonville, Kingsessing, Moreland, Moyamensing, Oxford,
Tacony, Aramingo, Coopersville, Feltonville, Hollinsville, Chestnut
Hill, Eastwick, Overbrook, Wynnewood, Oak Lane, Ogontz and Har-
rowgate all of these villages and towns, together with Penn s origi
nal Philadelphia, compose the city of today.

Nevertheless, a legal fiction persists in treating county and city as
separate entities, causing a somewhat complicated dual legislative
and executive machine. For several years action has been proposed
to consolidate the two coextensive governments, in order to simplify
the set-up and to cut down expenditures.

Prior to February 2, 1854, when the Act of Consolidation went into
effect, Philadelphia proper was bounded by South Street, Vine Street,
the Schuylkill, and the Delaware. With the passage of the act, the
boundaries of Philadelphia were fixed virtually as they are today.
A part of Cheltenham Township, in Montgomery County, however,
was annexed in 1916.

The principal law uinder which the present city government oper
ates is the act of June 25, 1919, with a number of amendments,
popularly known as the City Charter. Philadelphia has the "mayor
and council" form of government. The Mayor, who is one of 73
officials elected by the voters of the city at large, is the chief execu
tive, chosen for a term of four years. It is his duty to enforce the
ordinances enacted by the 22 members of the City Council, elected
by voters in the eight Councilmanic Districts (coinciding with State
Senatorial Districts) into which Philadelphia is divided. In all, some
6,400 officials are elected in the various districts and wards.

109

City Hall Tower

where Penrt stands watchfuJ

guard o er his city"

GOVERNMENTAL MACHINERY

Under the Mayor are his thirteen assisting executive departments :
Public Safety; Public Works; Public Welfare; Public Health;
Wharves, Docks and Ferries; City Transit; City Treasurer; City Con
troller; Law (City Solicitor) ; Civil Service Commission; Receiver of
Taxes; Supplies and Purchases; and City Architecture. The City
Treasurer, City Controller, and Receiver of Taxes are elected for
terms of four years.

The Director of Public Safety is the central head of the Police,
Fire, Electrical, Maintenance and Repairs, Building Inspection, Ele
vator Inspection, and Steam Engine and Boiler Inspection Bureaus.
Bureaus under the Department of Public Works include : City
Property, Lighting and Gas, Water, Highways, Street Cleaning, and
the combined department of Engineering, Zoning, and Surveys. The
Department of Public Welfare directs the Bureaus of Charities and
Correction, Personal Assistance, and Recreation.

Several other agencies function along specialized lines. They are
the Sinking Fund Commission, Registration Commission, Gas Com
mission, Board of Pensions, Art Jury, Zoning Commission, and the
Commission on City Planning.

The Commissioners of Fairmount Park, appointed by the Court of
Common Pleas, have charge not only of Fairmount Park, but also of
25 small parks and squares, the Parkway, and Roosevelt Boule
vard. This branch of the city government is virtually autonomous.
It maintains the park guards a special police force which is en
tirely independent of the Municipal Bureau of Police.

The Free Library system and the museums of the city are con
trolled by special boards of trustees.

In addition to the Magistrates Courts, which are not tribunals of
record, there are four trial courts : Common Pleas, Quarter Sessions
of the Peace, Orphan s Court, and the Municipal Court. The Court of
Oyer and Terminer and General Jail Delivery hears only murder
trials.

The division of governmental authority between city and county
is not distinct, some of the principal officers receiving dual salaries
for similar duties in city and county governments. The City Treasurer
is the County Treasurer ; the City Controller is County Controller ;
the City Commissioners serve also as County Commissioners. This
quality exists likewise with the Corner, District Attorney, Clerk of
Quarter Sessions, Prothonotary, Register of Wills, and Recorder of
Deeds.

Public education in Philadelphia is conducted under supervision
of the Board of Public Education, the 15 members of which are ap
pointed by a board of judges of the Common Pleas Court for over
lapping terms of six years.

Ill

HUB OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY

PHILADELPHIA was born into a world still in the handicraft
stage of economic development ; the home was no less the pro
ducing than the consuming center of economic life in that slow-
moving, candle-lit period when the prime motive force was the energy
of man and beast. For many the basis of living was a subsistence
standard in the narrowest meaning of the term; for a few there were
some luxuries, but such luxuries as today s Philadelphia worker would
deem commonplace.

The early settlement was on the fringe of the frontier. Its economy
was a pioneer economy in large part, a basic struggle for the bare
necessities of existence. With the passing years, Philadelphia has at
tained maturity in a world where the economics of plentitude have re
placed the pioneer economy a machine world in which the stand
ard of living of the prosperous is so high that it would have astonished
the founding fathers. Despite the productivity of the machine, how
ever, many Philadelphians today live under conditions which are only
a slight improvement over those existing in the days of the pioneers.

In Penn s time industry in the town was centered mainly in the
home. Women and children carded, spun, and wove wool for cloth
ing ; they also produced knitted wear and made articles of leather
and fur. Iron was melted and wrought, bricks were pressed in hand-
operated molds, and stone was quarried by the men according to
their individual needs.

Today Philadelphia is an industrial city. Thousands of factories
meet the diversified needs of a technological civilization, and a
modern transportation system distributes to every quarter of the world
the commodities made here. It is a great and growing port through
which flow the products and resources of a teeming hinterland :
bituminous coal and anthracite, iront, steel, and other mineral prod
ucts, together with the harvests of forest and farm the diversified
output of a giant and highly creative national industry. Great munic
ipal piers for coastwise and transocean shipping, belt line and ele
vated-subway transportation systems, spacious manufacturing and
storage plants, and a river alive with traffic attest the city s share in
the forward thrust of America.

The city s economic destiny was determined by its location and by
the industrious character of its people. It possessed the potentialities

112

HUB OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY

of a manufacturing center and a port easily accessible from the sea,
with harborage on a deep and wide river. The neighboring region
was rich in timber, minerals, water power, and arable land. Being
close to the sea, it had the assurance of a constant labor supply in
the steady stream of immigration from the Old World. These natural
advantages are today supplemented by the presence in the city of a
large supply of skilled labor, and the fact that the city itself furnishes
an excellent home market for the products of the industrial plants,
more than 2 billion dollars being expended annually in the whole
sale and retail marts of business.

Philadelphia s first important industry, the manufacture of textiles,
has remained its greatest. Its mills, the majority of which are in the
Kensington and Frankford sections, produce 5 percent of the Nation s
output in textiles. This industry originated with the German settlers,
whose families produced woolen hose on home-made wooden frames,
the product being sold for the equivalent of a dollar a pair. In
another phase of textile manufacture, the making of rugs and car
pets, the city was a pioneer. The first woven carpet produced
in the New World was made in Philadelphia in 1775, and by 1845
the industry had attained considerable magnitude and prosperity.
The manufacture of knitted and hooked rugs, from strips of cloth
torn off wornout garments, began with the city s founding.

The textile industry s 92,573 workers now maintain an average an
nual production with a value exceeding a quarter billion dollars.
A great diversity of items is represented, such as clothing, lace, blan
kets and robes, flags and banners, print goods, tents and awnings,
cordage, burlap and jute bagging, knitted goods, hats, uniforms,
braids, tapes, and bindings.

The manufacture of hats, a specialized branch of textile making,
had Colonial roots in Germantown. The high-crowned Germantown
beaver hat, hand-felted and hand-blocked, adorned the head of many
a Colonial aristocrat and was worn and admired even beyond the
Alleghenies. Today another Philadelphia-made hat, the Stetson,

is so widely known that it
trade name has become a
vernacular synonym for a
man s headgear. The fac
tory in which it is made,
in normal times, provides
employment for 5,460 men
and women and occupies
a floor area of 25 acres.
Multifold are the beavers,
otters, muskrats, Belgian

Hosiery Worker
a maker of silken sheaths"

113

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

hares, Scottish rabbits, and South American nutria whose fur comes
to commercial use in this establishment.

Closely related to textile manufactures is the leather industry. Its
expansion in Philadelphia has been stimulated by a plentiful supply
of water soft enough to be used in tanning and a climate favorable
to the proper processing of leather. Philadelphia-made shoes are in
many places deemed a superior product, owing doubtless to local
manufacturers concentration on a higher quality of footwear.

In the preparation of glazed kid the city excels. It was a Phila-
delphian, Robert H. Foerderer, who perfected the first American
process for making that type of leather which previously had been
imported. As a consequence of its predominance in the leather in
dustry, the city has become one of the Nation s leading markets for
hides and peltries.

Although the city takes a large proportion of the country s pro
duction of hides, few of them are from animals slaughtered in Phila
delphia. Its supply of meat and other products comes mainly from
the packing houses of the Middle West and the Southwest. There was
a time when the central city was dotted with abattoirs. Now, however,
excepting two large slaughterhouses on Gray s Ferry Avenue, and one
at Third Street and Girard Avenue, all are far from the city center.

The production of other articles of food is a highly diversified and
widely scattered industry. Eight hundred and seventy-six firms are
engaged in it, with an average annual production exceeding $200,-
000,000 in value. Philadelphia scrapple and Philadelphia-made ice
cream are two specialties that have a wide sale within the radius fixed
by their perishable nature.

In the refining of sugar Philadelphia is second in the world. The
first sugar refinery in the United States, established on Vine Street
above Third in 1783, functioned for more than a century. Today
there are three great refineries in the city, giving employment to about
2,477 persons.

From its earliest days, Philadelphia has produced liquors and malt
beverages. The early colonists made sassafras beer, persimmon brandy,
and small beer from Indian maize. As the city expanded, brewhouses
and distilleries were established. Like the public houses, they were
confined to the water front, but their products had a wide distribu
tion. The early brewhouses and distilleries were the beginning of an
important industry, and although the largest distillery is near the
Delaware in South Philadelphia, many large plants have located on
the outskirts or in the suburbs. After the period of "hibernation"
enforced by the Eighteenth Amendment, the industry here prospered
again.

The tobacco trade is also important on Philadelphia s commercial
horizon. Cigars are the chief output of the city s 59 tobacco factories.

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HUB OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY

Snuff manufacture, of major importance in the nineteenth century,
has declined in recent years.

A once important Philadelphia industry, the manufacture of cook
ing and heating stoves, has been curtailed. These stoves were turned
out in great numbers for two centuries. In Colonial days the stoves
were small "foot" models, taken along to the unheated churches of
the time. Later, the Franklin and the so-called "cannon" types were
Philadelphia specialties. The market was greatly reduced by the rise
of oil and gas stoves for cooking, and of hot-air furnaces, hot water,
steam, and vapor boilers, and oil-burning devices for heating. The
former importance of this industry may readily be judged by the
fact, that, even under these conditions, the city still produces more
than $3,000,000 worth of stoves and furnaces annually.

Another Philadelphia industry that has languished is the carriage-
building trade. It began humbly in a wheelwright s shop on Market
Street near the water front, a few years before the Revolution. By
the middle of the following century it had progressed to such extent
that the local carriage makers and coach builders were capable of
competing with and in some instances surpassing the craftsmen of
Europe. In an age when the world of fashion drove behind spanking
teams to its gaslit soirees, a barouche or a landau was the moving
symbol of sound social position, and the task of supplying the ve
hicles was one of no little importance.

Carriages gave way before the relentless advance of the internal
combustion engine, and the carriage builders turned to other pursuits.
One branch of the industry still remains in the city, the manufacture
of baby carriages a vehicle conceived in the fertile mind of a
Philadelphia carriage maker in 1831. They were first produced as
miniature coaches for the children of the wealthy, but time has so
democratized them that they have become an embarrassment to male
parents the country over.

The city shares also in the automotive industry. The J. G. Brill
Company, the world s largest maker of city transit equipment, and
pioneer in the development of traction equipment from early horse-
car days, is situated here. Another Philadelphia concern, the Budd
Company, has built many of the modern light-weight streamlined
trains which are revitalizing American railroad transport. It was
here that the Burlington Zephyr, among the first of the streamlined
trains, was designed and constructed.

An outstanding achievement of the Budd Company in 1937 was
the completion of the first "desert dreadnought," a huge, light-weight,
stainless steel bus trailer designed especially for passenger service in
the Syrian desert. Styled for speed and built on principles similar to

115

Midvale Steel Workers
"Breaking up the Final"

HUB OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY

those employed in the stainless steel streamlined railroad coaches
produced by the same company, the bus has succeeded in cutting ex
isting schedules more than a third.

It was built for the Nairn Transport Company, Ltd., and delivered
to that company at Beirut. Because the length of the vehicle 57
feet, 6 inches was too great to permit turning of ordinary corners,
it was necessary for the company to make advance studies of the road
to New York and lay out special routes to get it through city streets.
The trailer, drawn by a 150-horsepower Diesel tractor, is an air-
conditioned sleeper with upper and lower berths. It was designed to
make the 600-mile run between Damascus and Baghdad in 15 hours.

Philadelphia has also made an important contribution to steam rail
transport through the Baldwin Locomotive Works which operated
for many years 011 Broad Street at Spring Garden, but was later re
moved to Eddystone, south of the city in Delaware County. The first
Baldwin locomotive, Old Ironsides, was built in Philadelphia in
1832, in the shops of Matthias Baldwin and David H. Mason, at
Fourth and Walnut Streets. It was dubbed the "fair weather engine,"
because its weight of only five tons was not sufficient to give it trac
tion on rails made slippery by rain. It puffed along valiantly on fair
days, but during bad weather horses replaced it. From that uncer
tain beginning the Baldwin production has grown, until today its
locomotives traverse the rails of almost every nation.

In shipbuilding, likewise, Philadelphia has figured largely. The vast
Cramps shipyard on the Delaware, until its closing in recent years,
was the birthplace of fine vessels from the days of the sail to those
of the turbine. Many of the country s war-craft were built in that
yard, and some of the world s renowned pleasure craft took shape
upon its way among them Jay Gould s famed yacht Atalanta. Phila
delphia was also the home of the first propeller steamer built in the
United States. This steamer, the Princeton, was constructed at the
Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1843. Two years earlier, the Mississippi,
in which Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry sailed to Japan where
he negotiated a treaty opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate
to United States commerce, was built here.

As it has contributed to speedier transportation, so has the city
had a part in improving the world s means of communication. Two
of its prominent manufacturing plants were pioneers in the radio in
dustry, and some of the improvements which have given the air a
voice had their origin in Philadelphia laboratories. In the related
field of electrical equipment, the city has shared honors with Pitts
burgh and Schenectady.

The manufacture of iron and its alloys is now concentrated around
the sources of raw materials the coal and iron mines west of the

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Alleghenies. In Colonial days, however, Philadelphia was the leading
iron producer of the Nation, and today it maintains a prominent
position in the manufacture of light steel and non-ferrous products.
Especially is the city a factor in the production of edged tools es
sential to high-speed machine manufacturing. Toolmaking in the
city had an early beginning, the first saw in America having been
forged in Philadelphia before the Revolution. Today the variety of
tools produced is limited only by the requirements of the market.
From the molten metal there eventually emerge machetes to cut the
cane of Cuba, knives to behead the pineapple plants of Hawaii, and
a great variety of cutting tools for the lathes, shapers, and planers
of American industry.

In two other industries that are factors in modern life, the pro
duction of paper and printing, Philadelphia ranks among the first
flight cities. Its 45 paper factories turn out products ranging from
paper towels and railroad ticket stock to the finest bond and linen
papers. The city s first paper mill was erected about 1693. Its nat
ural corollary, the printing press, soon followed. In the United
States today, only New York exceeds Philadelphia in the volume and
variety of periodicals and commercial matter produced by its publish
ing houses and printing shops. In the allied fields of bookbinding,
engraving, and lithography the city has many establishments.

In still another modern industry, the making of chemicals, Phila
delphia claims a "first." From the Colonial retorts of Christopher
and Charles Marshall emerged in 1793 probably the first American-
made sulphuric acid. John Harrison, a pioneer in the manufacture
of nitric acid, is also credited with having produced sulphuric acid
at that time.

In 1789 Samuel Wetherill and his son Samuel, Jr.. began the pro
duction of white lead, the first to be manufactured in the United
States. In 1804 they erected a white lead factory. Prior to the death
of Christopher Marshall, in 1797, the Marshall laboratory also was
producing white lead regularly. Some years later this firm was making
ether in commercial quantities; in the 1830 s it added quinine and
strychnine to its catalog. The Marshall laboratory is dwarfed in
size now by many Philadelphia chemical plants, in which are pro
duced a diversity of reagents and pharmaceuticals.

In 1839 a Philadelphian discovered that by using superheated
sulphur instead of nitric acid, he could harden India rubber and
still preserve its pliancy. The experimenter was Charles Goodyear.
Aided by his brother-in-law, William De Forrest, and exhausting the
financial resources of his entire family over a period of five years,
Goodyear in 1844 perfected a vulcanizing process that is now fol
lowed in the rubber industry throughout the world, but he lost his
patents for France and England.

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HUB OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY

In 1844 Samuel S. White, then only 22 years of age, embarked in
the artificial-tooth manufacturing business at what was then 116 North
Seventh Street, using his attic for a "factory" and a downstairs room
for a "store." Up to that time, dentists carved crude teeth from blocks
of porcelain wretched imitations of nature s handiwork. Young
White strove to make his dental work resemble the original as nearly
as possible. His success was accelerated by the accidental discovery
of feldspar as a base for porcelain, and within a short time he and
two assistants were forced to seek larger quarters. Today there are a
half hundred dentistry laboratories in Philadelphia, turning out ap
proximately 83,000,000 artificial teeth every year.

An interesting sidelight on the history of Philadelphia s industrial
development is afforded by the "Keely Motor Hoax," perpetrated by
John W. Keely on credulous investors during the latter part of the
nineteenth century. About 1872, Keely, who had a laboratory at 1422
North Twentieth Street, invited scientists to watch him demonstrate a
machine which he asserted was motivated by a new and hitherto un
known force. By using a system of concealed rubber bulbs and tube*
and employing compressed air as his power, Keely set a water motor
in operation, the trick being executed so cleverly that it defied even
the scientific scrutiny of the day.

Public interest and excitement was aroused, and before long a
corporation was formed with $5,000,000 capital. The "invention"
failed to show practical results during ensuing years, and interest in
it died out. Meanwhile Keely had spent his money lavisbly ; he was
at the end of his resources when a rich Philadelphia widow came
to his assistance with $100,000.

In 1895, suspecting that she had been swindled, the widow ap
pealed to Addison B. Burk, president of the Spring Garden Institute,
and E. Alexander Scott, of the Engineers Club. These two investigated
and found there was not the slightest evidence that Keely had dis
covered or developed a new force. Other investigators, searching the
laboratory at a later date, unearthed the hidden attachments of
Keely s "force-producing" machine. By that time, however, Keely was
in his grave.

Imports and Exports

A S DEFINED for customs purposes, the port of Philadelphia is
^~*- 88 nautical miles (about 101 statute miles) from the sea. The
total water frontage is 37 miles, of which 20 are along the Delaware
and 17 on the Schuylkill. Main activities are centered on approxi
mately six miles of the Delaware, extending from Greenwich piers,
three miles south of Market Street, to Port Richmond, about the same
distance north of Market. There are 267 wharves of various sizes, in-

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

eluding 84 individual sections of improved bulk-head. Rail service
extending along Delaware Avenue, which parallels the river, has
direct touch with all piers.

The port of Philadelphia had a shipping business of 32,378,567
tons in 1935, with an aggregate value of $958,491,268. All previous
high records in tonnage and value were shattered by those totals.
The principal raw and manufactured materials handled at the piers
were anthracite, bituminous coal, sugar, chemicals, fruits, molasses,
crude drugs, textiles, lumber, iron and steel, automobile parts, general
merchandise, and petroleum and its products. Among these classifica
tions, crude petroleum and petroleum products led by a wide margin.

By 1936 shippers in the foreign and domestic trades were showing
even greater interest in the Philadelphia port. During that year cus
tom receipts increased more than $4,000,000, the total estimated
receipts amounting to $24,105,718 as compared with $28,574,914 for
1935.

Traffic on the Schuylkill, an important arm of the Philadelphia
harbor, increased from 9,268,828 tons, with a value of $103,396,308,
in 1934, to 10,066,667 tons, with a value of $116,047,297, in 1935. The
bulk of the Schuylkill commerce is coastwise, and consequently does
not come under either the export or import classification.

Since the first ships began plying between the Old World and the
New, Philadelphia has been a center of maritime activity. The early
colonization days saw 7 Philadelphia elevated to a leading role in com
merce and trade. Since then the city has kept well up among the
shipping ports of the United States. In his charter, William Penn
designated Philadelphia as the port and harbor of Pennsylvania, em
powering the mayor, aldermen, and councilmen to erect quays and
wharves to accommodate trade.

During the period preceding the Revolution, English statesmen saw
in the Colonies an opportunity to expand the manufacturing and
commercial marts of the King. In attempting to create a huge nation
of agriculturists, Parliament offered bounties to the colonists for the
exportation of agricultural products. What little was manufactured
was shipped to England in English ships as raw material, to be re
turned to the Colonies in the form of finished products.

Thus the colonists were forced to till the soil for their livelihood.
Their products were used first for their own maintenance, and second
as a means of procuring money with which to meet their needs. As
a last resort, to break the English stranglehold on American com
merce, the Colonies banded together and refused either to purchase
British goods or to export tobacco to the British Isles.

At the close of the Revolution, Philadelphia was far from pros
perous. Its commerce was virtually ruined, and its manufacturers were
forced to encounter disastrous competition from! imported goods.

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HUB OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY

The collection of debts, suspended during the war, was again taken
up. Court dockets were filled with suits, while goods flooded the
market because of greatly reduced buying power.

When the Constitution went into effect, however, provisions were
made for a custom house, commercial treaties, and duties on imports.
With the revival of commerce it became necessary to increase the
facilities of the port. Stephen Girard led the drive for much-needed
improvements. Until his death Girard was a leading figure in the
advancement of the port, and his will set aside a large sum of money
to continue the work.

In the early years foodstuffs, as well as manufactured goods, were
imported by the Colony. When European crops became acclimated
and native crops developed, imports of foodstuffs grew smaller. Im
plements and tools as well as various manufactured articles, however,
were regularly purchased abroad during the entire Colonial period.

The greater part of the imports from the mother country in 1721
was woolen manufactures, with wrought iron and nails next in im
portance. The others, in the order of their importance, were silk,
leather goods, linen and sailcloths, cordage, pewter, lead and shot,
brass and wrought copper, gunpowder, iron, hemp, and wrought silk.

The colonists early discovered that they could produce more than
they could sell to England. Therefore they engaged in a surreptitious
commerce, chiefly with the West Indies, exporting lumber of all sorts,
fish, beef, pork, butter, horses, cattle, poultry, tobacco, corn, flour,
cider, and even small vessels. This trade, however, was almost entirely
ruined through the rigorous enforcement by Britain of the laws
against smuggling, and the collection of duties in hard money.

The value of foreign trade, which was not quite $4,000,000 in 179L
had risen to more than $17,000,000 in 1796. The chief factor in this
large increase was the life-and-death struggle between France and
England, which began in 1793 and continued with few intermissions
until Napoleon s fall in 1815. The superior naval forces of England
gave her control of the seas, so that her enemies were compelled to
depend upon neutrals to handle their trade. Because the United
States was well situated in relation to the West Indies, and because
it had long before established connection with them, it naturally had
a large part of trade. Philadelphia s trade, however, was not confined
to the West Indies, but extended to the Orient and to a majority of
the ports of the world.

There was a general decline in American commerce during the
War of 1812, and Philadelphia particularly was affected by the de
creased tonnage. With the end of the war, and the realignment of
national interests throughout the world, new commercial and ship
ping trends developed. European nations, their energy no longer
dissipated by war, turned their attention to the protection of their

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ULULfe

Old Ships and New
"the derelicts of seven seas

manufacturing interests and the development of their commerce.
With the general increase in European sailings, Philadelphia s ship
ping virtually came to an end. Some exports continued, however,
and records indicate that grain, flour, iron utensils, flaxseed, soap
and candles, lumber, pork, and beef left the port in Philadelphia
bottoms.

By 1854 the exports had risen to a little more than $10,000,000,
with imports close to $22,000,000. At this time preparations for the
Crimean War occupied the attention of England, France, Italy, and
Russia ; consequently, the United States, and Philadelphia in par
ticular, obtained an increased share of the carrying trade, which ac
counts for the sudden rise in the value of exports.

Exports and imports increased through many fluctuations from

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HUB OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY

1861 to 1900, the former increasing to $81,145,966. The imports
doubled, climbing to a total of $49,191,003. From 1860 to 1875 there
were only three years in which the balance of trade was unfavorable.

The year 1900 was notable in two respects. First, it set a new high
mark for total exports ; and second, it established a new top not only
in the exportation of manufactured goods but also in the importation
of raw materials.

From 1860 to 1900 the outstanding developments of the export
trade centered in the increasing importance of agriculture, the grow
ing value of minerals, and the rise in volume of manufactured goods.
Of the chief agricultural exports, only cotton showed a decrease in
relative importance. Among the breadstuffs exported, wheat was first.
The substitution of rollers for millstones in flour-making resulted in
a sizable gain in the export of wheat. Also, instead of most of the
wheat going out in the form of grain, as in 1860, more than half
the export wheat, by value, in 1900, left the port as flour. Toward
the close of the period, exports of livestock, mainly beef cattle, were
valued at nearly $3,000,000.

The chief change in the import trade during the period from 1860
to 1900 was a decline in volume of manufactured goods. In 1860,
these articles made up almost half the total value, but by 1900 thev
had declined to slightly more than one third. Wool and cotton ex
ports made little advance over 1860, but silk showed a decided in
crease.

In 1915 the total of the foreign trade combined exports and im
portsat the port of Philadelphia reached $201,911,539. The total
steadily increased until 1920, when the impressive figures of $733,-
201,047 were achieved. The sharp upturn was due to the abnormal
activity induced by the World War.

For the period of 1901-17 inclusive, exports reached a yearly
average of $119,924,514 ; while from 1918 to 1924, the average was
$181,817,267, despite the fact that a slowing down in the demand for
our products followed in the wake of the war. This latter tendency
continued until 1932, when bottom was touched at $42,461,145. The
demand improved in 1933 and increased further in 1934, the exports
for these two years being valued at $48,742,253 and $57,774,738.
respectively.

The important exports in the year 1919 were food products, non-
metallic minerals, metals, and manufactures. Probably the outstand
ing feature in the heavy outgo was the remarkable increase shown
in the value of manufactured goods, which had a combined worth
in excess of $80,000,000. During the war, and for about a year after,
the exportation of foodstuffs was heavy. There was a sharp drop in
this classification in 1920.

While a marked increase was shown in 1933 and 1934 in Phila-

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

delphia s exports to South America, Canada, Asia, Union of South
Africa, and New Zealand, the bulk went to Europe. Generally, the
best customers were France, Great Britain, Japan, Germany, Belgium,
the Netherlands, and Brazil.

Among the ports of the country, Philadelphia ranked fifth in
exports in 1910, with 4.2 percent. In 1914 it was fifth with 2.7 percent.
It became fourth in 1920, with 5.3 percent, dropping to eighth place
in 1933, with 2.9 per cent. In 1934 it was still eighth, with 2.6 percent.

There was a notable increase in the import trade in the 1901-1934
period, with the yearly average from 1901 to 1917, inclusive, reach
ing $76,125,989. A much larger increase was reported for the years
from 1918 to 1924, when the average jumped to $171,351,091. The
peak year was 1920, with a total of $282,157,831. But from that time
there was a decline to a low level of $89,780,480 in 1932, undoubtedly
traceable to the depression which followed the Wall Street crash of
1929.

There were upturns in the dollar value of imports in both 1933
and 1934, the aggregate climbing to $103,468,886 in the former year
and $111,056,443 in 1934. In the present century up to 1934, the port
of Philadelphia ranked third in imports in 1910, 1914, 1920, 1933
and second in 1934, with the percentages, respectively, of 2.6, 5.9, 5.3,
6.2, and 6.0.

The port s foreign shipping, impressive as it is, represents only
about one sixth of the tonnage carried by the ships which ply the
river, the rest of the river traffic being devoted to coastwise, inter-
coastal and local shipping.

Agriculture

DESPITE real estate development, Philadelphia has approximately
13,889 acres of farmland within the city limits. The majority
of these farms (the 1935 farm census listed 286) are devoted to the
cultivation of truck crops. Many are owned by institutions; other
represent country estates and private greenhouses. Some livestock
is raised. The size of the farm holdings is not large enough to make
power farming economical.

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CRADLE OF AMERICAN FINANCE

ON A WARM spring day in 1754, four men sat around a table
in William Bradford s Coffee House, sometimes called the Old
London Coffee House, at the southwest corner of Front and
High (now Market) Streets, Philadelphia. They were Robert Morris,
Thomas Willing, Tench Francis, and Archibald McCall.

This was the opening day of Bradford s tavern and merchants ex
change. As the four drank their ale and occasionally glanced out the
window at the craft upon the Delaware River, they were figuratively
rocking the cradle of a giant the cradle of American finance. They
were launching a fiscal system that was destined not only to finance
America s first four wars, but to rear the foundation for that colossal
structure which is American finance today.

Second only to that of gunpowder was the part played by finance
in molding the American Colonies into a Nation. Philadelphia, in
the lean days when independence was at stake, had the only fiscal
structure that wag equal to the need. For the existence of this struc
ture, the city and the Nation were indebted to a man who was to
climax a glamorous financial and political career in a debtors prison.
That man was Robert Morris.

Born in Liverpool, England, Morris came to America at an early
age. He was in his teens when he entered the counting house of
Charles Willing (a name perpetuated in Willing s Alley, the city s old
financial district), and only 21 when he helped found Philadelphia s
first stock exchange in 1754. Immortalized as the father of American
banking, Morris not only was the foremost financier of the Revolu
tion, but helped to establish a mint and to found America s first
banks the Bank of Pennsylvania and the Bank of North America
in Philadelphia. Thomas Willing became the first president of the
latter institution, serving for 10 years. He also headed the first Bank
of the United States for the first 17 of its 20 years existence.

It was largely through the leadership of a handful of its citizens
that Philadelphia became the Nation s principal money center. As
early as 1752 it had become the home of the first insurance company,
although a limited amount of underwriting had been done even
earlier. It maintained that leadership through succeeding decades,
by the establishment of the first bank, the first United States Mint,
the first saving fund society, the first building and loan society, and
one of the first trust companies.

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

On such firm ground were they built that many of these original
companies are still functioning, among them the Pennsylvania Com
pany for Insurances on Lives and Granting Annuities, the Philadel
phia Saving Fund Society, and the Philadelphia Contributionship for
Insuring Houses from Loss by Fire.

More institutions of a fiduciary character were established within
Philadelphia s borders in its early history than in any other American
city. The scope and ramifications of many of the financial projects
begun in this city more than a century ago have reached world wide
proportions. Philadelphia today has more century-old companies than
any other American municipality.

The record of the first century of America s financial development
may be traced in the careers of three Philadelphia bankers and be
hind that record lie the triumphs and the tragedies of their lives.
Financial giants and chief supporters of the American wars of their
times, Robert Morris, Stephen Girard, and Jay Cooke all knew not
only the pinnacles of success but also the depths of sorrow and defeat.

Girard s sufferings were personal. His business life unmarred, he
nevertheless knew the handicap of semi-blindness, suffered the loss of
his only child, and saw his wife committed to a hospital for the in
sane. Morris and Cooke found their sorrows in financial failure. De
serted by many of those whose admiration they had won while
scaling the heights, one Morris, went to debtors prison with obliga
tions estimated at $3,000,000, and the other, Cooke, saw the collapse
of his financial empire precipitate the panic of 1873.

The seed from which the stock exchange movement grew was sown
by Mayor James Hamilton on October 17, 1746, when he proposed
that 150 be used to erect an exchange or public building for the
purpose of barter. Willing, Morris, Francis, and McCall undertook
its active promotion in 1753. The London Coffee House was opened
in the following year by William Bradford, the printer, as "a licensed
place to which will come and be centered the news from all parts of
the world, an exchange upon which our merchants may walk, and a
place of resort where our chief citizens of every department of life
can meet and converse upon subjects which concern City and State."
A considerable traffic gradually grew in bills of exchange, promissory
notes, and early forms of negotiable capital. Members of the exchange
were known as merchants and traders.

During the Revolution the coffeehouse was closed, and a rival in
stitution known as the City Tavern, later called the Merchants Coffee
House$ at Second Street near Walnut, took its place. From that time
the Merchants Coffee House was the favored gathering place for the
traders. As stock brokerage developed into a separate business, the
brokers finally obtained private quarters in the same establishment
and formed an association.

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CRADLE OF AMERICAN FINANCE

This group, organized in 1790 and then known as the Philadelphia
Board of Brokers, met regularly in the coffeehouse until 1834, when
it moved into the newly completed Merchants Exchange Building at
Third and Walnut Streets. There it remained until July 1876, when
it moved to Third Street below Chestnut. From 1888 to 1902 the ex
change was in the Drexel Building, at Fifth and Chestnut Streets ;
and then it returned to the Merchants Exchange Building. On March
1, 1913, it moved to its present quarters, at 1411 Walnut Street.

The membership fee was raised at various times from $30, in 1790,
to $50, $250, $300, $400, $500, $1,000, $2,000. In November 1868, it was
increased to $5,000, and in 1881 to $10,000. By 1886 the income from
operation of the exchange was sufficient to make it self-supporting.
On December 8, 1875, its name was changed from the Board of Brokers
to the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. In 1902 the membership was
fixed at 225 ; in February 1923, it was reduced to its present num
ber, 206.

In 1780 and 1781, more than a quarter century after the opening of
Bradford s combined exchange and coffeehouse, Philadelphia estab
lished the first American banks. While the needs of peaceful trade
dictated the founding of the stock exchange, it was war that sired
these first two banks; both were established to finance the needs of
America s armed forces in time of conflict.

The credit of Robert Morris was better than that of the entire
country at the outbreak of the Revolution, and it was said that he gave
his personal notes for $1,400,000 to finance Washington s army in its
Yorktown campaign. This sum was later repaid by the Government.
He was appointed Superintendent of Finance, on February 20, 1781,
and retained office until 1784. Later reelected to the State assem
bly, he was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and be
came one of the first United States Senators to be elected from Penn
sylvania.

Through the efforts of Morris and his associates, the Bank of
Pennsylvania was opened in July 1780, on Front Street north of
Walnut. Its purpose was to borrow money to purchase rum, pro
visions, and transportation for the Continental Army. The two di
rectors chosen to conduct that business were authorized to borrow
on the credit of the bank for six months or less, and to issue to the
lenders special notes bearing interest at 6 percent. Congress wafe to
reimburse the bank from time to time for sums advanced, and all
moneys borrowed or received from Congress were to be used to sup
ply the needs of the Army and to discharge notes and expenses of
the bank.

To start the bank, 10 percent in cash was required from the
lenders. If money did not come in fast enough, the bond issuers were
to lend a proportionate sum of their subscriptions in cash. Notes

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

were to be taken by the creditors. They were to be paid off and
cancelled, accounts settled, and the bank discontinued when Congress
should complete its reimbursements. That was done, and the in
stitution concluded its operations towards the end of 1784.

Morris detailed plan for the Bank of North America was pre
sented to the Continental Congress on May 18, 1781. Nine days later,
Congress reported in favor of its adoption, and the charter was
granted. The bank was organized on November 1 of that year, and
began active operation on January 7, 1782.

Through the services of this bank, supplies were furnished to the
Army, and the expenses of various branches of the Government were
defrayed. Some of the most prominent financiers of the Revolu
tionary period were among its directors and supporters. When the so-
called Whiskey Insurrection reached its climax in the western part
of Pennsylvania in 1794, with an army of 19,500 men engaged in
quelling the disturbance, the bank not only laid aside or renewed
the notes of all persons in military service but also contributed cash
to the expedition.

The Bank of North America was brought into being through the
sale of stock, the first offering being 1,000 shares, tendered at $400
a share. The offering was well received, and was followed in a short
time by another 1,000 shares, this time at $500 each. (This bank, on
March 1, 1923, was merged with the Commercial Trust Company
under the title of the Bank of North America and Trust Company,
and on June 1, 1929, the new company was merged with the Penn
sylvania Company.)

The institution was opened on the north side of Chestnut Street
west of Third, where it remained for 65 years. Subsequently, as busi
ness expanded, it moved several times to other locations. The bank
was brought under the National Bank Act in November 1864, thus
becoming one of the few national banks that did not have the word
"national" in its title.

Before retiring from public life at the expiration of his six-year
term in the United States Senate, Morris became one of the largest
real estate investors in the land. Envisioning a great country, ex
panding rapidly and attracting thousands of immigrant settlers.
Morris in partnership with John Nicholson and James Greenleaf
purchased thousands of lots in the new Federal City, then unnamed
and existing on paper only, and took title to more than 15.000.000
acres in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and elsewhere.

He was the nabob of Philadelphia, with a mansion at 526-530
Market Street and a fine estate in "The Hills," later called Lemon
Hill, and Fairmount Park. With the removal of the seat of National
Government from New York to this city, he placed the Market
Street residence at the disposal of President Washington, and took

128

CRADLE OF AMERICAN FINANCE

up quarters at the southeast corner of Sixth and Market Streets.

Then came the crash ! Although the sound of crumbling timbers
did not press upon his ears until three years later, it was in 1794 that
he made the flourish which at once crowned and destroyed his
achievements. Selecting a lot on the south side of Chestnut Street,
between Seventh and Eighth, for the site of an ornate palace, he
enlisted Maj. Pierre Charles L Enfant, engineer-architect who planned
the city of Washington, to design it.

Three years later, he went to live in a mansion on the north side
of Chestnut Street, at Eighth, a building which stood until 1934 and
was known in its last half century as Green s Hotel. About this time,
his creditors began action. Morris retired to his suburban estate, but
finally was arrested under the Insolvent Debtors Act, and confined
in the debtors prison, at Sixth and Locust Streets. Committed on
February 16, 1798, he remained in prison until August 26, 1801 ;
then, less than five years before his death, his release was obtained
under provisions of the United States Bankruptcy Act of 1800.

"Morris s Folly," as the great palace upon which he had spent
a considerable sum of money came to be known, was never completed.
Upon his release from prison, Morris went to live with his family
in the house then numbered 2 South Twelfth Street. Here he died
on May 8, 1806. He was buried in the family vault of his wife s
brother, Bishop William White, in the churchyard of Christ Church.

The first Bank of the United States had meantime become a
factor in the city s banking activity. It was the materialization of
Alexander Hamilton s idea, conceived in 1779, of a Government-
organized and Government-controlled bank, based on landed security.
The institution was chartered by Congress on February 14, 1791, and
President Washington signed the bill on February 25. It was the
limitation of the Bank of North America by its acceptance of a State
charter narrowing its scope and reducing its capital from $10,000.000
to $2,000,000 that finally brought action on the plan for a Federal
bank.

Two days after subscription books for the new bank were closed,
a premium was being offered for the shares. A general meeting of
stockholders was held in Philadelphia s City Hall on October 21.
1791, and four days later the directors selected Thomas Willing, presi
dent of the Bank of North America and former business partner of
Robert Morris, as president.

By its liberal policy, the Bank of the United States stemmed a
tide of loss and embarrassment resulting from the Coinage Act of
1793. This act decreed that all foreign silver coins, except Spanish
milled dollars and parts of such dollars, should cease to be legal
tender after October 15, 1797. Such foreign coins constituted a con
siderable part of the silver in circulation. The Federal bank, how-

129

Statute of Robert Morris at the Old Custom House
"Financier and Patriot"

CRADLE OF AMERICAN FINANCE

ever, showed a willingness to receive French crowns and other silver
coins at current rates of exchange, and it was not until 1857 that
foreign gold and silver coins ceased to be respected as a medium of
exchange. Despite a three-year controversy involving John Jacob
Astor, Albert Gallatin, and many of the Nation s other financial
leaders, Congress failed to renew the charter of the bank when it
expired in 1811, and the institution was dissolved.

The prologue to the next test of American banking the financ
ing of the War of 1812 had its setting on the deck of a fog-bound
sloop at the mouth of Delaware Bay in June, 1776. On its voyage from
the West Indies to New York, the La Jeuiie Babe had lost its bear
ings ; and when its 26-year-old French master leaned over the rail
to ask directions from a passing vessel, he was told that British men-
of-war were hovering nearby. The young captain, instead of pro
ceeding to New York, brought his sloop up the river to Philadel
phia. Here he sold his interest in the vessel and opened a small
store on Water Street. Thus the career of Stephen Girard as a
sailor ended, and his career as a Philadelphia merchant began. In
1777 he married Mary Lum, daughter of a Kensington shipbuilder;
and during the time the British occupied Philadelphia he ran a
humble store in Mount Holly, N. J.

During the yellow-fever epidemics of 1793 and 1798, Girard first
earned his reputation as a philanthropist. He contributed substantial
sums of money, served as a manager of the Municipal Hospital, and
performed the duties of a nurse when the plagues were at their worst.

The Revolution had turned the French mariner s course up the
Delaware to Philadelphia, and the threat of a second war with Eng
land turned Girard s career into the banking field. Surveying the
gathering war clouds, and foreseeing more of the depredations on
neutral commerce which already had inflicted severe losses on him,
Girard began recalling his ships and converting his property in
foreign lands into American securities. In this manner he became
the owner of a controlling interest in the first Bank of the United
States. In the spring of 1812, when Congress failed to renew the
charter of the Bank of the United States, Girard purchased the
buildings and other assets and embarked on his career as a private
banker, starting the Bank of Stephen Girard. During the struggle
between Great Britain and the United States, the latter having failed
utterly in its efforts to raise funds, Girard risked his entire fortune
for the benefit of his adopted country. (Girard was born in Bordeaux,
France.) With David Parrish and John Jacob Astor of New York,
he took over the unsubscribed portion of the war bonds authorized
by Congress.

Resuming his maritime ventures at the close of the war, and still
actively engaging in banking, Girard accumulated a fortune then

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

unequalled in America. He died on December 26, 1831, and his will
became one of the most discussed instruments of its kind. More than
$6,000,000 in cash and real estate represented the residue of his
estate, after provision had been made for improving the entire
eastern front of Philadelphia and for paying bequests to the State
of Pennsylvania and the city of New Orleans for public uses. This
residue was devoted to the founding of Girard College, "for poor
white male orphans." The advancing value of central Philadelphia
real estate, in which $3,000,000 of the total was invested, had in
creased the endowment in 1936 to more than $86,000,000.

In 1816, four years after Girard s debut as a banker and nearly a
half century after the founding of the first American banks, the next
major development in banking appeared in Philadelphia and in
America the founding of the first saving fund society by Col. Condy
Raguet. Although Colonel Raguet turned his talents at various times
to the callings of lawyer, merchant, volunteer soldier, writer on
economic and financial subjects and, in 1822, United States consul
at Rio de Janeiro, his most enduring claim to fame lies in his un
tiring efforts to spread the gospel of thrift.

In witness to the soundness of his principles stands the institution
he founded in 1816 the Philadelphia Saving Fund Society. With
steady, measured strides, romantic in their very consistency and con
tempt of circumstance, the society rose to its present position of
leadership among institutions of its kind in Philadelphia, and to
favorable comparison with leading saving fund societies of the Na
tion. As early as October 1869, when it first occupied its present main
office at Seventh and Walnut Streets, the society boasted 29,000 ac
counts, with deposits totaling approximately $6,380,000. Symbolic of
its progress and growth is the architecturally renowned ultra-modern
skyscraper built by Howe and Lescaze in 1932 at Market and Twelfth
Streets, to house the society s mid-city branch.

The second Bank of the United States, which was destined to be
come a political football and parent of the Bank of the United States
of Pennsylvania, was chartered in 1816. The ultimate collapse of the
latter precipitated the panic of 1841.

Plans for the institution were submitted to Congress by Secretary
of the Treasury Dallas in September 1814. The bank was to have had
a capital of $50,000,000, three fifths to be subscribed by individuals
and corporations and two fifths by the United States. The capital
requirements later were reduced to $35,000,000. Unavailing efforts
to modify the plan were instituted by John C. Calhoun and Daniel
Webster. The bill w T as passed and approved by President Madison
on April 10, 1816, and the bank was chartered to continue until
March 3, 1836.

132

CRADLE OF AMERICAN FINANCE

When, because of financial conditions following the War of 1812,
the bank found no buyers for $3,038,300 worth of its stock, Stephen
Girard subscribed the entire amount. Operations began on January
7, 1817. Nicholas Biddle became a director of the bank in 1819. In
the same year, Langdon Cheves became its president. The bank, al
though virtually bankrupt, engaged in a vigorous effort to fulfill its
obligations. Its efforts toward recovery, however, even at a time when
the depreciation of paper money all over Europe had created a
favorable financial condition in America through increased com
mercial exchange, prostrated the whole industry of the country.

Nicholas Biddle became president of the bank in 1823. Andrew
Jackson, who assumed office as President of the United States in
1829, was hostile to the bank and to Biddle. Open conflict flared in
the summer of 1829, with the refusal of Biddle to remove Jeremiah
Mason, a friend of Webster, from the presidency of the Portsmouth
branch, and with President Jackson s intimations that the charter
of the bank was unconstitutional.

A new charter, applied for in 1832, four years before the ex
piration of the old one, was denied. Upon the expiration of the old
charter in 1836, the institution became the Bank of the United States
of Pennsylvania, under a State charter. The change was made without
loss to either the Government or stockholders. A period of general
expansion and over-trading, led to the failure of the State bank
on September 4, 1841, and the crash spread disaster to business and
trade throughout the Union.

Although the companv that was to conduct it had been formed in
1812, it was not until 1836, two decades after the introduction of the
saving fund idea, that Philadelphia s first trust business came into
being. The Pennsylvania Company for Insurances on Lives and
Granting Annuities was organized for the purpose indicated by its
title. It carried on this business for a number of years, but in 1836
was authorized to accept trusts. Its development from that year
forward was almost entirely along trust lines. The company s powers
were further enlarged in 1853 to permit it to act as executor and
administrator, and in 1872 it discontinued its original activities in
the life insurance field.

The company s first dividend of 4 percent on the amount of capital
then paid in was declared in July 1815. Thus was started a dividend
record that today ranks among the best in American corporation his
tory; beginning with that year, the Pennsylvania Company has made
uninterrupted dividend payments for 122 years. The main office of
the institution is at Fifteenth and Chestnut Streets.

Completing the local banking structure, the Philadelphia Clearing
House Association came into being in 1858 as a voluntary, unincor
porated organization enabling member banks to adjust their daily

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

balances without the necessity and accompanying risk of transferring
large sums of money through the streets. Its office is at 311 Chestnut
Street, and it includes trust companies as well as National and State
banks in its membership.

Third and last of the great Philadelphia bankers to uphold the
city s position as the financial center of America was Jay Cooke. Son
of Eleutheros Cooke, lawyer and member of Congress from 1831
to 1833, Jay Cooke left his home in Sandusky, Ohio, at 18, and found
a clerk s job in the Philadelphia office of a packet line. A little later
he entered the employ of the private banking house of E. W. Clark
& Co., and in 1842, at 21, was admitted as a partner.

Hostilities in the Mexican War began three years later, and Cooke a
firm negotiated a large part of the Government loans required to
finance the conflict. He retired from the banking business for a time
to specialize in negotiating railroad securities. His deals included the
sale of the Pennsylvania State canals, but the peak of his career was
to be reached some years later, with the outbreak of the Civil War.

The beginning of the war found the Government in great need
of money. Prospects for preservation of the Union were dark when,
in July, following the Battle of Bull Run, Cooke started to interest
other Philadelphia bankers in the problem of a Government loan.
Cooke had made the acquaintance of Salmon P. Chase, then Secre
tary of the Treasury, and after raising $2,000,000 in his first effort
here, he went with Chase to New York. Bankers of that city were
persuaded to lend an initial sum of $50,000,000. Jay Cooke & Co., with
branch offices in New York, Washington, and later in London, then
advertised and sold the bonds, from the proceeds of which the
bankers were to be repaid.

The next big venture to which Cooke turned, the disposal of securi
ties of the Northern Pacific Railroad, was his last. His firm was com
pelled to close its doors on September 18, 1873, and panic gripped
the country. His failure was the more sensational because of wide
spread belief that the house was of great financial strength. Cooke
turned over all assets to his creditors, and eventually succeeded in
paying off all obligations. Indeed, by 1880 he had regained con
siderable wealth through fortunate investments in the Horn Silver
Mine, Utah. He died on February 16, 1905.

Philadelphia s outstanding financier in the first part of the
twentieth century has been Edward T. Stotesbury, manager and
virtual head of Drexel & Co. since the death of Anthony J. Drexel,
and a partner in the firm since its reorganization on January 1,
1882. Like his predecessors in the field, he lost no time in starting
his business career. When he entered the employ of Drexel & Co.
at the age of 17, he had already been employed in turn by Rutter
& Patterson, wholesale grocers, and by his father s sugar refining

134

Girard Bank
"the hub of early commerce"

firm, Harris & Stotesbury. He was quick to master banking details.

Among the various affiliates of finance which had their American
beginnings in Philadelphia, the first was fire insurance, which ante
dated even the formation of the stock exchange. This business, whose
almost uninterrupted growth has placed it among the Nation s great
est enterprises, was begun by a group of men who met April 13, 1752,
and organized the Philadelphia Contributionship for Insuring Houses
from Loss by Fire. The first insurance issued by the company covered
two houses on King Street, later renamed Water Street. The first
directors were Benjamin Franklin, William Coleman, Philip Syng,
Samuel Rhoads, Hugh Roberts, Israel Pemberton, Jr., John Mifflin,
Joseph Norris, Joseph Fox. Jonathan Lane, William Griffiths, and
Amos Strettell. The plan was that of mutual insurance, and the mem
bers were called "contributors." Policies were issued for a term of
seven years, upon the payment of a deposit, the interest on which,
during the continuance of the policy, belonged to the company. The
"Hand in Hand" seal was adopted 5&gt;y the company in 1768,

Still leading the way, Philadelphia came forward just seven years
later with the first scheme of life insurance established in the Colo-

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

nies. On petition of the Synod of Philadelphia, a charter was granted
by the Proprietary government in 1759 to the "Corporation for the
Relief of Poor and Distressed Presbyterian Ministers, and of the Poor
and Distressed Widows and Children of Presbyterian Ministers."

llie first United States Mint was established here in 1792, through
the efforts of Robert Morris, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamil
ton. Hamilton, then Secretary of the Treasury, prepared the plan in
1790 and presented it at the next session of Congress. The act received
President Washington s approval on April 2, 1792. Ground was pur
chased on the east side of Seventh Street, below Arch, and an old
still-house that stood on the lot was demolished. An entry in the
mint s account book of that time, dated July 31, 1792, shows that
the materials of the demolished still-house sold for seven shillings
and six pence. The structure that replaced it and housed the mint
was the first building erected for public use under authority of the
Federal Government. The mint later occupied a structure at the
northwest corner of Chestnut and Juniper Streets, where the Widener
Building now stands. Its present home is on Spring Garden Street,
from Sixteenth to Seventeenth Streets.

The first coinage of the United States was silver half dimes, minted
in October 1792. The use of four different rates of exchange at first
caused much perplexity. In Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
Connecticut, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Kentucky the dollar was
reckoned at six shillings ; in New York and North Carolina at eight
shillings ; in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland at seven shil
lings and sixpence ; and in South Carolina and Georgia at four
shillings and eightpence. These differences were corrected by the
Federal Government s passage of a law regulating the exchange rates.

The building and loan movement was largely an importation from
England. It had its local origin in a tavern at what is now 4219 Frank-
ford Avenue, where in 1831 leaders of the community formed the
Oxford Provident Beneficial Association, the first organization of its
kind in the United States. The par value of shares was set at $500
each, with no member holding more than five. Money received as
dues was offered as loans to the highest bidder among the stock
holders, who were entitled to borrow $500 for everv share held. The
first loan was made to Comly Rich, who borrowed $500 at a premium
of $10. In 1854 the association brought its business to an end, some
of its membership merging with a newer organization.

Although many of Philadelphia s ancient financial landmarks have
been razed to make room for modern structures, the imposing edifice
of the old United States Bank, en the south side of Chestnut Street
west of Fourth, still stands. For ntiany years it was used as the Custom
House and by the Assistant United States Treasurer an office
abolished with the advent of the Federal Reserve System.

136

PUBLIC UTILITIES

AUTOMOBILES today traverse well-paved Philadelphia streets
which conceal uncounted pipes and conduits supplying homes
with water, gas, electricity, and telephone communication. An
intricate yet carefully planned network provides conveniences now
considered indispensable. When Philadelphia began to take on the
aspect of a growing urban community, necessary improvements fol
lowed in due course; but development of public utilities to their
present smoothly functioning status required many years of trial and
effort.

Water

THE problem of a water supply was the first to occupy the early
settlers. Individuals dug wells and pumped water for their own
use, charging small sums for supplying their neighbors. In 1713 the
Common Council drafted regulations authorizing owners of pumps
to charge water rent. Not until 1756 did the city actually gain con
trol of the water supply by buying up most of the private pumps
in front of houses.

Philadelphians were forced to depend upon this means of water
supply until 1800. A proposal to bring water from Spring Mill Creek
had been rejected, but the movement for a central supply resulted in
the city s commissioning Benjamin H. Latrobe, architect and engi
neer, to plan a water distributing system.

The result was a waterworks on the east bank of the Schuylkill
River, at about Twenty-second and Chestnut Streets. Here water
was raised from the river and sent by gravity through a six-foot aque
duct under Chestnut Street to a central enginehouse built on the spot
where City Hall now stands. There the water flow was raised by
means of a steam pump to an upper floor to gain pressure, and then
distributed through wooden mains to the consumers.

The system was woefully inadequate. The reservoirs at Broad and
Market Streets stored only a half hour s supply, and repairs were
needed continually. In 1801 only 63 dwellings, four breweries, a
sugar refinery, and 87 hydrants were using the system. The service
was abandoned in 1815 when a new waterworks was constructed at
Fairmount. This plant was constantly improved ; and, with the con
solidation of the city in 1854, the plants of the various districts be
came parts of one large municipal system.

Purification of the water was still inadequate, however. Epidemics

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

of typhoid fever broke out frequently. In 1899 three experts were
commissioned to plan an improved and extended water system. Their
report led to the development of the present plan. By 1909 the
entire city was supplied with filtered water, and the ravages of disease
were lessened greatly.

Today there are 11 pumping stations, eight fresh-water reservoirs,
and four raw-water reservoirs. The average daily supply of 325,-
500,000 gallons comes from both the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers,
and the water is subjected to constant chemical and bacteriological
analysis.

Gas

T7OR several years after its introduction, gas as an illuminarit was
-* considered not only a novelty but a menace. The first hotels to
employ it displayed large signs near every gas jet, warning their
guests : "Don t blow out the gas." Many leading citizens doubted the
feasibility of its successful use. Even Sir Walter Scott, from his home
across the Atlantic, issued a diatribe against its employment. His
castle at Abbottsford, however, was one of the first buildings to be
piped for illuminating gas.

Agitation for city manufacture of gas for street lighting started
early in the nineteenth century. There was opposition from many
quarters; but in 1835 the city government authorized erection of the
Philadelphia Gas Works as a municipally controlled project. An
area of Ty 2 acres was set aside near Twenty-second and Market
Streets, and a plant established there. By 1852 the total extent of
pipes had reached 115 miles, and the plant had attained a maximum
production of 962.000 cubic feet of gas in 24 hours.

About that time, it was found necessary to remove the gas works
to larger quarters. The site selected was on the banks of the Schuyl
kill at Point Breeze. Meanwhile, constant improvements in the gas
production process were being made.

The Northern Liberties Gas Company was chartered in 1838,
supplying illumination to the Northern Liberties and Kensington
districts. Gas works were also built in Manayunk, Frankford, Ger-
mantown, and Kensington.

In 1887 Philadelphia s new city charter eliminated the Gas Trust,
as the city gas works under the trustee system was called. Duties of
supervision devolved upon a Bureau of Gas, a division of the Depart
ment of Public Works.^A decade later, after much wrangling on the
part of the public both in and out of the courts, the United Gas Im
provement Company, an interstate utility corporation, obtained a
lease on the municipal gas works.

The lease covered a period of 30 years. Before its expiration an-

138

PUBLIC UTILITIES

other lease was signed by the city in 1926 for an undetermined period,
but either party could terminate the lease on December 31, 1937,
or at expiration of any 10-year period thereafter, by giving to the
other 18 months notice of such intention. Under the terms of the
lease, the Philadelphia Gas Works Company is designated as the
operating concern. Supervision of the lease was placed in charge of
a gas commission of three members. The city receives an annual
rental of $4,200,000; the U. G. I. is paid an operating fee of $600,000
annually, plus an amount ranging from $200,000 to $500,000 for
efficiency of management, the extra payment varying directly with
the quantity of gas sold and inversely with the cost per 1,000 cubic
feet. The prevailing rate to consumers is 90 cents per thousand cubic
feet for the first 2,000 cubic feet, with relative reductions for quan
tities used in excess of this amount. All gas used by the city is paid
for at wholesale rates.

Electricity

T^LECTRIC service for the city of Philadelphia and adjacent terri-
i^tories Delaware County and substantial parts of Bucks, Chester,
and Montgomery Counties is supplied by the Philadelphia Electric
Company, which furnishes electric current to homes, factories, and
industrial plants, and supplies street lighting to a majority of the
cities, towns, and boroughs in this area. All electrical energy provided
by the company is of the alternating current type, which can be
transmitted much farther than the direct current type formerly sup
plied to central Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Electric Company
also furnishes gas service to suburban sections near the city.

An area of approximately 1,547 square miles is served by the
company. The population in this territory is 2,757,000, with slightly
more than two million of those served residing in Philadelphia.
Electricity is generated in the company s plants in Philadelphia and
in its hydro-electric plant on the Susquehanna River at Conowingo.
The latter is the second largest hydro-electric plant in the United
States. Its location is four miles above tide water ; the lake is a
mile wide at the dam and extends eighteen miles up the river. Thi?
gigantic plant, opened in 1928, is connected with Philadelphia steam
plants by means of 220,000-volt transmission lines, and its present
capacity is 1,046,015 kilowatts. At its Plymouth Meeting substation,
the largest outdoor substation in the world, the plant s 220,000-volt
transmission lines inter-connect the Philadelphia Electric Company
with two other companies the Pennsylvania Power and Light Com
pany and the Public Service Electric and Gas Company of New Jer
sey the whole forming a pool which distributes more than two mil
lion horsepower in electrical energy.

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

The company furnishes energy for the operation of the Pennsyl
vania Railroad s electrified lines running between Perryville, Mary
land, and the State line at Trenton, New Jersey; the line between
the State Line and New York City ; the Chestnut Hill branch, and
the Main Line as far as Paoli. All the electrified lines of the Reading
Railroad running in the vicinity of Philadelphia, and the Philadel
phia Rapid Transit Company, operators of the city s street car
system, receive their electrical energy from the Philadelphia Electric
Company.

Philadelphia s first electric service was supplied by the Brush
Electric Light Co., which in 1881 installed street arc lights in the
section of Chestnut Street between the Delaware and the Schuylkill
Rivers. Then 26 neighborhood electric companies, all of them gen
erating direct current, opened within the span of 18 years. In 1899
these plants were consolidated to form the Philadelphia Electric Com
pany, the nucleus of the present company. In 1928 the Philadelphia
Electric Company became an affiliate of the United Gas Improve
ment Company. A year later the Philadelphia Electric Company,
which still operates independently, acquired the Philadelphia Sub
urban Counties Gas and Electric Company.

Telephone

A BOUT a quarter-century after the adoption of telegraphy for rail-
-^*- road communications, the world s first public telephone "system"
was successfully demonstrated in Philadelphia at the Centennial
Exhibition of 1876. The device, consisting of two instruments con
nected by 500 feet of wire, was installed in the Exhibition s main
building, where it lay neglected for six weeks until an inquisitive
visitor discovered its amazing potentialities.

The telephone, which has revolutionized transportation and com
munications the world over, was invented by Alexander Graham Bell,
Boston elocution teacher, and sent to Philadelphia at the opening
of the Exhibition. Bell himself was not urged to attend in person, and
only by the promptings of a last-minute impulse did he board a train
to bring him here. Neither he nor his contrivance provoked any at
tention until Dom Pedro de Alcantara, Emperor of Brazil, picked up
the receiver and heard a human voice come from the transmitter at
the other end of the 500-foot wire. "My God !" he exclaimed as-
toundedly to a crowd which included Sir William Thomson, then the
foremost electrical scientist in the world. "It talks!"

Soon thereafter Bell s invention was first applied commercially in
Philadelphia by an organization known as "The Telephone Company
of Philadelphia." Later Bell s name was added. The first practical
switchboard was housed in the second floor of 1111 Chestnut Street.

140

PUBLIC UTILITIES

The first directory, which appeared in 1878, contained only 25 sub
scribers. Another, issued later during the same year, had 85 ; the
third, put out the following year, contained the names of 420 sub
scribers.

Today the Bell Telephone Company has 42 central offices in the
city handling 1,377,927 local and 79,362 toll calls daily. In 1937 there
were more than 155,000 business telephones and approximately 191,-
000 residence telephones in operation. The directory has grown to an
issue of 400,000 copies.

The Keystone Telephone Company of Philadelphia came into exist
ence Nov. 12, 1902. Five years later it absorbed the property of the
Keystone State Telephone & Telegraph Company, extending its serv
ice to cities and towns in south New Jersey. Later it acquired the en
tire capital stock of the Eastern Telephone & Telegraph Company,
and a majority of the stock of the Camden & Atlantic Telephone
Company. The United Telephone Company, likewise, was absorbed
in 1923.

The Keystone system operates six exchanges in Philadelphia, and
18 in nearby cities and towns. The company holds a perpetual charter
from the State of Pennsylvania, and a perpetual franchise from the
city of Philadelphia. It cooperates with the Bell system on telephone
service outside the city.

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TRANSPORTATION

PHILADELPHIA S development from a compact little city to a
sprawling metropolis made public transportation facilities im
perative at an early date. Prior to the establishment of urban
transportation facilities, however, there were only certain ancient dirt
roads to depend on, such as Darby Road, Old York Road, and an
other that went north by way of Second Street. A Federal road was
laid out in 1788 from Gray s Ferry to Southwark. Within city limits,
the so-called streets were not much more than dirt roads either. Ac
cording to the presentment of the Grand Jury in 1738, the streets
were impassable. This was the beginning of a crusade to compel the
paving of certain thoroughfares, notably Front, Sassafras, and High.

The first adequate public means of urban travel was supplied in
1831 by Joseph Boxall, who established a stagecoach line on lower
Chestnut Street with an hourly schedule. "Boxall s Accommodation,"
as the line was called, was the only satisfactory public conveyance
until July 1833, when an additional line was started by Edward Des-
champs, to provide service between the Navy Yard and Kensing
ton, via Second Street and Beach Street. This also proved successful,
and within a short time lines were running on nearly every important
street in the city.

The need of some better mode of transportation to outlying sec
tions became pressing. The first locomotive made at the Baldwin
Works in Philadelphia was "Old Ironsides," which had been placed
on the Philadelphia & Germantown Railroad on November 23, 1832.
Steam transportation had come to stay. There was a project to con
nect the Columbia Railroad and the Philadelphia, Wilmington &
Baltimore Railroad, which led to the passage of the Act of April
15, 1845, by which the Schuylkill Railroad was incorporated.

In 1854 the Philadelphia & Delaware Railroad Company took out
a charter to operate a steam railroad from Kensington to Easton.
Failing to realize their ambition, the promoters envisioned the possi
bility of running a horse-car line from what is now Sixth Street and
Montgomery Avenue, in Kensington, to the village of Southwark.

In 1856 preparations were made by the North Pennsylvania Rail
way Company to establish a line of passenger cars drawn by horses.
On January 3 the company put such a line in operation on a route

142

TRANSPORTATION

about a mile and a half in length, extending from Willow Street along
Front to Germantown Road, thence to Second Street, to Cadwalader,
to Washington, to Cherry, connecting with what was known as the
Cohocksink depot. These vehicles were 14 feet long, and seated 24
persons.

In April 1858, by Act of Assembly, the Philadelphia & Delaware
Railroad Company became the Frankford & Southwark Philadelphia
City Passenger Railroad Company, forerunner of the many traction
and motor companies that have been incorporated to serve Phila
delphia. Shortly before reorganization, the Philadelphia & Delaware
Railroad Company, on January 21, 1858, ran its first horsecars from
Kensington to Southwark, carrying 10,000 persons on 15 cars during
the year. Such was the beginning of what long was known as "the
Fifth and Sixth Street line."

For a time the cars were banned from operation on Sundays. Minis
ters complained that the noise interrupted Sunday worship ; but a
Supreme Court decision held that operation on the Sabbath was not
a breach of the peace, and thereafter the cars ran seven days a week.
In 1857 the City Councils passed an ordinance permitting the car
lines to operate sleighs in winter.

Strong opposition to street railways flared up and was slow in
subsiding. Nevertheless, capitalists were stimulated by the success of
the Fifth and Sixth Street line, and immediately began to project
similar railways on Spruce and Pine Streets, Ridge Avenue, Second
and Third, and other thoroughfares. Although the depression that
followed the 1857 panic served to make the year 1858 a dull one
generally in Philadelphia, the stagnation was not evident in railway
circles. The West Philadelphia road, on Market Street, was the
second to go into operation and was closely followed by the Tenth
and Eleventh Street line on July 29. At that time, the Spruce and
Pine, Second and Third, Green and Coates, and Race and Vine Street
lines were in course of construction, and the Chestnut and Walnut
Street Company was still engaged in beating down a bitter opposition.
The fourth road to go into operation was the Spruce and Pine, on
November 2. Among other events of this period was the opening on
March 14, 1859, of the Girard College (Ridge Avenue) Railway.

In 1863, the Frankford & Southwark Company received authority
to operate steam-driven cars over its route from Berks Street to
Frankford. Their noisy engines, usually called "dummies," proved
quite satisfactory. They ran for the first time on November 7, 1863,
and survived about 30 years. Other attempts to use steam power were
made by the West Philadelphia Passenger Railway Company and by
the Haddington Line.

About this time the cable-car system began to be used successfully
in some cities, and Philadelphia decided to experiment with it. The

143

Old Schuylkill Navigation Canal Lock in Fairmount Park
"Alorig its path the straining tow mules plodded"

Assembly passed an act permitting use of the cable, and in April
1883 a line was opened along Columbia Avenue from Twenty-third
Street to Fairmount Park. This proved successful, and two years later
the Philadelphia Traction Company opened a cable line along Mar
ket Street from Front Street to Forty-first Street. The system was
used for 10 years, then was replaced by the electric trolley system.

In 1888 Frank J. Sprague developed in Richmond, Va., a success
ful electric street-car system, and again Philadelphia was eager to try
an innovation. The Philadelphia Traction Company stepped to the
fore and made practical use of the new method, operating in 1892
the first of such railways in Philadelphia. The route ran eastward
from the Schuylkill River, with tracks on Catharine and Bain-
bridge Streets. During the next four years the 400 miles of horse
and steam car lines in Philadelphia, with the exception of the Cal-
lowhill Street line, were electrified ; and on January 15, 1897, the
last horse car was driven over the latter line, marking the end of this
antiquated system in Philadelphia.

The rapid growth of the city made it necessary to evolve a speedier
means of transportation. In 1901 the State Legislature enacted the
legislation necessary to establish such a system (subway-elevated)

144

TRANSPORTATION

along Market Street, and six years later the first high-speed line
began operation. In 1902 the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company
was incorporated, taking over all the transit companies in Philadel
phia, with the absorbed companies acting as "underliers," a name
by which they have since been known. They hold the leases of the
systems and collect rent from the P.R.T.

With formation of the P.R.T. the transportation history of Phila
delphia becomes the story of a single large system. The Market Street
Subway-Elevated was opened in March 1907, from Sixty-ninth Street
(Delaware County) to Fifteenth Street. In October 1908 the line was
extended eastward to Delaware Avenue, and thence south to South
Street. In November 1922 another branch extending north to Frank-
ford was built by the city and the three branches became a con
tinuous system.

In 1923 the first P.R.T. double-decked bus began operation, run
ning from Broad Street and Erie Avenue to Frankford Avenue and
Arrott Street. Trackless trolley coaches began operation in 1923 from
Twenty-second Street and Passyunk Avenue to Delaware and Oregon
Avenues.

The Broad Street subway, built by the city and leased to the
P.R.T., began operation in 1928 under Broad Street from Olney
Avenue to Market Street. Two years later it was extended to South
Street. In 1932 the Ridge Avenue and Eighth Street spur was opened;
and on June 7, 1936, the high-speed line over the Delaware River
Bridge, linking Philadelphia and Camden, began operation. The latter
line was built by the city under the direction of the Delaware River
Joint Commission, and was turned over to the Philadelphia Rapid
Transit Company for operation. It connects the Camden downtown
section with the Eighth and Market Street subway station in Phila
delphia.

Figures for 1937 showed the P.R.T. operating 2,150 trolley cars,
303 busses, 465 subway and elevated cars, and 8 trackless trolley
coaches. In 1936 the system had a gross operating revenue of $34,-
732,768. It "also operated about 930 taxicabs until February 1936,
when the cab holdings were sold to another company.

The necessity for some form of transportation of supplies and com
modities across the Delaware River was realized as early as 1695,
when the court at Gloucester, N. J., authorized establishment of a
ferry from the New Jersey shore to Pennsylvania. As traffic grew
through the years, Philadelphia became more and more dependent
upon these ferries. Until 1926, when the Delaware River Bridge was
opened to traffic, ferries were the only means of direct public trans-
river travel.

Besides the horsecars that were used during the early days of the
city s public transportation, steam railroads played an important

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

part. The Philadelphia & Germantowii Company as early as 1832
operated a steam railroad from Germantown to the Philadelphia
depot at Green and Ninth Streets. The steam trains ran only in fair
weather, the more reliable horse-drawn trains being depended upon
to maintain the schedule in bad weather.

In 1834 the Philadelphia & West Chester Railroad was begun, pro
viding steam-hauled transportation between the city and West Ches
ter. Many companies were soon in operation, running trains within
Philadelphia, and from Philadelphia to suburban points. Gradually
a strong central company was formed, absorbing the smaller lines
and providing a few great systems, thus increasing efficiency in both
passenger and freight carriage.

The Philadelphia & Reading Railroad began operation in 1842,
running trains between Philadelphia and Pottsville. The purpose of
the new line was to provide some means of shipping from the coal
regions to the industrial center of Philadelphia. The company devel
oped swiftly and in a short time was one of the largest systems in
this section.

The Pennsylvania Railroad, begun as the Columbia Railroad, was
started in 1832. Its development also was swift. It branched into the
western part of the State, carrying freight by means of a gigantic
network of lines to Philadelphia. The Broad Street Station was
erected in 1881, and the Suburban Station in 1930. A short time
later, the Thirtieth Street Station a huge and imposing structure
was opened to traffic.

The third great railroad system serving Philadelphia, the Balti
more & Ohio, was started in Baltimore. It was the first railroad in
the United States to transport both passengers and freight. The com
pany was incorporated in 1827, and started business in 1830. Begin
ning on a small scale, the railroad gradually developed a large inter
state business, fulfilling its purpose of competing with the Erie Canal,
New York s commercial route to Ohio s rich territory.

Philadelphia is without an airport for commercial flying. However,
a WPA project started at Hog Island in 1935 will, when completed,
provide the city with a municipal airport within 20 minutes travel of
Broad and Market Streets. The land for this airport was purchased by
the city from the United States, after its usefulness as a wartime ship
yard had ended. The Central Airport near Camden has served as
Philadelphia s airport since September 1929. When the new post
office was built at Thirtieth and Market Streets, a large flat roof was
laid out upon it to provide a landing place for autogyros. It is
planned eventually to have the autogyros carry mail to the airport,
where it will be transferred to waiting planes for delivery to other
cities.

146

LABOR AND LABOR PROBLEMS

A LARGE part of labor in early Philadelphia was furnished by
semi-servile whites, imported under bond for a term of years,
and by Negroes sold into chattel slavery. Although Penn s city
can claim a certain amount of credit for frowning upon the practice
of bartering in human beings, that odious practice went on un
checked for years at the Delaware River wharf.

William Penn s ingenious advertising in England and on the
European continent brought hundreds of artisans and mechanics to
the new Province, where they hoped to find escape from economic
and religious oppression. Indentured servants, redemptioners, and
debtors swelled the ranks of those who came.

Indentured servants were those men, women, even children
who, unable to pay their passage, signed a contract called an in
denture before leaving the Old World. This contract bound the
owner of the ship to transport such a person to America, and bound
the emigrant to serve the owner or his assigns for a specified number
of years after arrival in this country. Often the owner, upon reaching
port, sold his rights in the contract to the highest bidder, or for
whatever he could get as payment for passage. The redemptioner, on
the other hand, signed no contract before embarking, but agreed
with the shipping merchant to allow himself to be sold to the highest
bidder if, at the expiration of a month, he failed to find someone to
redeem him by paying the passage money. Others were debtors sold
for a fixed time to cancel their obligations, criminals unable to pay
their fines or willing to accept exile instead of prison or death, and
inmates of poorhouses bound out for periods of servitude to defray
the expense of their keeping.

The custom of selling criminals and indigents was brought about
by the inadequate facilities of jails and poorhouses. Directors of the
poor were empowered to bind men and women from the institutions
for periods not exceeding three years, but terms of indenture for
criminals varied. On one occasion a man who had stolen 14 was
sold for 16, his punishment being 21 lashes and six years of bond
age. Immigrant ships came regularly to Philadelphia from European
ports, bearing paupers and criminals whose arrival the newspapers
would announce somewhat like this : "Just arrived in the ship Sallie,
from Amsterdam, a number of men, women, and children redemp-

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

tioners. Their times will be disposed of on reasonable terms by the
captain on board." Parents sometimes sold their children in order
to cover their own passage. Husbands and wives became separated,
never again to meet. Sometimes the dreadful ships came up the
Delaware with their human cargo depleted by disease, exposure,
hunger, and ill treatment.

This traffic in humanity was carried on upon a vast scale. Agencies
in European cities set up branches in Philadelphia. Scores of dealers,
known as "newlanders" or "soul-drivers," invaded Germany and
Switzerland, inveigling thousands into leaving their homes for a life
of unsuspected slavery abroad. This continued until 1764, when a
German society in Philadelphia was founded especially for the pro
tection of redemptioners. Organized resistance also militated against
the practice of bringing into Pennsylvania captured Tuscarora
Indians from South Carolina, and selling them as bondmen.

In its more agreeable aspect, the term "indenture" was associated
with apprenticeship. A boy, in order to learn a trade, was bound to
his employer by an agreement known as an indenture. He usually
was taken into the employer s family and treated kindly. After serv
ing his apprenticeship, he often chose to remain with his employer
as a journeyman.

The earliest artisan in Philadelphia commonly started with little
more than tools. At first he went about from house to house, doing
his work with raw materials provided by the householder. Afterward,
it became more convenient for him to establish a shop in the town.
As his business grew, he employed two or three journeymen, in addi
tion to two or three apprentices. He also began to stock up with
finished products made by the journeymen, and to sell them to cus
tomers. The position of the journeyman became changed. He held
on to his tools, but lost ownership of the shops and the raw materials.
He was therefore dependent upon wages for his living, while the re
tail merchant-employer looked to his investment and his managerial
ability for remuneration.

The journeyman sought to protect the value of his skill by trying
to prevent others from entering his trade, knowing his wages would
be higher if there were fewer men with whom he had to compete.
On the other hand, the demand for his work was greater than he
himself could supply, and he was forced to train the unskilled worker
in his trade. But he saw to it that the term of apprenticeship was as
long as possible, thus delaying the apprentice in becoming his
competitor. In spite of limitations and restrictions, the number of
journeymen continued to grow. Immigration brought many recruits,
and industry began to replace skilled workers with unskilled workers.
Then the former started to organize into societies or trade unions,
to protect themselves against the unskilled.

148

LABOR AND LABOR PROBLEMS

The first trade associations were organized as price-fixing groups
which regulated particular trades. They guaranteed to the public
products of high quality and fought against inferior ones. They were
benevolent groups, which not only had a form of "insurance" for
members, but also sought to educate apprentices. These associations
sometimes included both masters and journeymen, for some of the
mechanics believed their interests identical with those of their em
ployers. For example, they believed that if prices of goods were high,
wages would also be high. But mostly, the journeymen established
separate mutual-aid societies the division being on social, rather
than economic, lines.

The Carpenters Company of Philadelphia was founded in 1724
purely as a price-fixing association, so that the workman should have
a fair recompense for his labor and the owner the worth of his
money. It is probable that this company was composed solely of
master builders.

The first authentic record of the organization of a single trade and
the first strike of wage-earners in Philadelphia occurred in 1786. In
that year the Philadelphia printers went on strike for a minimum
wage of $6 a week. They won their demands, and the organization
disappeared. In May 1791 the Journeymen Carpenters of the City and
Liberties of Philadelphia struck against the master carpenters. This
was the first strike for a 10-hour working day in this country, but
the strikers lost.

The first continuous organization of wage-earners for the purpose
of maintaining or advancing wages was that of the shoemakers of
Philadelphia. The organization, instituted in 1792, existed less than
a year. The shoemakers again organized in 1794 under the name of
the Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers, and continued in
existence until 1806. In that year, and twice in 1809, the shoemakers
were indicted on charges of conspiracy. They were accused of un
lawfully assembling to "unjustly and corruptly conspire, combine,
confederate and agree together that none of them would work for
any master who would thereafter infringe or break the unlawful
rules of the boot and shoemakers." The judge, in instructing the
jury, declared : "A combination of workmen to raise their wages
may be considered in a twofold view : one is to benefit themselves ;
the other to injure those who do not join the society. The rule of
the law condemns both." The jury found the defendants guilty of a
conspiracy to raise wages.

The American labor movement first manifested itself in Philadel
phia in 1827, through a trade union demanding shorter hours of
work. This was soon converted into a political party, primarily urg
ing public education. This movement had for its keynote the desire
for equal citizenship the essentials of which were believed to be

149

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

leisure and education. The American wage-earners joined together
for the first time as a class, regardless of tnade lines, in a struggle
against employers. All previous labor agitation had been confined to
the limits of a single trade. In June 1827, 600 journeymen carpenters
went on strike for a 10-hour day. Other trade societies became in
terested, and a general movement began for the shorter work day.

Out of this movement grew the first union of all organized work
men in any American city. The Mechanics Union of Trade Associa
tions was formed in the latter part of 1827. All trade societies were
invited to join, and those not yet organized were urged to do so.
Its purpose was to establish a just balance of power mental, moral,
political, and scientific among the various classes.

In May of the following year the union resolved to submit to con
stituent societies a proposal for the nomination of persons who would
represent the working classes in the City Council and State Legis
lature. Political action was immediately endorsed by the various
trade unions. From this date, though the political movement ad
vanced, the Mechanics Union declined, and some time after November
1829 it went out of existence.

The Working Men s Party was formed in July 1828. From the start
the new movement was obliged to fight for its existence against the
machinations of professional politicians, who tried either to obtain
control of the meetings or to break them up. As a result of the first
campaign, eight candidates who were exclusively on the Working
Men s Party ticket received from 229 to 539 votes each in the city,
and about 425 votes in the county. All were defeated, but 21 candi
dates on the Jackson ticket endorsed by the Working Men s Party
were elected. The mere number of votes polled did not by any
means measure the influence of the first campaign. Indirectly, it
brought from the candidates for Congress of both the older parties
in the city an open acknowledgment of the justice of the working
people s attempts to lessen the established hours of daily labor.

The paramount emphasis laid upon education shows that the work-
in gmen s movement was a revolt primarily directed against social
and political, rather than economic, inequalities. The workingman
had achieved suffrage and believed that he should have leisure in
which to educate himself for proper use of his franchise. An early
report of the Philadelphia workingmen to the Legislature foreshad
owed the general public school system, the manual training schools,
the junior republics, and probably the kindergartens. This report
was accompanied by two bills for the establishment of a public
school system, and a combination of agricultural, mechanical, literary,
and scientific instruction. A tax on "dealers in ardent spirits" was
proposed as a means of raising the necessary money.

Before establishment of the Working Men s Party, there had been

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LABOR AND LABOR PROBLEMS

a movement to create public charity schools for the poor. But after
the report of the party was published, the plan for charity schools
was abandoned in favor of one for schools where children of rich
and poor might be educated side by side. The public school system
of today owes a large, if unrecognized, debt of gratitude to this effort
of the working classes to exercise independently their citizenship.
The abolition of imprisonment for debt was undoubtedly hastened
by the strong and general support it received from the Working
Men s Party. In Pennsylvania, as a result of attention directed to the
evils of child labor in factories, legislative consideration was given
the subject in 1832, and again in 1837.

Economic changes were causing the shift from mutual insurance
to trade protection. The merchant-capitalist had gained control of
the market and the productive process. Hand tools continued to be
used, yet orders had become wholesale. Competition between masters
in different communities became acute. The merchant-capitalist even
resorted to the use of prison labor. This competitive pressure on the
masters was passed on to the journeymen. Apprentice labor was then
done by children and unskilled workers, and a great number of wo
men entered industrial employment. In 1830 it was said that many
journeymen printers of Philadelphia were out of work because of
the employment of boys. In 1836, 24 of 58 societies of Philadelphia
were seriously affected by female labor, to the impoverishment of
whole families and the benefit chiefly of the employers. The Female
Improvement Society including tailoresses, seamstresses, binders,
folders, stock makers, milliners, corset makers, and mantua makers
had been organized June 20, 1835. This was probably the first
federation of women workers in the country.

During the 1830 s the city central union form of organization ap
peared, two separate trades unions in Philadelphia springing up in
close succession. The Trades Union of Pennsylvania, composed of
delegates from the factory districts surrounding Philadelphia, was
organized in August 1833, but disappeared four months later. The
Trades Union of the City and County of Philadelphia was organized
the same year and lasted only until 1838. It was composed of mech
anics of the city, although later it was opened to factory workers and
day laborers.

The 10-hour day movement, begun in June 1834, took on the aspect
of a crusade in Philadelphia. Coalheavers and common laborers on
the Schuylkill docks started it. Then followed a strike of 14 other
unions. The excitement was intense ; organized processions marched
through the streets to the tune of fife and roll of drum. The general
strike ended in a victory for the trade unionists, a victory so over
whelming; that its influence extended to many other towns.

In 1834 there were 6,000 trade unionists in Philadelphia. Delegates

151

1 1

Midvale Steel Works
"Melted Steel"

attended a national convention in New York in August 1834, when
the National Trades Union was formed. The third annual convention
of that organization was held at Military Hall in Philadelphia from
October 24 to 28, 1836. No later meeting was recorded. Education,
speculation in public lands, prison labor, the 10-hour day, and female
and child labor were the problems which concerned the organization
during its existence.

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LABOR AND LABOR PROBLEMS

The labor movement in Philadelphia was virtually wiped out after
the panic of 1837, workers turning to politics and cooperation for
relief. Exponents of Fourierism, based on the socialistic philosophy
of Francois Marie Charles Fourier, succeeded in organizing a few
isolated cooperative and social reform organizations during the forties
and fifties. This movement failed to obtain the sympathy and support
of the workers generally, because people were not inclined to live in
communal colonies, sharing a common kitchen, common living quar
ters, and cooperative cuisine.

Local impetus was given to the formation of national unions dur
ing the industrial depression after the panic of 1857. The Machinists
and Blacksmiths Union was formed the following year, the local
taking the initiative in forming a national organization, as did the
Philadelphia Moulders Union in 1859.

In March 1860 the Machinists and Blacksmiths Union called a
strike in the Baldwin Locomotive Works against a reduction in wags
and payment of arrear wages in company stock. Although the strike
was lost, the workers received nation-wide attention for battling
against the then greatest shop in the country.

The first effects of the Civil War were a paralysis of business and
the increase of unemployment. Prosperity returned after the passage
of the legal tender act in 1862, but wage earners did not benefit by
prosperity, because of low wages and the high cost of living. The
most influential labor paper of that period, pnd one of the best ever
published in the United States, was Fincher s Trades 9 Review, printed
in Philadelphia from 1863 to 1866. The paper was a true mirror of
the national labor movement.

During the war the local trades assembly was the common unit of
organization. The Philadelphia Trades Assembly was organized in
1863 at the instigation of the Philadelphia Journeymen House Paint
ers Association. Within a year 28 local unions were affiliated.

With the upward sweep of prices in 1862, cooperatives were estab
lished by workingmen. The first substantial effort in this direction
was that of the Union Cooperative Association of Philadelphia, the
first to be formed, in December 1862. It expanded, and eventually
established several branches in various parts of the city. In the field
of trade unionism, the nationalization of markets gave birth to the
national trade union. During the Civil War and Reconstruction period,
the American labor movement developed its characteristic national
features.

Four sets of causes operated during the sixties to bring about this
nationalization : competition of products of different localities in
the same market ; competition for employment between migratory
out-of-town journeymen and locally organized mechanics ; organi
zation of employers ; and application of machinery, which introduced

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

a division of labor, splitting old established trades and laying them
open to invasion of "green hands."

The most significant event in the local labor movement for many
years was the organization of the Knights of Labor in 1869. Nine
members of the old Philadelphia Garment Cutters Association were
among those who joined. It was a secret society, with an elaborate
ritual. By 1873 more than 80 locals had been organized in or near
Philadelphia, and the organization had become nation-wide in its
scope. This rapid growth was due to several factors. In the seventies,
trade unions were declining or disbanding because of the warfare
which employers were conducting against them. As a result, work-
ingmen were attracted to a society such as the Knights because of
its secrecy, which was maintained until 1878. In addition, industrial
unionism, as opposed to the craft distinctions of the older unions,
was favored by the new organization, thus making eligible for mem
bership all working people regardless of sex, race, or skill.

The membership was grouped in local assemblies on the basis of
residence rather than of occupation or craft. Borrowing from the
First International of Karl Marx the technique of centralized control
and common action, the Knights developed their organization into a
potent instrument for fighting labor s battles. Their chief weaknesses,
however, were their refusal to enter the political field as a labor party,
and a lack of aggressiveness in leadership. The society was brought
into conflict with the craft unions of skilled workers, and this led to
its ultimate submergence under the rising tide of the American Fed
eration of Labor during the nineties.

In July 1877 members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers
employed by the Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia & Reading
Railroads joined the great railroad strike which had broken out over
the country. The strike, directed against a wage reduction and the
open-shop policies of the railroads, was broken by the State militia
and the police.

The internecine war between the Knights of Labor and the craft
unions during the eighties was manifested locally in 1888, when
locomotive engineers and firemen enrolled in the brotherhood broke
a strike of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad employees, which
had been called by the Knights of Labor. Refusal of the Knights to
join the eight-hour day movement widened the rift with the Ameri
can Federation of Labor and allied unions, so that by 1890 the for
mer s membership and prestige had dwindled to almost nothing.

During the nineties and the first decade of the twentieth century
the local labor movement was marked by the increasing strength of
the federated unions, particularly those in the textile industry.
Socialists had entered some of the unions. The Industrial Workers
of the World emerged locally in this period, but made only small

154

LABOR AND LABOR PROBLEMS

gains. The activity of the textile unions of Philadelphia since the
eighties had paved the way for one of the most important textile
strikes in the history of the city the strike for a 55-hour work
week in 1903. The city s entire textile industry was forced to close
down when 75,000 workers went out. The strike lasted several
months. In all but a few plants the workers lost the strike.

After the depression of 1907, business conditions improved slowly,
and labor began to press the fight for improved standards of living.
In 1909 the streetcar workers of the Philadelphia Rapid Transit
Co., dissatisfied with their wage of 20 cents an hour, went on strike
for a four-cent increase. The strike was defeated by the company s
use of strikebreakers. A year later the P.R.T. employees struck again,
with instructions from their leaders not to return to work until their
union was recognized by the company and the wage rate increased
from 20 to 25 cents per hour. Strikebreakers were brought in to run
the trolleys and break up the strike. Virtual warfare ensued, much
property being destroyed and many persons injured. The strike
ended in defeat for the workers. A sympathy strike of 15,000 textile
workers, called by the textile unions when the street-car men went
out, gave considerable unity and impetus to the local labor move
ment for the next decade.

To meet the high cost of living that prevailed during the World
War period, wages for labor generally were raised. Consequently,
there was little unrest in local industry throughout the war years.
In 1919 the textile workers won the 48-hour week. Collective bargain
ing helped to preserve stability in industrial relations until the de
pression of 1921, when the open-shop drive of certain manufacturers
started a wave of strikes that has continued unabated up to 1937.
The introduction of labor spies, "yellow-dog" contracts, and strike
breaking tactics has served to sharpen the struggle with each succeed
ing year.

On June 13, 1933, Congress passed the National Industrial Re
covery Act to speed recovery, to foster fair competition, and to pro
vide for construction of certain useful public works. Section 7a of
the act provided that labor should have the right to organize and
bargain collectively through representatives of its own choosing, and
section 7b directed that the President should, as far as practicable,
afford every opportunity for employers and employees to establish by
mutual agreement standard maximum hours of labor and minimum
rates of pay. In order to speed up achievement of the objectives of
the NIRA, a blanket code was presented June 19. This code set maxi
mum hours and minimum wages for labor.

Section 7a was hailed as a sort of Magna Charta for the working-
man. Immediately, thousands of workers began drives for the or
ganization of trade unions, for better wages and shorter hours. Thou-

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sands of Philadelphia workers pocketbook makers, textile workers,
painters, decorators and paperhangers, cab drivers, necktie workers,
and actors went on strike.

But Section 7a did not always prove a boon to the workers. Em
ployers were glad to seize upon the minimum wage and maximum
hours set by the blanket code, and thereby lower wages to a mini
mum (if they had previously been higher) or increase the number
of hours to maximum. Or they chose to interpret "organization of
own choosing" as referring to the company type of union and to
refuse to recognize bona fide unions. And a labor board often spent
its efforts persuading workers to return to shops without having their
demands met.

An outstanding example of defiance of the NIRA was the case of
the E. G. Budd Manufacturing Co. of Philadelphia. On November
14, 1933, 2,000 workers in this plant struck for a wage increase, union
recognition, and a 35-hour week. The regional labor board reviewed
the case and ordered an election to determine which organization
should be the collective bargaining agency. The company defied the
ruling, held a company union election, and hired outsiders to re
place strikers. Feeling was so intense that Gen. Hugh Johnson,
then National Recovery Administrator, gave personal attention to
the case. Finally an election was arranged in which strikebreakers
were permitted to vote as well as strikers. Vigorous protest arose from
labor leaders in Philadelphia. The liberal press of the Nation con
demned the company. However, a total of 5,762 votes were cast, the
strike eventually ending in March 1934, with a defeat for the workers.

One factor which helped mitigate the industrial unrest in which
Philadelphia, a "workshop city," naturally shared, was the Regional
Labor Board, one of the 17 erected in 1933 as an adjunct to the
N.R.A.

Under the chairmanship of Jacob Billikopf, who organized and
directed the handling of the many cases brought before it, this board
served for 19 months without compensation, adjudicating nearly a
thousand disputes affecting more than 1,250,000 workers. Its novel
technique, a panel system, was among the factors which contributed
to the board s success and won it high praise, this system being later
followed in many places. Representatives of industry, and an equal
number of labor leaders were drawn upon in pairs to confer with
disputants and arrange amicable settlements of the points at issue.
Full sessions of the board were held weekly. Its effectiveness is shown
by the fact that less than 10 per cent of the cases brought before it
for settlement were forwarded to the national body in Washington
for review.

Violence sometimes accompanied enforcement of the provisions
of the NIRA. Two hosiery workers were killed during a hosiery

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LABOR AND LABOR PROBLEMS

strike, and many arrests were made. In May 1935 the NIRA was
declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States,
but the National Labor Relations Act which set up a National Labor
Relations Board became a law in July of that year. This act guarantees
to employees the right to organize and to bargain collectively, and has
aided in bringing about a better mutual understanding between
capital and labor. Major Stanley W. Root, who had served as director
of the Regional Labor Board, was named regional director of this new
group.

The city body of American Federation of Labor trade unions in
present-day Philadelphia is the Central Labor Union. In its 1935
directory that organization lists 187 locals of international unions
and 20 Federal unions as affiliates. Thirty-four other unions, mostly
in the railroad trades, are listed as unaffiliated. The secretary of the
local American Federation of Labor estimated that some 225,000
workers were organized in A. F. of L. unions and probably about
15,000 in independent unions. Twenty unions received Federal char
ters during 1936.

The two best organized trade unions in Philadelphia at present
are those of the clothing and the textile workers. Most of the original
textile workers came to Philadelphia from England and Germany,
with long traditions of unionism behind them. Until the period from
1921 to 1931, the textile industry was able to maintain strong unions.
But like many other unions, they were unable to survive the depres
sion of 1931. Some passed out of existence. Since the National Re
covery Administration, some of the groups especially the hosiery
workers have been able to strengthen their organizations greatly.

In September 1934, 28,000 Philadelphia textile workers from 200
mills joined in a nation-wide textile strike. The strikers demands in
cluded a 30-hour week, pay increases, a closed shop, elimination of
the "stretch-out" system, better working conditions and union recog
nition. By the end of the month, peace had been restored in all but
20 mills, where "lock-outs" affected 2,000 workers. It was at the re
quest of President Roosevelt that the textile employees had gone back
to their jobs. Arbitration followed, in which their demands were
lost ; but at least one outcome of the struggle was the President s
creation of the Textile Relations Board, which focused attention in
particular upon the "stretch-out" system denounced by labor.

The Philadelphia department stores were the next to feel the
effects, two years later, of a serious labor dispute. The trouble began
in November 1936, with a walkout of warehouse drivers and other
warehouse employees. The demand was for increased wages, better
working conditions, and union recognition. The warehouse men soon
were joined by clerks, stockkeepers and the sales force in a sym-

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pathy walkout. A temporary truce was agreed upon until after
Christmas, when representatives of labor and the stores met with
Mayor S. Davis Wilson s Labor Arbitration Board. Settlement of the
dispute was finally arrived at in May 1937. This was one of 104
strikes settled by the board during the 16 months of its existence.

While settlement of the department store strike was pending, Phila
delphia became the objective of a drive made by the Committee for
Industrial Organization, or CIO, opposed by the American Feder
ation of Labor because it sponsored industrial organization in op
position to craft unionism. It first appeared in the city on January
4, 1937, when it sponsored a strike of 1,800 employees of the Electric
Storage Battery Company.

This strike was Philadelphia s first experience with the new "sit-
down" technique. All the company s plants were effectually closed
until February 24, when an agreement providing for a five-cents-an-
hour wage increase and one week s vacation with pay was signed in
Mayor Wilson s office.

The CIO thus came out the winner in this first tilt, and the result
was the organization of the Philadelphia CIO Council in March 1937.
Craft members and unorganized workers were now recruited at top
speed, and within 60 days the CIO membership had shot up to 10,000.

A truck drivers strike began July 24 following, in which the CIO
and A. F. of L. affiliates clashed. A reign of terror in which a driver
was dragged from his truck and stabbed, cabs and trucks were over
turned and set afire, and much property damaged or destroyed, finally
caused the Mayor after mobilizing additional police force to quell
the violence, to declare a "state of emergency."

Settlement of the general strike was effected on August 4 through
an exchange of letters between the Mayor and an attorney for the
A. F. of L. union, despite which, violence and disorder ruled the city
that evening and the following day. When the strike was called off,
no contract had been drawn up with the employer with regard to con
tract haulers.

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RELIGIONS

BEGINNING as a wilderness sanctuary for a persecuted religious
sect, Philadelphia today is marked by hundreds of church
steeples pointing high above surrounding rooftops. The grave
yards in the shadow of these churches hold the mortal remains of
Quaker, Dunkard, Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Presbyterian,
Baptist, Jew representatives of the many faiths to find refuge in
Penn s city.

Many of the churches had their origin in meetings held outdoors,
in tiny dwellings, in barns, fortresses or even, across the Atlantic,
in places as inaccessible as the catacombs themselves. But in Phila
delphia there was no need to hide, so the spires of many religious
edifices now write upon the sky America s guarantee of religious
freedom.

Lutheran

THE LUTHERAN Church was established in the Philadelphia
area before William Penn arrived in 1682. The early Swedish
colonists on the Delaware were Lutherans. Some of these organized
a congregation at Wicaco (now part of South Philadelphia) in 1638 ;
at Tinicum in 1677 ; and in the Old Swedes Church (Gloria Dei) in
1700. By the end of the eighteenth century, the descendants of the
original colonists had become thoroughly Anglicized, and the Swedish
Lutheran Church, Gloria Dei, became Episcopalian.

New groups of Lutheran immigrants began to come from Germany,
some settling in and about Philadelphia, especially in Germantown,
before the turn of the century. After 17 10 the influx of German
immigrants, half of them Lutherans, assumed larger proportions.
Some of them gathered for worship in Germantown as early as 1726,
and in 1730 they had erected St. Michael s. By 1733 another group
was worshiping in a barn on Arch Street below Fifth. In 1742, with
the arrival of the noted Dr. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, German
Lutheranism was definitely organized and assumed its place in the
religious life of Philadelphia. The Ministerium of Pennsylvania, or
ganized by Muhlenberg and others, is the oldest ecclesiastical organi
zation of its kind in America, dating from 1747.

Since the close of the eighteenth century the Lutheran churches in
Philadelphia have multiplied rapidly. There are now 155 in this

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area. Most of them are affiliated with the Ministerium of Pennsyl
vania and the East Pennsylvania Synod.

Friends Hicksites^and^Orthodox

HPHE Society of Friends, or Quakers, was founded in England in

L the seventeenth century by George Fox. One of his followers,

William Penn, obtained in 1681 the grant of Pennsylvania, and for

70 years the influence of the Friends predominated in Philadelphia.

The essential Christian doctrines of the Friends were in accord
with those of their fellow Christians. Their distinctive doctrine was
that the Holy Spirit spoke immediately to the individual, a precept
often called the "Inner Light." The meetings were marked by silence,
unless some individual was moved by the Spirit to speak. As a sect,
Quakers emphasized spiritual baptism and communion rather than
the outward rites, and maintained that war and oaths were incon
sistent with Christianity.

In 1827 a controversy developed between two groups in the society.
The Orthodox faction contended that the unsound doctrines of the
Hicksites caused the difference ; the Hicksites charged that the
Orthodox were arbitrary in authority. The Hicksites apparently
questioned the divinity of Jesus Christ, the doctrine of atonement,
and the inspiration and authority of the Bible.

The Orthodox Friends school in Philadelphia is Friends Select
School ; the Hicksite Friends are represented by Friends Central
School. There are at present in the city 3,000 Orthodox Friends, with
six meetinghouses, and more than 2,000 Hicksites, with four meeting
houses.

On March 30, 1937, the two groups met in joint session for the first
time since the schism of 1827, when they gathered at the Hicksite
Meeting House to plan for the Friends World Conference.

Protestant Episcopal

f^HE first Church of England congregation in Pennsylvania was
L organized at the instance of Henry Compton, Bishop of London.
Penn s charter specifically empowered the bishop to establish it. As
early as 1695 a small group of churchmen of that denomination pur
chased a plot of ground on Second Street and erected Christ Church.
Rev. Thomas Clayton, appointed by Bishop Compton, came from
England to take charge, and within two years, under his active leader
ship the congregation had increased from 50 persons to 700.

After the death of Rev. Mr. Clayton, Rev. Evan Evans arrived in
1700 to take his place. Evans proved eminently fitted for advancing the
cause of religion in the growing town. He organized many congre-

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RELIGION

gallons and visited them frequently. His flock in Philadelphia in
creased rapidly. Four additional churches had been erected in the
surrounding settlements by 1704. Rapid growth marked the Protes
tant Episcopal faitk until the Revolution, at which time congrega
tions were split by Whig and Tory sympathies.

At the close of the Revolutionary War the church was bereft of its
clergy. Its ministers had been popularly suspected of being represen
tatives of the British Government. The one minister remaining in
Pennsylvania, one who had been a confidant of Washington and the
trusted friend of patriot leaders, was the youthful William White.
He dedicated all his energies to reconstruction of the religious heri
tage, exerting strong influence upon the work of reestablishing the
spiritual and material forces of the Episcopal Church. His immediate
task was to enlist and train native-born ministers. In 1783 he submitted
to his vestry a proposal to form a representative body of the Epis
copal churches in the State. This body met on May 24, 1784, and
three years later White was elected to the episcopate.

In Colonial times most of the prominent non-Quaker Philadel-
phians were members of this church. At present, the Protestant
Episcopal Church has many imposing edifices in Philadelphia. Christ
Church and Gloria Dei are the oldest of this list, each having a long
and rich historical tradition. The city s total number of communi
cants is 75,159.

Presbyterian

A LTHOUGH Philadelphia was destined to become an important
^"*- center of Presbyterian influence, Presbyterianism in America
antedates its first congregation in Philadelphia by more than half
a century. A congregation existed in Virginia as early as 1614, and
another was organized in New England August 6, 1629. But these
were antedated by a church in the Bermudas founded in 1612.

In 1692 groups of Baptists and Presbyterians met in the old Bar
bados storehouse, Second and Chestnut Streets, to lay the foundation
for both denominations. One group held morning services and the
other met in the afternoon. This association continued for three years,
until the arrival from New England of Jedediah Andrews. The con
gregation in the Barbados storehouse became strictly Presbyterian
under his pastoral guidance, the Baptists withdrawing. The year 1698
is generally accepted as the date of the organization of the First
Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia.

By 1704 the congregation had so increased as to be able to erect a
building of its own on High (now Market) Street between Second
and Third. Two years later the first presbytery met there. The num
ber of Presbyterians had increased to such an extent by 1716 that the

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presbytery felt justified in constituting the Synod of Philadelphia.
The meeting for organization was held in First Presbyterian Church.
It was here also, that the General Assembly of the Presbyterian
Church in the United States of America was organized.

First Church continued as the sole Presbyterian church in the city
until, in 1743, the Second Presbyterian Church was organized, with
Gilbert Tennent as pastor. The formation of this church came as a
direct result of the preaching activities of Tennent and George White-
field at the time of the "Great Awakening." In 1762 Third Presby
terian Church was founded. Construction of the church building on
Pine Street near Fourth was not begun, however, until 1766. When
the present structure was erected in 1857, a section of the wall of the
original building was retained. The fourth Presbyterian society to be
organized was the Church of the Northern Liberties, established in
1813.

The close of the Colonial period, therefore, found Philadelphia
Presbyterians with four distinct societies in four houses of worship.
At present there are 108 Presbyterian churches and a Presbyterian
population of 61,000 in the city.

Baptist

THE first permanent Baptist church established in Philadelphia
and still existing is that known as the Lower Dublin or the Old
Pennepek (Pennypack) Church. Organized in January 1688 by Rev.
Elias Keach, it is termed "Mother of All Baptist Churches in Penn
sylvania, New Jersey, New York, Delaware, and Maryland," although
a Baptist congregation existed as early as 1684 at Cold Spring, near
Bristol. Services of the present congregation are held in an edifice
on Krewstown Road, near Welsh Road, in the Bustleton section.

The present First Baptist Church of Penn s city was founded in
1698 as a branch of that at Lower Dublin, and was not formally con
stituted until 1746. (Until 1698 services were held in the Barbados
storehouse) . The present house of worship is at Sansom and Seven
teenth Streets.

The number of Baptists grew rapidly, and the city became the
center of Baptist activities. Perhaps the most noted leader in the
city was Rev. Dr. Russell H. Conwell, who became pastor of Grace
Baptist Church in 1881. Largely by lecturing, Dr. Conwell raised
more than $8,000,000, with which sum he founded Temple University
and three great hospitals : Samaritan (now Temple University Hos
pital), Garretson, and Greatheart. From a little, debt-ridden mission,
Grace Church became the Grace Baptist Temple at Broad and
Berks Streets, with a seating capacity of 3,500. Out of a class of two
or three young men meeting in the pastor s study grew the great

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RELIGION

Temple University from which, at the time of Dr. Conwell s death
in 1925, approximately 125,000 students had been graduated.

Among the larger Baptist churches, in addition to those mentioned,
are : Alpha, York and Hancock Streets ; Chestnut Street, Chestnut
Street west of Fortieth ; and Second, Second Street near Girard
Avenue. The Baptist membership in the metropolitan area of Phila
delphia numbers 46,162 white and approximately 50,000 Negro wor
shipers.

Mennonite

A GROUP of a dozen small bodies of Mennonites regard Menno
Simons, a Dutch Anabaptist, as their founder. Most of them
came to America from Holland, Germany, Switzerland, or Russia.

The first Mennonite colony was formed in Germantown in 1683
by some of the 13 original settlers. By 1708 they had built a little
log meetinghouse on Main Street (now Germantown Avenue) above
Herman Street. William Rittenhouse was the first pastor of the con
gregation. He is buried in the adjoining graveyard. In 1770 the
present Mennonite Meetinghouse replaced the log structure.

Members of the sect believe in adult baptism, non-resistance, and
practical piety, and are opposed to the judicial oath. The Mennonites
(General Conference) have 800 members and three churches in
Philadelphia ; and the Mennonite Brethren in Christ, with 400 mem
bers, also have three churches.

Brethren

I. Brethren Church (Progressive Dunkards) .
II. Church of the Brethren (Conservative Dunkards).

THIS religious group represents the Pietists who came from Cre-
feld, Germany, under the leadership of Peter Becker, and settled
in Germantown in 1719. At 6611 Germantown Avenue is the meeting
house which sheltered the mother congregation of the sect in America.
The front section of the building was erected in 1770. The first Bible
printed in this country in German came from the press of Christopher
Saur, or Sauer, a member of this congregation.

These Germans were called Dunkers (baptizers), because of their
belief in immersionism. Their communion was held in the evening,
preceded by the rite of foot washing and the love feast. Simple, plain-
living, devout Christians of the evangelical type, they are conserva
tive regarding attire ; they are opposed to taking oaths ; and they
advocate non-resistance and temperance.

The Progressives, who are more liberal in their customs and man
ners, and who believe that all ecclesiastical power should be lodged

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

in the local church, withdrew from the main body in 1882. They
have 300 members and two churches here. The Conservatives have
1,500 members and five churches.

Reformed

HPHE Reformed Church in the United States, until 1869 known as
-- the German Reformed Church, developed as a result of religious
persecution in Germany and Switzerland. Many did not subscribe to
the doctrines of Luther, finding the teachings of Zwingli and Calvin
more acceptable.

When, in 1684, the first of these refugees came to America, the Re
formed Church had its inception in the New World, although it did
not become fully organized until 1725. The vast majority of the new
settlers flocked to Pennsylvania, most of them proceeding inland be
yond Philadelphia to what is now Montgomery County. The first
German Reformed minister to arrive was Samuel Guldin, who
preached in Germantown in 1718.

The First Reformed Church of Philadelphia, founded in 1727,
was the first of this denomination in the city. Now at Fiftieth and
Locust Streets, it is one of 27 Reformed churches in the Philadelphia
area. Heidelberg, Broad and Grange Streets ; Trinity, Broad and
Venango Streets ; and Grace, Eleventh and Huntingdon Streets, have
the largest congregations.

Evangelical and Reformed

THE Evangelical and Reformed Church was formed in 1934 by a
union of the Evangelical Synod of North America and the Re
formed Church in the United States (German Reformed).

The Evangelical Synod traces its origin from missionaries of the
Evangelical Church of Germany and Switzerland, who organized a
synod in 1840 at Gravois, Mo. The first recorded communion service
of the Reformed Church in the United States was held in 1725. The
original German Reformed Church building was erected in German-
town in 1733, on the site now occupied by the Market Square Presby
terian Church. In 1747 a church was built in Philadelphia proper, on
Race Street near Fourth. Members of both churches numbered 15,800
in 1937.

Roman Catholic

OF ALL who sought friendly shelter in Penn s Province, to none
was it a more welcome haven than to the Catholics. Subjected to
the lash of persecution elsewhere, they found a true refuge in Phila
delphia. Here they could worship openly.

164

St. Paul s Protestant

Episcopal Church

"Here Stephen Girard

was married; here Edwin

Forrest lies"

Stenton House
"Home of

William Perm s
Secretary"

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

A chapel was established about 1729 in a private house next to
the southeast corner of Second and Chestnut Streets. Although prior
to this period Mass was celebrated in private homes by visiting Jesuits,
this chapel marked the beginning of the Roman Catholic Church
here.

Father Joseph Greaton, a Jesuit who arrived in Philadelphia in
1729, was the first to exercise his ministry in this humble place. Later,
in the years between 1731 and 1733, the exact time not being clear,
he built the tiny chapel of St. Joseph, oldest Catholic church in Phila
delphia. The present building, which was erected in 1838, is the
fourth structure on that site. Standing in Willing s Alley, between
Third and Fourth Streets, and surrounded by the offices of large in
surance companies, it is of lasting interest because of its association
with Colonial and Revolutionary times.

Father Greaton s two successors were responsible for new edifices.
St. Mary s, on Fourth Street north of Spruce, was erected in 1763
through the work of Father Harding. Father Molyneux opened a
parish school there in 1782. Father Steinmeyer, a German Jesuit, who
assisted Father Harding and Father Molyneux, was instrumental in
settling difficulties between Catholics of German origin and those of
Irish origin. In addition to his activities among the Germans in Phila
delphia, he journeyed as a missionary through Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, and New York. The colonists knew him as "Father Farmer."

After "Father Farmer s" death, the German Catholics felt the need
of a church of their own, and in 1788 built Holy Trinity Church at
Sixth and Spruce Streets. Of red and black glazed brick, this edifice
appears now substantially as it did when first built.

In 1793 there arose a demand for a church in the northern section
of the city. Opportunely, the Augustinians were seeking to establish
their order in the United States, and to them was entrusted the pro
ject of erecting a new church. St. Augustine s was dedicated in 1801.
The present structure, rebuilt in 1847, stands on the original site, on
Fourth Street between Race and Vine.

Until 1808 the Catholic Church in Philadelphia had been under
the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Baltimore. In that year, however,
the city was proclaimed a separate diocese, and two years later Bishop
Egan was installed as the first Bishop of Philadelphia.

In 1832 Bishop Francis P. Kenrick established, in an upstairs room
of St. Mary s rectory on Fourth Street, what eventually became the
diocesan seminary of St. Charles Borromeo. The first class consisted
of five students. In 1871 the seminary was transferred to its present
site in Overbrook. Toward the latter part of his 21-vear administra
tion Bishop Kenrick chose a site at Eighteenth and Race Streets for
a cathedral. The first Mass was sung in the Cathedral of SS. Peter
and Paul on Easter Sunday, 1862.

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RELIGION

John Nepomucene Neumann, a Redemptorist, was made bishop of
the diocese in March 1852. One of his first acts was to provide Catholic
schools. At his death eight years later, they numbered nearly 100.
Bishop Neumann has been proclaimed "Blessed" by the Church.
This is a step preliminary to placing him on the calendar of saints.

In 1868 the Holy See divided the diocese of Philadelphia, establish
ing a new diocese at Scranton and another at Harrisburg. Philadel
phia was elevated to the rank of a Metropolitan See in 1875.

His Eminence, Cardinal Dougherty, has been Archbishop of Phila
delphia since July 1918. In 1921 he was created cardinal. The Catholic
population of the archdiocese is estimated at 837,000.

Moravian

T^OLLOWERS of the pre-Reformation faith of Johann Huss, the
*- Moravian immigrants first settled in Georgia in 1735. They moved
to Pennsylvania in 1740, built the towns of Bethlehem and Nazareth,
and for some time adopted a form of communism to help them in
their efforts to conquer the wilderness. Under Count Zinzendorf they
cultivated a closely supervised spiritual discipline and endeavored to
separate themselves from the world. The Moravian Church is broadly
evangelical, and has a liturgy and an episcopal form of government.
The first Moravian church was built in Philadelphia in 1742, at
Race and Broad Streets, through the efforts and ministry of Count
Zinzendorf. The Moravians have 1,000 members in Philadelphia, with
three churches.

Judaism

l^ROM a few scattered pioneers in 1720 to a total of 247,000 in
1936 such is the growth of Judaism and the Jewish population
in Philadelphia.

In 1747 the first congregation in the city was begun, later acquir
ing the name of Kahal Kadosh Mikveh Israel. It is believed to have
held services in a small house in Sterling Alley, which ran from
Cherry Street to Race, just below Front. The first synagogue was
erected on Cherry Street between Third and Fourth and dedicated
in 1782, with Rabbi Gershon Mendes Israel Seixas as first minister.

The services of Mikveh Israel closely resembled the Orthodox
ritual of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews. Many of the early mem
bers were refugees from the Spanish Inquisition. The first Hebrew
Sunday School in America opened in Philadelphia on March 4, 1838,
as an adjunct to Mikveh Israel Congregation. Chief organizer of the
school was Rebecca Gratz, noted for her talent and beauty, as well as
for her strict adherence to the tenets of Judaism.

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Mikveh Israel has had many noted members during its long history.
Among them were Isaac Leeser, first American to translate the Old
Testament into English, and editor of an important Jewish magazine,
The Occident ; Rabbi Sabato Morais, founder of the Jewish Theo
logical Seminary of New York, a profound scholar and a doctor of
laws of the University of Pennsylvania ; Marcus Jastrow, author of
the only Talmudic dictionary in English ; Joseph Krauskopf, founder
of the National Farm School, in Doylestown ; Samuel Hirsch, na
tionally known religious orator ; and Henry Berkowitz, founder of
the Jewish Chautauqua Society. In 1860 Mikveh Israel was removed
to Seventh Street above Arch. It is now located at Broad and York
Streets.

The first synagogue of the German Jews was Rodeph Shalom,
chartered in 1802. First worship was held in a building on Pear Street,
later on Margaretta Street, then, in 1846, on Juliana (now Randolph)
Street, which lies between and parallel to Fifth and Sixth. In 1870
the congregation dedicated a new synagogue at Broad and Mt. Vernon
Streets. The present imposing synagogue was erected in 1927.

For some time this congregation was strictly Orthodox, but in 1866.
under the direction of Dr. Jastrow, many innovations of the liberal
wing of Judaism were adopted. With the coming of Rabbi Henry
Berkowitz in 1892, the congregation definitely allied itself with Re
formed Judaism, and is today one of the outstanding Reformed Con
gregations of America. In 1887 Rodeph Shalom built a school at 956
North Eighth Street. The Jewish Cultural Association also developed
from this congregation.

The third synagogue in Philadelphia was known as Beth Israel,
and held its first services in a rented hall near Fifth and Walnut
Streets in December 1840. The synagogue is now at Thirty-second
Street and Montgomery Avenue.

The Reformed Congregation, Keneseth Israel, largest in the city,
was organized in 1847. Services were held in a hall at 528 North
Second Street. At present the synagogue is on Broad Street above
Columbia Avenue. The congregation supports a free library and read
ing room. There were about 10 synagogues in Philadelphia in 1875.
At the end of 1935 there were 119.

Methodist Episcopal

ETHODISM was introduced into Philadelphia in 1769 by Dr.

Joseph Pilmoor, who preached his first sermon from the steps
of the State House. His teachings, however, were not entirely new,
for a year earlier Thomas Webb, a captain in the British army, had
conducted services. Later, sermons were delivered by Dr. Pilmoor in
open fields around the city. Dr. Pilmoor was assisted by Captain

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RELIGION

Webb. Many were impressed by the latter s stern mien. The first
regular meetings were held in a pothouse in Loxley s Court, between
Arch and Cherry Streets.

The first Methodist Episcopal church in America actually was the
present St. George s, Fourth Street north of Race. It was an un
finished building when purchased from the Dutch settlers in 1769,
and remained floorless even up to Revolutionary times. During the
British occupation the building was used as headquarters for cavalry.

Outstanding among Methodist Episcopal churches in this city are
the Arch Street at Broad and Arch Streets ; Calvary at Forty-eighth
Street and Baltimore Avenue ; and the First Methodist Episcopal of
Germantown at 6023 Germantown Avenue. The church population of
the Philadelphia Conference is more than 100,000. The Philadelphia
membership ranges from 40,000 to 65,000 with 132 churches, 20 of
which are for Negroes.

Universalist

/ORGANIZATION of the Universalists in this city into a separate
^-^ church came about as a result of a dispute arising in the First
Baptist Church of Philadelphia. Its pastor privately upheld the doc
trine of universal salvation. His views, becoming a subject of con
troversy, led to excommunication of himself and his followers. This
ousted group called themselves Universal Baptists.

In 1770 a group gathered by the Rev. John Murry absorbed the
greater part of the Universal Baptists, and the First Universalist
Church of Philadelphia was formed. This body erected a church
building on Lombard Street west of Fourth in 1793.

Today the principal Universalist Church in Philadelphia is the
Church of the Messiah, at Broad Street and Montgomery Avenue.

Unitarian

TPHE First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia, first of all existing
* churches in America to take the Unitarian name, was organized
in 1796 under Dr. Joseph Priestley, eminent scientist. Dr. Priestley
came to Philadelphia in 1794 from Birmingham, England, and began
preaching in this city.

John Adams, the Nation s second President, was a member of the
Unitarian Church of Quincy, Mass. While he was President, he
attended services at the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia.

The present parish house of the First Unitarian Church, on Chest
nut Street east of Twenty-second, was built in 1886. There is only
one other church of this denomination in Philadelphia, the German-
town Unitarian Church at 6511 Lincoln Drive.

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE
United Brethren in Christ

DURING the last half of the eighteenth century Philip William Ot-
terbein, a missionary of the German Reformed Church, and
Martin Boehm, of the Mennonite communion, feeling the need of a
deeper spiritual life, conducted evangelistic services throughout Penn
sylvania and the neighboring States. They gained converts rapidly,
and in 1800 there was formed a distinct ecclesiastical body the
United Brethren in Christ. The church was a natural development
of the spiritual needs of many German-Americans. Philadelphia to
day has 700 members of this faith, with four churches.

Christian Science

r I ^HE advent of Christian Science into Philadelphia was not a
L heralded event. The seedling was planted in the later years of
the nineteenth century, and in 1906 work was begun on the erection
of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, on Walnut Street west of
Fortieth. The building was completed in 1910. From that date until
its dedication in 1911 sufficient subscriptions were received to com
plete payment on its construction and to form the nucleus of a fund
for the building of the Second Church of Christ, Scientist, at 5443
Greene Street, Germantown. There are four other churches, each
with its own reading room. Jointly they maintain a city reading room
in the Fidelity-Philadelphia Trust Building at Broad and Sansom
Streets.

Spiritualists

SPIRITUALISM had its origin in the alleged spirit tappings heard
^5 by the Fox sisters of Hydesville, N. Y., in 1848. Through the work
of the elder sister the sect spread rapidly.

There are five churches in Philadelphia: First Association of
Spiritualists at Carlisle and Master Streets ; Third Spiritualist Church
at 1421 North Sixteenth Street ; Universal Spiritualist Brotherhood
Church at 3012 West Girard Avenue ; All Saints Spiritual Church
at 2026 Glenwood Avenue ; and St. John s Spiritual Alliance Church
at 805 West Lehigh Avenue.

Seamen s Church Institute

A LMOST a century ago a barge which had been converted into a
-^- floating church was towed down the Delaware River, moored to
a wharf at Dock Street, and opened as a seamen s church. Arrival of
the "floating church" aroused a great deal of interest, and throngs
of visitors inspected this unusual structure.

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Gateway of Old Christ Church
Come to me, all ye who labor . .

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

After sufficient money was subscribed the church was consecrated
by Rt. Rev. Alonzo Potter, and regular Sunday services were begun.
This was the origin of what is now the Seamen s Church Institute.
Work of the mission was transferred later to quarters at Catharine
and Swanson Streets, and in 1878 to the Church of the Redeemer,
Front and Queen Streets.

In 1920 the institute was incorporated as an independent inter
denominational society for rendering every service possible to sea
men, and was moved to its present location, Second and Walnut
Streets. Within a year adjoining properties were acquired. In 1927
the M. Clark Mariner Home for Aged and Disabled Mariners was
merged with the institute. More recently the Pennsylvania Seamen s
Friend, which had operated a sailors home at 422 South Front Street,
transferred its work to the institute.

Miscellaneous

churches represented in Philadelphia are : Latter Day
Saints, one church. 400 members ; Catholic Apostolic, one church
300 members ; Church of God in North America (General Elder
ship), one church, 116 members ; Congregational and Christian, eight
churches, 1,800 members ; Christian Church Disciples of Christ,
four churches, 1,900 members ; Dutch Reformed, four churches, 1,200
members ; Church of God, three churches, 150 members ; Seventh
Day Adventists, seven churches, 2,500 members ; Evangelical Con
gregational, two churches, 389 members ; Reformed Episcopal, ten
churches, 2,677 members.

Among the denominations represented in the Philadelphia Federa
tion of Churches and not previously mentioned are : United Brethren,
Christian Missionary Alliance, Covenanters, Methodist Free, Methodist
Protestant, Pentecostal, Primitive Methodist, Reformed Presbyterian,
Undenominational, and United Presbyterian.

Of the Orthodox (Eastern) Churches, the Greek Hellenic has one
church and 3,000 members in Philadelphia ; the Russian (under
the Patriarch of Moscow) has three churches and 2,266 members ;
the Rumanian (under the Patriarch of Bucharest) has one church
and 400 members ; the Independent Russian and the Albanian Ortho
dox have each one church and 500 members.

The Church of the New Jerusalem (Swedenborgian) has two
churches in Philadelphia ; the Schwenkfelders, one. The Ethical Cul
ture Society, with local headquarters at 1906 Rittenhouse Square, has
a membership of 800. The organization known as Jehovah s Witnesses
has headauarters at 1620 North Broad Street ; this group has no
membership rolls, and meetings are held in private homes.

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EDUCATION

THE Dutch and Swedes, Perm s predecessors in the "Grove of
Tall Pines," laid the foundations for public instruction. Men
who had to rely for survival almost entirely upon the strength
of their backs and the brawn of their arms realized that continued
progress and development depended upon how well the minds of
their children were sharpened upon the whetstone of knowledge.

Accordingly, a school was established on Tinicum Island in 1642,
with Christopher Taylor at its head. In 1657 Evert Pietersen con
ducted a school for Dutch children of new villages near Tinicum.

Penn thus found education established, in a small way, when he
arrived here. One of his first acts was to direct the Pennsylvania
Council to begin a school wherein the youth might be trained. Several
enterprising tutors managed to obtain a few pupils from the wealthier
immigrants. Enoch Flower, a teacher for 20 years, was summoned
from England in 1683 to take charge of a school established by the
council. Charges per quarter were four shillings to read English, six
shillings for reading and writing, and eight shillings for reading and
writing and "casting accounts." Flower also took pupils to board with
him at 10 a year.

Founding of the Friends Public School, now William Penn Char
ter School, was one of the important early steps leading to establish
ment of the public school system. The school was opened in 1689 on
Fourth Street below Chestnut, and was chartered in 1697. Conducted
by Quakers, it admitted pupils of every creed and gave instruction
free to indigent children. George Keith was headmaster.

The University of Pennsylvania was founded in 1749 by Benjamin
Franklin and a group of citizens interested in the "establishment of
educational facilities for the youth of the Pennsylvania colony."
Classes began in 1751 in a two-story brick building which had been
erected for religious services at Fourth and Arch Streets. Franklin
was the first president of the board of trustees.

The first charter was granted in 1753, and a second charter grant
ing the right to confer degrees was issued in 1755. Later, the first
medical school in America was established. In 1779 the charter be
came vested in "The Trustees of the University of the State of Penn
sylvania," and professional schools, distinct from the college, were
instituted.

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L/J

Board of Education Administration Buildina

Penn Charter School
The first established school of Philadelphia

EDUCATION

The first law school in the Nation was established in 1789 and
three years later the college and the university were merged and
incorporated under the title of "The University of Pennsylvania."

In 1829 the institution moved to Ninth and Chestnut Streets and
thence to its present site at Thirty-fourth Street and Woodland Ave
nue, in 1872. The following year the college buildings, Logan Hall,
Hare Laboratory and the main building of University Hospital were
constructed. From this time forward, the institution expanded rapidly,
adding new buildings and increasing the courses to such extent
that the university today has a faculty numbering 1,333 and a student
enrollment of about 15,000. The campus covers 106 acres and con
tains a total of 164 buildings. The total property value is about
$35,000,000, and the endowment funds amount to $19,000,000.

Temple University was founded in 1884 by Dr. Russell H. Conwell,
pastor of Grace Baptist Temple, Broad and Berks Streets. The in
stitution began when Dr. Conwell started evening classes in his
church for a small group of young men who desired to study for the
ministry. From this modest beginning, the idea expanded so that op
portunity for study was made available to poor students seeking
higher education.

Today the university has more than 12,000 students enrolled.
Its buildings occupy an entire block on the east side of Broad Street,
from Montgomery Avenue to Berks Street. Other buildings include
Temple University Medical College and Hospital at Broad and On
tario Streets ; the former Oak Lane Country Day School in Oak Lane;
and the School of Art in Elkins Park. The university is maintained
by two funds, one being obtained from student tuition, the other
from periodic appropriations made by the State.

In 1761 the Germantown Academy was established in Bensell s
(now School House) Lane, Germantown. It was sponsored by Ger
man settlers and English Quakers. It is the oldest school in the United
States having a continuous existence in the same building. Twenty-
three years after its founding the school obtained a charter as the
Public School of Germantown, but an advertisement in the Pennsyl
vania Gazette of 1794 listed it as Germantown Academy, and that
name has been retained.

These new schools did not, however, alleviate the sore need for
educational facilities for poor children. The Declaration of Inde
pendence, written and signed in this city, proclaimed that all men
were created equal and entitled to "life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness." Nevertheless, the problem of free education in Phila
delphia received no adequate local attention until 1818. That year
the Legislature passed an act setting up the city of Philadelphia as
the first school district of Pennsylvania. New schools were opened,
and a board of control was established to supervise them. Among the

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institutions started then was the "Model School," which opened
December 21, 1818.

This type school, originated in England by Joseph Lancaster, was
used there to some extent. It provided for a headmaster and a group
of monitors to act as teachers, each monitor handling 15 or 20 pupils.
Under this arrangement it was possible to educate more children at
smaller cost than under previous systems. A special committee which
had been named to study this Lancaster plan reported upon it favor
ably ; 10 such schools were opened and a special building set aside
for the eleventh.

Thus, the "Model School" was established and placed under the
direct supervision of Lancaster, who crossed the Atlantic to take
charge of it. It trained young men and women in the teaching pro
fession, and its graduates received posts in the new school districts
set up in the State by the law of 1834, which levied a tax to provide
necessary revenue.

The advances made in the Legislature s act of 1834 were seriously
threatened the following year when members of the Assembly were
yielding to the pressure of those opposed to the new taxes. A masterly
address by Thaddeus Stevens, "Father of the Pennsylvania Free
Schools," completely turned the tide of sentiment.

In 1836 another law was passed, providing for the education of
all children more than four years old. This was the first step toward
compulsory education and one of the greatest strides in free public
instruction. The new law also carried a provision for establishment of
a high school in Philadelphia.

Accordingly, the board of control began erection of Central High
School, on the east side of Juniper Street below Market, facing
what was then Center Square. The school embodied all the dreams
and ideals of the pioneers of free public education. It was a fine
building, well staffed, and was surmounted by an astronomical ob
servatory not surpassed anywhere in the country. Alexander Dallas
Bache, great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, was appointed first
principal of the school in 1839. Franklin had not lived to see the
fruit of his earlier campaigns for public education, but with Bache s
appointment the tradition was carried on. During his three years at
the school Bache organized a smoothly functioning unit and estab
lished a fine curriculum. The school s fame spread.

By 1853 business had moved westward from the Delaware until
the school was almost surrounded by commercial establishments. The
building was sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad, and in September
1854 Central High School moved to the southeast corner of Broad
and Green Streets. In 1894 another building was erected on the south
west corner of the same intersection. Both buildings still stand but
the earlier, which served as an annex, was condemned in 1937.

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EDUCATION

With the establishment of Central High School the board of con
trol increased its activity and in 1848 opened a school of practice
in conjunction with the Girls Normal School in the old Model School
building on Chester (Darien) Street north of Race. The popularity
of this school of higher education for girls grew at such an amaz
ing rate that by 1853 it became necessary to open a similar school to
accommodate the overflow.

In 1859 the Normal School was closed and replaced by the Girls
High School, which in the second and third terms of its curriculum
gave special instruction to those intending to become teachers. Stu
dents in the senior classes obtained practice by teaching the lower
classes. The school was reorganized in 1861 and renamed Girls High
School and Normal School. Seven years later the word "high" was
dropped, and it was renamed Girls Normal School. It is now the
Philadelphia Normal School.

Increasing registration and new requirements necessitated larger
quarters, and in 1876 the school was moved to Seventeenth and Spring
Garden Streets. Here it operated in conjunction with the Philadel
phia High School for Girls until 1893, when its professional course
having been extended from one to two years, and the Girls High
School course tn four years, new facilities were required. The Normal
School moved to Spring Garden and Thirteenth Streets, its present
site, and the high school remained at Seventeenth Street.

Meanwhile, the school system improved steadily. The number of
schools increased and teachers salaries advanced. Then a campaign
to simplify textbooks, courses, and methods of administration was
launched.

By an act of Legislature in 1870, the name of the control board
was changed to the Board of Public Education. Three years later the
City Councils passed an ordinance creating a loan of $1,000,000 for
the erection of additional school buildings. That same year, a clause
in the new State constitution made provisions for education of chil
dren more than six years old, with $1,000,000 to be set aside yearly
for that purpose. In 1895 the education of children became com
pulsory by legislative enactment.

In 1874 Quakers reorganized the William Penn Charter School,
Fourth Street below Chestnut, and moved it to No. 8 South Twelfth
Street. It occupied this latter site until 1925, when it was removed to
School House Lane, Germantown, not far from Germantown Acad
emy. This school claims direct descent from the old school of the
same name. The Friends Select School, Seventeenth Street and the
Parkway, still under the direction of Friends Meeting, also traces its
origin to the old William Penn Charter School.

The mere enumeration of dates on which changes in the school
system occurred can give little comprehension of the gradual rise of

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

the educational idea to a broad and higher plane. Such factors as the
consolidation of the city, in 1854, and the subsequent creation of
separate school districts for each ward were quickly reflected in the
viewpoint and morale of the administrative and teaching staffs.
Similarly, creation of the office of Superintendent of Schools, about
1883, helped toward the establishment of a more professional standard
throughout the city for all wards.

Such changes, however, were utterly inadequate to correct the
abuses which had grown with the system itself, abuses due largely to
the narrow selfishness of politicians. Ward leaders, members of City
Councils, and even the small fry of the political world saw in the
system a mere "grab bag." Teaching jobs were for sale at the political
pay window, provided the applicant had a mere certificate showing
qualifications for the work. There was no such thing as a list of
eligibles to be drawn from in order, so political patronage far out
weighed any excellence in the candidate for the schoolroom work, or
the interests of the children themselves.

Real transformation of the educational picture began with the Act
of 1905, by which the State reorganized the public school system and
established the Board of Education for Philadelphia. This board was
given the power of disposal of the money which Council was au
thorized to collect through a limited tax on real estate.

In Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, this limited power of taxation was
transferred from Council to the Board itself by an act passed in
1911, which established a school code for the entire State.

The Philadelphia public school system today has an enrollment
of about 272,000 day pupils. Adding to this the number attending
evening schools, citizenship classes for mothers, and other extension
activities, the total is about 300,000. The system requires the services
of nearly 10,000 persons in the professional field. At present there
are 4 practice, 14 senior high, 23 junior high, 3 vocational, 201 ele
mentary schools and one industrial art school, one residential school,
one demonstration school, and one normal school.

Negro Education

T^DUCATION of the Negro in early days of the Colony was advo-
-^cated by three groups masters who sought to increase the effi
ciency of their slaves, sympathetic groups interested in the better
ment of the race, and zealous Christian missionaries.

Of these three groups, the first was by far the most effective. Al
though it was undoubtedly selfishness that prompted the slave owners
to pursue their policy of education, their efforts proved far more
productive than those of the other groups. Their methods were based
upon two forms formal education in reading and writing, and

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EDUCATION

industrial education to further the efficiency of the slave in his work.

The Quakers, however, strove not only to educate the Negro, but
actually to free him from the bonds of slavery. They believed educa
tion would mean little to the Negro until he was free. Among the
first Quaker leaders interested in emancipation were George Fox
and William Penn. A definite scheme was advanced in 1713 whereby
the slaves would be freed, educated, and returned to Africa in the
capacity of missionaries among their own people.

In 1750 Anthony Benezet established a night school for Negroes
in Philadelphia, and 20 years later he took the leading part in estab
lishing a systematic method of education for the Negro. The Monthly
Meeting of Friends in 1770 approved a proposal to establish a school
for Negro and mulatto children. These were to be instructed in read
ing, writing, arithmetic, and other useful subjects. This school was
continued for 16 years. Tuition was free, the school being maintained
by subscriptions.

The first attempt of an organized body to educate the Negro was
made by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
Parts, organized in London in 1701. Assisted by a private endowment,
known as the Dr. Bray Fund, this society opened two schools in
Philadelphia in 1760, and its educational work continued for nearly
a cenlury.

The period between 1830 and 1860 saw the greatest strides in the
field of Negro education. Until 1830 only two schools for Negro
children were supported by public funds, but in that year the board
of control established another such school in Northern Liberties. In
1844 two more were opened, and others followed thereafter with in
creased frequency.

Meanwhile, the Negroes had begun a campaign of their own to
educate members of their race. Societies were formed for that pur
pose, and libraries were opened. The close of the Civil War and the
emancipation of slaves caused a veritable boom in Negro education.
Previously Negroes had been refused admission to both Central High
School and the Philadelphia Normal School, as well as to the Univer
sity of Pennsylvania. When the bars were lowered, a large number
of Negroes quickly took advantage of the opportunity to gain a
higher education.

Parochial School System

TN THE parish of St. Joseph s, probably as early as the 1730 s, was
-*- established the first parochial school in the city. In 1767 James
White, a merchant, bequeathed 50 "toward a school house"- the
first known bequest made to aid Catholic education in Philadelphia.
In 1781 St. Mary s Church took steps to pay off the old school debt

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

arid to buy new ground, presumably for another school building. St.
Joseph s Society for the Education of Poor Orphan Children next
entered the field, obtaining incorporation papers in 1808.

Later, the Germans of St. Mary s parish formed a church of their
own, and immediately opened a school. This new church was known
as Holy Trinity Church. The parish of St. Augustine was founded
in 1796, and almost immediately began to provide facilities for the
education of the parish children.

Parochial schools continued to be opened as the number of Catho
lics in the city increased and made new parishes necessary. Catholic
education was accelerated in 1878, when the will of Thomas E. Cahill
bequeathed almost $1,000,000 for the establishment of a Catholic
high school. In 1890 the Roman Catholic High School was opened
at Broad and Vine Streets. Today the school maintains an athletic
field (Cahill Field) as a memorial to the founder.

At present there are seven Catholic High Schools and 127 parish
elementary schools in Philadelphia. These are augmented by 10
schools conducted by Catholic charitable institutions.

Special Schools

T^HILADELPHIA has a large number of special schools where
- trades, the arts, and various specialized vocations are taught. These
include many preparatory schools, business schools, and schools of
religion.

The Spring Garden Institute, Broad and Spring Garden Streets,
was opened in 1851 to further educational facilities for young men
and women. Reading rooms, night schools, and other features were
included. Today the institute has a large number of students in the
industrial crafts, manual training, and many fields of art.

Gratz College, Broad and York Streets, is the oldest school in the
United States for the training of Jewish religious teachers. It was
established in 1856 with a large bequest made by Hyman Gratz. Next
door is Dropsie College, where Hebrew and cognate languages are
taught to Jewish students and to any others interested.

The Mastbaum Vocational School, Frankford Avenue and Clemen
tine Street, is conducted along the lines of the Smith-Hughes plan
for vocational training. The two-year term provides vocational and
academic training. Students enter directly from both junior high and
senior high schools. Half the school day is spent in practical shop
work, the other half in classroom study. Automobile mechanics, wood
work, textiles, electrical construction, stenography, bookkeeping,
drafting, machine construction, vocational music, and vocational art
are taught. A junior employment service is maintained for students.

In keeping with this progressive policy of making the schools fit

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EDUCATION

the actual needs of the pupils, several other special-purpose schools
have been gradually integrated into the system. These include the
Orthopedic School, the Shallcross School for Truants, and the Flei-
sher Vocational School.

Night schools have also proved an extensive and valuable addition
to the board s ordinary activities, thousands of pupils, young and old,
taking advantage of the opportunity thus offered them to pursue
courses of commercial and cultural advantage.

Included among art schools are the Pennsylvania Museum School
of Industrial Art, Broad and Pine Streets, opened in 1877 ; the
Academy of Fine Arts, Broad and Cherry Streets, founded in 1805
and the oldest art institution in the United States ; and the Philadel
phia School of Design for Women, Broad and Master Streets, founded
in 1844 and incorporated in 1853.

Prominent among several theological seminaries in the city is the
Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1814 South Rittenhouse
Square, which trains men as missionaries, preachers, and teachers.
It is divided into three schools : theology, religious education, and
sacred music. There are accommodations for married men and their
families, as well as for single persons.

St. Vincent s Theological Seminary is conducted by the Vincentian
Order, at Chelten and Magnolia Avenues, Germantown. This seminary
educates young men as priests for Catholic missions. The Lutheran
Theological Seminary, 7301 Germantown Avenue, was founded in
1864 to train ministers for the Lutheran Church. The seminary is
augmented by a graduate school. The Reformed Episcopal Church
conducts a seminary at 25 South Forty-third Street. Westminster
Theological Seminary, Church Road and Willow Grove Avenue,
Chestnut Hill, was formed as a result of a reorganization in modern
istic direction of Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, N. J. in
1929. The course of study includes religious history, Bible study, and
allied subjects. The Divinity School of the Protestant Episcopal
Church, Forty-second and Locust Streets, was chartered in 1862.
This institution maintains a graduate school.

Several private schools in the city, including Germantown Acad
emy, Penn Charter, and many Friends schools offer courses of study
ranging from the early grades through college preparatory work. In
any of these, pupils may enter at kindergarten age and continue
through elemeiitarv grades, high school, and preparatory courses for
college entrance. Thus the pupil s school life is continuous in the
same surroundings and under the same system of education.

Most of the city s hospitals conduct nursing schools. High school
graduates are accepted for a course of training which is augmented
by actual hospital work. Thousands of young women yearly take ad
vantage of these opportunities.

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Many business schools are scattered throughout the city, where
training is given in typewriting, stenography, bookkeeping, and gen
eral office practice. There are also a number of college preparatory
schools such as Brown Preparatory School, Fifteenth and Race Streets.

Girard College, a school for the care and education of white, male
orphans between the ages of six and eighteen, was founded in 1848
under the terms of the will of Stephen Girard.

The entrance to the institution s 42-acre plot of ground is at Corin
thian and Girard Avenues. The present site and group of school build
ings and dormitories are valued at more than $6,000,000. Control of
the school is vested in a board of trustees of 12 members appointed by
the judges of the Courts of Common Pleas of Philadelphia, and the
Mayor and president of City Council.

Conditions for admission give preference (1) to boys born in the
bounds of the old city of Philadelphia ; (2) to boys born elsewhere
in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ; (3) to those born in New
York City ; (4) to boys born in New Orleans.

Founder s Hall, located just within the main gate, is regarded as
a beautiful specimen of Grecian artchitecture. A sarcophagus just in
side the door contains the remains of Girard.

The curriculum includes elementary, grammar, and high school
courses as well as trade school and commercial courses.

Two schools in Philadelphia devoted to the teaching of the blind
and deaf are the Pennsylvania School for the Blind, in Overbrook,
and the Pennsylvania School for the Instruction of the Deaf, in Mount
Airy. At the latter institution, deaf and dumb boys and girls are
taught sign language and lip reading.

Universities and Colleges

T N ADDITION to the University of Pennsylvania and Temple Uni-
- -versity, there are several smaller colleges which are important
factors in making Philadelphia an educational center.

La Salle College, in charge of the Catholic Christian Brothers,
stands on an eminence at Twentieth Street and Olney Avenue. It was
chartered in 1863 as an outgrowth of the old Christian Brothers
Academy, founded in 1862 at 1419 North Second Street. In 1867 the
college wan moved to Juniper and Filbert Streets, and in 1886 to the
old Bouvier mansion at Broad and Stiles Streets. Since 1930 it has
occupied its present quarters, in more spacious surroundings, with
fine new buildings and a large campus. The La Salle College High
School, housed on the campus, offers a complete course in college
preparation.

St. Joseph s College, Fifty-fourth Street and City Line Avenue,
had its inception in the parish house of St. Joseph s Church, Willing s

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EDUCATION

Alley, in 1851. Classes were transferred to a building at Filbert and
Juniper Streets in 1855, these quarters being used until 1860, when
the college returned to old St. Joseph s. In 1876 the school was moved
to new buildings at Seventeenth and Stiles Streets, and in 1927 to
its present site. The old buildings at Seventeenth and Stiles Streets
now house St. Joseph s College High School.

The Drexel Institute of Art, Science, and Industry was founded in
1891 by Anthony J. Drexel, who desired to open a new field of
specific and fundamental education for young men and women. The
school which is at Thirty-second and Chestnut Streets, maintains a
cooperative course in engineering and business administration which
allows its students periods of actual work in Philadelphia industrial
plants.

The Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science, the first of its
kind to be established in this country, was founded in historic Car
penters Hall in 1821 as the College of Apothecaries. With the
development of more scientific methods of compounding prescrip
tions, the school added courses in science and more advanced forms
of pharmacy. In 1921 it received the right to confer the degree of
bachelor of science, and in 1928 moved to its present building at
Forty-third Street and Kingsessing Avenue. It was one of the first
schools in the country to admit women students, this step being taken
in 1876.

The Philadelphia College of Osteopathy, Forty-eighth and Spruce
Streets, was incorporated in 1899. It offers a comprehensive course in
osteopathy, augmenting its regular work with a hospital and a gradu
ate school.

Regular medical colleges, notably Jefferson, Hahnemann, Univer
sity of Pennsylvania, and Temple, have long served the medical world
ably, by producing thoroughly trained graduates.

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PHILADELPHIA S literary history dates from the earliest
Colonial times. Was not William Penn himself in the way of
being an author, with such expository-polemical works to his
credit as No Cross No Crown, Treatise on Oaths, and The Great Law
or Frame of Government? It was, however, during the second half of
what is commonly distinguished as the Colonial period in the history
of American literature that Philadelphia stepped into the foreground
and became for a term of years the publishing and, to a large extent,
the writing capital of the United States. This was the "Age of Frank
lin," as it is termed by literary historians, an epoch extending from
1727 to 1765 or thereabouts. It followed the darkly brooding era of
Puritan witchcraft and theological writing, as exemplified in New
England by such figures as Cotton and Increase Mather and by
Jonathan Edwards in New Jersey.

If the age of witchcraft held much of the environing darkness of
the primeval forest, the age of Franklin, on the other hand, was an
increasingly practical one, foreshadowing and leading up to the
American Revolution. It is an era instinctively associated with such
productions as Franklin s Poor Richard s Almanac and the same
author s Autobiography (although the latter was not published in
its complete form until 1868) .

With the dawn of the Revolution, there appeared the truly great
personality for he was a personality rather than a writer in the
narrower acceptance of the term of Thomas Paine, a humanitarian
of world stature and a pioneer battler for the rights of man, who
was to have his influence upon British thought and upon the course
of the French Revolution of 1789. Such works as Paine s Crisis, Com
mon Sense, and Age of Reason, pamphlets though they may be in
essential nature, stand out here.

It is, in all likelihood, Franklin and Paine who first come to mind
when one thinks back upon Philadelphia s literary past. If one skips
from the Revolution to the mid-nineteenth century, Walt Whitman,
poet of American democracy, and the tragic figure of Edgar Allan
Poe loom large. Did not Whitman, in the declining years of his life,
live in Camden, N. J., just across the river ? And were not the poet s
"good gray" beard and tossing mane a familiar sight in Philadelphia
streets ? And was it not, probably, in a house at 530 North Seventh

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Street, that Poe sat in solitary contemplation of the bust of Pallas
Athene above his chamber door to pen the lines that were to make
him immortal?

To this day Philadelphia continues to produce its due quota of
writers novelists, essayists, poets, historians, and scientific, travel
and adventure writers. Such names as those of James Gibbons Hun-
eker, Richard Harding Davis, Frank R. Stockton, Bayard Taylor, S.
Weir Mitchell, Owen Wister, Christopher Morley, Agnes Repplier,
Horace Howard Furness and his son, Horace Howard Furness, Jr., and
John Bach McMaster are enough to lend luster to any city.

In addition to writers, Philadelphia has upon occasion provided
literary material, as it did in the case of Theodore Dreiser s The
Financier, based upon the career of a local capitalist, Charles T. Yerkes.

AS HAS been stated, literature, of a sort at least, began early in
Pennsylvania ; and Pennsylvania meant Philadelphia, where the
printing shops were situated. The printers themselves frequently were
men of letters. Samuel Keimer, who set up a shop in 1723, is looked
upon by many as the first Philadelphia publisher.

Scholarship rather than creation marked the Colonial literary out
put. This, perhaps, was not unnatural ; the colonists with their wives
and children in "Peon s City" desired above all else not to lose con
tact with the Old World culture and civilization which they had left
behind. And so we find, in the first days of the Commonwealth,
Francis Daniel Pastorius, founder of Germantown, giving the public
his encyclopedic Beehive.

That social questions, even at the outset, were not without their
influence upon Pennsylvania writers, is shown by Pastorius interest
in the antislavery cause ; his efforts are said to have led to the
founding of the first American abolitionist society.

Translations of classics also occupied a prominent place in the
picture. William Penn s secretary, James Logan, of Scotch-Irish an
cestry, made a rendering of Cato s Moral Distichs (1735) and one of
Cicero s Cato Major or Discourse on Old Age (1744) . The former was
probably the first translation of its kind in America. Logan s manu
scripts, copied by his wife, Deborah Norris, are now preserved in the
Ridgway Branch of the Library Company of Philadelphia.

Philosophical, theological, and moral-didactic literature also
flourished at this period, although not to the same degree as in New
England ; the prevailing Quaker atmosphere appears to have exerted
a mellowing influence, and the witch hunting, witch baiting of the
Mathers, for instance, is gratifyingly absent for the most part. Never
theless, the temper and cast of mind of the northern colonists were
rather heavily theological, and it is not surprising if we find sermons

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to have been a staple article of intellectual diet. Among the clerics
whose pulpit exhortations were popular were the Muhlenberg broth
ers, Henry Melchior and Frederick Augustus Conrad ; William Ten-
nent and his three sons ; George Whitefield, and Dr. William Smith.

In addition to the sermon writers of this time, there were a number
of mystics, among them Johann Kelpius, Heinrich Bernard Koster,
Dr. Christopher Witt, and Daniel Faulkner.

Yet another early Philadelphia clergyman deserving of notice is
Rev. Jacob Duche, who gained notoriety by a letter which he wrote
to General Washington in 1777, urging the Commander-in-Chief of
the Continental Army to seek a reconciliation with the British. He
was also the author (and publisher) of Caspipina s Letters, later re
printed in England.

John Woolman s journal of his own life and travels, which saw
the light at this period, likewise won notice abroad.

Education vied with religion in the interest of the colonists ; the
first American treatise on school management is said to have been
Christopher Dock s Schulordnung.

Though Colonial life may have been hard in many respects, and
though it may still have worn a certain coating of theological gloom,
it was by no means utterly joyless or lacking in humor, as may be
seen from the satires and comedies of the Quaker, Gabriel Thomas.
His writings were, it is true, rather looked down upon ; but they
were passed from hand to hand and read with glee when no austere
member of the congregation chanced to be looking.

A LL of this, as mav be seen, does not weigh very heavily in the
^*- literary scales. What we have so far is not so much a literature
as the crude beginnings of one or, it might be more accurate to
say, the vestigial reflections of an older literature from beyond the
seas. The appearance of Franklin s Poor Richard, destined to be
America s household companion for more than a score of years, really
marked the inception of a Philadelphia literature in the stricter sense
of the word ; and even that is not pure literature, or literature of a
high order.

The fact that the name of Franklin has been given to an entire
period of our writing annals, means that he must have been an out
standing figure in more ways than one ; and it further implies that
Franklin s home city, where his manifold activities were carried on,
and where the greater part of his works were written and published,
must have occupied the center of the literary stage for that period.

Franklin was indeed a personality that was to become familiar to
two continents. His fat, round, beaming, bespectacled countenance was
to mingle in the popular imagination of Europe and America with a
mental picture of the "good doctor" with his kite, engaged in drawing

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The Poe House

"The House of

Melaricholy"

HHHPfP

Poe House Interior
". . . rapping at
mr chamber door.""

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

the lightning from the heavens. For Franklin s scientific experiments
and inventions, his skill as a diplomatic bargainer, his social successes
in pre-revolutionary France and elsewhere, and his correspondence
with the great of the world the whole offset by a personal character
which was at bottom a shrewd and calculating one were to a large
degree to overshadow his forays into the field of literature, and were
to confer upon these sallies their quintessential flavor.

It is doubtful if Franklin ever took himself very seriously as a
litterateur. The Autobiography, his most important work from a
literary standpoint, appears to have been rather carelessly tossed off.
While parts of it were published in France during 1791-98, it was
not until 1868, from a manuscript obtained in France, that the first
complete text was printed, under the editorship of John Bigelow.
The Autobiography is a work which has been extravagantly praised
and vigorously condemned. Charles Angoff, for example, author of
A Literary History of the American People., considers Franklin a
"two-penny philosopher," the first great exponent of the t4 lowbrow
point of view in American letters and precursor of the Rotarians and
Kiwanians of today ; he sees in the creator of Poor Richard a thor
oughgoing vulgarian, lacking in all literary grace.

It was in 1732 that Poor Richard made its bow, continuing to ap
pear regularly thereafter (to the delectation of readers) for a quar
ter of a century. Here, in a way, was true American folk literature,
an embodiment of that spirit of an almost fanatical, at times miserly,
practicality which was so characteristic of the Pennsylvania colonist
and, in a large degree, of the American colonist. "Early to bed and
early to rise." "Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care
of themselves." This is unquestionably Colonial American to the
bone ; and it is small wonder, then, that Franklin s name, despite
a somewhat scant performance in the realm of literature proper, has
fastened itself upon a literary era. His almanac sold three editions
the first three months it was printed, and 10,000 copies annually
during its quarter century publication.

It was one of Franklin s proteges, a young Scotch tutor named Wil
liam Smith, who was responsible for publishing some of the earliest
American poetry in a magazine which he founded at Philadelphia,
and which was known as the American Magazine and Monthly
Chronicle for the British Colonies. Among the poets to whom this
publication afforded a hearing were Thomas Godfrey, Jr., Nathaniel
Evans, and Elizabeth Graeme Ferguson.

AMONG Philadelphia writers of the Revolutionary period, Thomas
Paine, "penman of the Revolution," is far and away the most
important. It is true that most of Paine s life was spent under a cloud
of deep opprobrium, in which slander of him as a man mingled

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with condemnations of his religious beliefs. The truth is, Paine s
religious views have caused his greater claim to fame to be more or
less overlooked. His real importance lies in the fact that he was the
first modern internationalist ; his social views in general were far in
advance of his time. He was one of the first, possibly the first, to
advocate a system of governmental social security.

As for posterity s winnowed opinion of Paine, it appears to have
been well summed up by Angoff, who says that Paine "probably did
more to spread religious and theological enlightenment than any
other one man who ever lived."

The Rights of Man, The Age of Reason, Common Sense, and The
Crisis, as well as Agrarian Justice, a work in which Paine dealt with
the problem of poverty somewhat in the manner of a Henry George
all of these are works of which Philadelphia well may be proud.
The Rights of Man, though loathed by the Federalists, was a kind
of Bible to Jefferson, Madison, and other forward-looking spirits.
Written in answer to Burke s Reflections on the French Revolution,
it had its repercussions in England and, especially in revolutionary
France. The publication of Common Sense had made Paine the most
influential political writer in America ; yet to many he still remained
the "atheist and "jailbird." A Trenton stagecoach driver declined
to carry him, declaring that he, the driver, had already had one
team of horses struck by lightning and did not care to take another
chance.

Tom Paine, the Philadelphian whose unhallowed bones were carried
to England by William Cobbett, has his revenge today, when from
5,000 to 10,000 copies of his works are printed annually in New
York City alone.

There are a number of other men of this time of the "Founding
Fathers" whose names have come down to us as associated in one
way or another with literature. Most, if not all, of them were active
in other walks of life, especially politics, and writing with them was

by way of being an expression
of interests not essentially lit
erary. John Dickinson, leader
in the Constitutional Conven-
tion, was one of these. Francis
Hopkinson, chairman of the
Navy Board which designed

Thomas Paine
Precursor of Social Security.

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

the American flag, was another. Bishop Samuel Seabury was a leader
of the church ; John Bartram was a botanist. Ralph Saundiford,
Benjamin Lay, Anthony Benezet, Robert Proud, Morgan Edwards,
Joseph Galloway, Thomas Coombe these are no more than names
(or not even so much as names) to the Philadelphian of today ;
yet each in his own day was a distinguished citizen and contributor
to the cultural life of the city, the Commonwealth, and the country.
There are, however, two names which emerge prominently from
this obscurity of the past. One is that of Hugh H. Brackenridge, who
shares with Charles Brockden Brown the honor of creating the novel
in America. He, like Brown, was the author of a number of hair-rais
ing, terror-inspiring tales, of the imported "Gothic Romance" school.
Then, there was James Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, author of an
early romantically exaggerated account of America, which was greatly
to influence the French and other Continentals in their conception
of the transoceanic scene.

r I ^HE close of the Revolution found Philadelphia still the literary
*- capital. Magazines, springing up, began to publish works of some
of the foremost contemporary writers, not merely of Philadelphia but
of the Nation. From about 1792 to 1812, Joseph Dennie and his
circle were to confer upon the city a distinct literary aspect. Political
pamphleteering, a carry-over from Revolutionary days, also con
tinued and was sometimes of a violent character indeed.

Among the most colorful of the post-Revolutionary pamphleteers
was William Cobbett, who is regarded by certain historians as one
of the founders of American party journalism. A political refugee
from the French Revolution, who had settled in Philadelphia as a
teacher of English to his exiled fellow countrymen, Cobbett was ex
tremely violent in his anti-republican prejudices, and was further
possessed of a rare gift of vituperation. Advocating an alliance with
England for a war against republican France, Cobbett braved the
threat of tar and feathers and launched a publication known as
Porcupine s Gazette. He finally became so obstreperous that President
Adams thought seriously of deporting him ; but in 1800, he of his
own accord left America for England.

Samples of the "incomparable Billingsgate" of this "Peter Porcu
pine," as he called himself, will be found in a number of old pam
phlets, published in 1795 and later, such as A Bone to Gnaw for the
Democrats, A Kick for a Bite, A Little Plain English Addressed to
the People of the United States, and A New Year s Gift for the Demo
crats.

Among the magazines launched at this period was the American
Museum, founded by Matthew Carey, in 1787. It numbered among
its contributors such men as Franklin, Dr. Benjamin Rush, Jacob

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LITERATURE

Duche, and Philip Freneau, best of the American poets before Bry
ant and a pioneer exploiter of American Indian material.

The first American literary magazine really worthy of the name
was The Port Folio, founded by Joseph Dennie in 1806. It ran until
1827, Dennie, under the name of Oliver Oldschool, Esq., being the
editor until the time of his death in 1812. Begun as a weekly pub
lication devoted to literature and politics, the new journal of "polite
letters" had such contributors as John Quincy Adams, Charles Brock-
den Brown, and Dennie himself. A study of the influence exerted by
Dennie and his followers has been made by H. M. Ellis, in Joseph
Dennie and His Circle.

That Philadelphia, as well as America in general, was becoming less
provincial and more cosmopolitan, is indicated by the space accorded
in Dennie s Port Folio to reviews of foreign books. Indeed, beginning
with Dennie, a line of cleavage may be recognized between the Revo
lutionary epoch and the one immediately following, which was
marked by the establishment of the American Nation and the begin
nings of a national literature. The period from 1750 or 1765 (au
thorities differ in their chronology, and there is no hard and fast
demarcation) down to 1789-1792 was what might be described as the
coffee-house era, marked by prolonged and impassioned discussion
and debate on political and religious, but above all political, themes.
With the adoption of the Federal Constitution and inauguration of
the processes of orderly government, life tended to become more
settled. There was a greater margin of leisure free from ideological
preoccupations ; life became more refined, and there was room for a
greater interest in pure literature and for culture in its broader
aspects.

The first distinct movement to manifest itself in our national liter
ature was romanticism, of which the first great exponent was to be
James Fenimore Cooper, with Washington Irving as forerunner and
pathbreaker. It is worthy of note that American romanticism, in a
way, had its origins in Philadelphia, in the writings of Charles Brock-
den Brown, whose Arthur Mervyn is based upon the Philadelphia
yellow-fever epidemic of 1793. The account which the author here
gives us is unusually vivid, inspiring, at once, feelings of fear and
of pity ; it is, moreover, essentially romantic in spirit and techni
que. Brown antedates Cooper by a score or more of years. He is
further remembered, by students of literature at any rate, for his
Wieland (1798) and his Edgar Huntley, or Memoirs of a Sleep-walker
(1799). The degree of romanticism in his work is evidenced by the
fact that in his Wieland, for instance, the author makes use of such
plot elements as spontaneous combustion, ventriloquism, and reli
gious mania. Brown was under the influence of the English horror
school ; while his heroines, in their excessive lachrymose sentiment-

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ality, are modeled after those of Richardson. He has been called the
first professional man of letters in America.

If Philadelphia was for a time the literary capital of America, hav
ing taken this preeminence from Boston, it was, in the long run, to
lose this title to New York City. Not, however, until Philadelphia had
had the honor of publishing or being host to a Walt Whitman and an
Edgar Allan Poe.

Prior to Poe and Whitman, Philadelphia had a number of writers
who, while they could by no means lay claim to so stellar a place as
the two great mid-century luminaries, had a certain importance of
their own. One of these was John Fanning Watson, to whose Annals,
published in 1830, Philadelphians are indebted for much fascinating
and valuable information concerning their city, which would other
wise have been lost. It has become a standard work.

The proletarian-socialistic-humanitarian impulse was also coming
to the fore. The most prominent representative here is George Lip-
pard, journalist, author, reformer, lecturer, and a "Marxist before
Marx," as someone has termed him. He is known today in fraternal
circles as the founder of the Brotherhood of America (originally the
Brotherhood of the Union). As a journalist he was a predecessor of
the modern columnist, and his Our Talisman sketches have been com
pared to Dickens Boz. In his Bread Crust Papers he coined the
name, Thomas Dove Brown, which Poe was to revive. Lippard con
tributed a number of stories to the Saturday Evening Post and other
magazines of the period ; and wrote a best-selling expose of Phila
delphia vice, under the title of Quaker City ; find produced a number
of books, including The Nazarene and Blanche of Brandywine, The
Pilgrim of Eternity, The Man with the Mask,, etc., while his prole
tarian sympathies come out in such a work as New York, Its Upper
Ten and Lower Million. He has been described as "the poet of the
proletariat."

Antislavery agitation, for one thing, played no small part in the
published writings of the decades preceding the Civil War. This was
especially true so far as newspapers were concerned ; the reflection
in other fields was less noticeable.

During the conflict, and immediately before and after the Civil
War, we find such writers of lesser note as Louisa M. Alcott (who
left Philadelphia while a child), author of the perennially popular
Little Women and Little Men ; Sarah Josepha Buell Hale, editor of
Godey s Lady s Book and reputed author of the famous schoolroom
classic of the nineteenth century, Mary Had a Little Lamb ; and T.
S. Arthur (Timothy Shay in private life), author of the exceedingly
bibulous play, Ten Nights in a Barroom, which was to the American
temperance movement what Harriet Beecher Stowe s Uncle Tom s
Cabin was to the abolitionist cause.

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The period from 1815 on was marked by the rapid rise and
development of an American periodic literature, in which Philadel
phia had its full share. Worthy of note among local publications of
the era are the famous Godey s Lady s Book, the colored fashion
prints which are still sought after; the Casket, which later merged
with the Gentleman s Magazine and was subsequently continued as
Graham s Magazine ; the Salmugundi ; Sartain s Union Magazine ;
and, finally, the Saturday Evening Post, known the world over,
which led to the formation of a distinctive school of professional
writing in America.

It was the presence in the city of such magazines as the Gentle
man s and Graham s that prompted Edgar Allan Poe to come here
and settle with his frail little 16-year-old wife, Virginia Clem. The
poet s ambition was to become a magazine editor. As to just where
Poe made his home or rather, as to all the places where he re
sided while in Philadelphia, there is considerable controversy.
More than a dozen houses have been identified as his place of resi
dence. According to John Sartain s Reminiscences, the Poes first
boarded at Fourth and Arch Streets. They also lived for a time in
Sixteenth Street near Locust. Later, they had a little home in Coates
Street (Fairmount Avenue) near Twenty-fifth, on the border of
Fairmount Park. This at the time was an isolated spot, far from the
city s center. From this dwelling they moved to the little "rose-
covered cottage" set up against a large four-story brick house, which
was occupied by a wealthy Quaker, Poe s landlord. If all reports are
true, the Quaker was not overly fond, or overly proud, of his tenant.
The cottage is now identified as the back-building of a house stand
ing at 530 North Seventh Street. Poe left Philadelphia for New York
in 1844, five years before his death.

While here, Poe contributed some of his best work to the Gentle
man s Magazine and Graham s, and his poem, The Bells, famed for
its tinkling, onomatopoetic melody, first appeared in Sartain s Maga
zine.

Just how much of the poet s work was actually first published, or
wholly written, in Philadelphia is a matter of question. For example,
while the first draft of The Raven was done in North Seventh Street,
the piece was later rewritten and brought out in the Evening Mirror
of New York, in 1845 (published in book form some months follow
ing). On the other hand, it was in Philadelphia that Poe put the
finishing touches to certain manuscripts which he had begun else
where. It was in the Seventh Street house that The Purloined Letter
was written, and several others of his works. The period of his Phila
delphia residence, in short, would appear to have been the most
prolific and the happiest in the poet s tragic life.

It has been remarked by critics that Poe shows no traces of any

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influence from the antislavery agitation of his time, although Phila
delphia was something of a hotbed of abolitionist feeling, with the
historic "Underground Railroad" functioning almost daily as a means
of escape for the black fugitive. This, though, is not surprising, since
throughout his work Poe manifests a complete unawareness of social
problems of any kind.

As for Whitman, it was some eight years after the Civil War, in
May 1873, that he came to Philadelphia. The "good gray poet" was
fortunate enough to find those in Camden who were willing to care
for him ; so he settled in Camden, where he made his home until his
death on March 26, 1892.

The poet s distinguished visage was a familiar sight to Philadel-
phians of the 1870 s and 1880 s. Whitman would have his "Howdy"
tor all sorts of persons, deckhands, vagrants, those of either sex, of
any color, age, or nationality. On the Philadelphia side, the author
oi Leaves of Grass would seat himself upon a chair provided by an
Italian street vendor, and there he would munch peanuts and strike
up friendships with horsecar drivers at the foot of Market Street.
Often he would mount the stool on the front platform of a Market
Street car and thus journey the entire length of the thoroughfare.

It was in Philadelphia that Whitman, in association with his friend
and editor, Horace Traubel, was to find a publisher in David McKay,
whose imprint appeared for years on the title page of Leaves of Grass.

Poe died in 1849, or more than a decade before the Civil War,
while Whitman s life and work spanned the Civil War period. In the
years following the struggle, Bayard Taylor, Frank R. Stockton,
Henry George, Richard Harding Davis, and others continued to keep
Philadelphia upon the literary map.

Taylor lived at West Chester, and it was Rufus Wilmot Griswold,
editor of Grahams Magazine, who encouraged him to publish his
first book of verse, Ximena. Taylor s significance in American litera
ture may be said to be twofold. On the one hand, he was a good deal
of a cosmopolitan. He traveled widely, and his travel letters ap
peared in two Philadelphia publications, the Saturday Evening Post
and United States Gazette. He was the author of a translation of
Goethe s Faust that ranks with Longfellow s Divine Comedy and
Bryant s Homer as a standard rendering of a classic. His Rhymes of
Travel and his Eldorado won for him a large circle of readers. On the
other hand, particularly in such a work as his Eldorado, Taylor gave
a definite impulsion to American regional literature.

Frank R. Stockton, born in Philadelphia in 1834, is proudly
claimed by Central High School as its most distinguished literary
graduate. Stockton s first book, Ting-a-Ling, was published in 1870 ;
but it was with Rudder Grange, appearing in 1879, that his fame

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began. A long list of novels and short stories, including the enigmatic
The Lady or the Tiger, followed.

Owen Wister, author of The Virginian and Lin McLean, is eminent
among Philadelphia s novelists of the last years of the nineteenth
and the early years of the twentieth century. A lawyer by profession,
Wister found time to travel widely in various sections of the United
States to gather material for his stories.

In the field of the essay, Agnes Repplier has for decades delighted
readers of the Atlantic Monthly in particular, with her graceful
eighteenth century flavored essays. The representative of an older and
dignified literary tradition, she has had a faithful following ever since
the publication of her first collection of essays, Books and Men, in
1888. Miss Repplier was born in Philadelphia of French parentage
in 1858. She began by writing poetry, then turned to the essay form.
She is today regarded by many as America s foremost contemporary
essayist, and is the holder of honorary degrees from the universities
of Pennsylvania, Yale, and Columbia.

As for the Quaker City poets of this period, they displayed an in
clination for the purely esthetic as opposed to the controversial
theme. Thomas Buchanan Read and George H. Boker exhibit this
tendency.

Not to be forgotten among the figures of the late century era is
Charles Godfrey Leland, an editor of distinction who at the same
time was widely known as scholar and educator. Leland s editorial
posts included the New York Times, the Philadelphia Evening Bul
letin, and Vanity Fair. A wide traveler, he was the discoverer of the
famous "lost language," the "Shelta" tongue. As an educator, he was
responsible for the establishment of industrial training, based on the
minor arts, as a branch of public school teaching. Among his works
are Hans Breitmanns Ballads, a Life of Abraham Lincoln, Algon
quin Legends, and several treatises on education.

A contemporary of Leland was Charles Leonard Moore, poet and
essayist as well as business man, who devoted a score of years out of
his life to literary work. He was a constant contributor to the original
Dial magazine. Among his published works were Atlas, Pocius, and
Book of My Day Dreams.

The closing year of the nineteenth century brought to Philadelphia s
literary world a new figure who was to put a new life in the Saturday
Evening Post, making it into the leading weekly, with the largest cir
culation of any magazine in the world. For 38 years George Horace
Lorimer s name appeared at the masthead of this publication, and he
became one of the most influential and best-known editors of his time.
Lorimer was the author of Letters From a Self-Made Merchant to
His Son, which became a classic of its kind. He published a number of
other books.

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By all odds the most important Philadelphia writer of the pre
war decade is James Gibbons Huneker, who as far back as 1900 was
publishing Chopin : The Man and His Music, followed by Overtones
(1904), Iconoclasts and A Book of Dramatists (1905) . His vogue with
the American intelligentsia continued after the war, with the pub
lication of such brilliant books as Steeplejack, Bedouins, Painted
Veils, and Variations.

Huneker s importance lies in the fact that he is America s foremost
representative of the impressionist school of criticism, a school rep
resented in England by Arthur Symons, and which may be said to
have had its last journalistic flare with H. L. Mencken. It was as a
Philadelphia music critic and a critic of a kind the country had not
seen before that Huneker first brought himself into prominence.
A commuter, as others have been, between Philadelphia and Man
hattan, he was soon possessed of a reputation that was not bounded
by the national frontiers ; for he was giving the world the most dis
tinguished American criticism since Poe. His sparkling, studded,
highly impressionistic style, his wealth of anecdote and epigram, his
broad and genial erudition, his sensitiveness to the esthetic currents
of his age, above all his cosmopolitanism these were new to his
countrymen. He brought to the latter, among other things, a "lust for
life" as well as for literature, by introducing certain aspects of life
which a hastily growing and democratic America had overlooked
the pleasures of the gourmet, for instance, the esoteric refinements
of wining and dining.

Philadelphia newspapers in more instances than one have been a
training school for literature. One case is that of Christopher Morley,
noted essayist and novelist, who won his spurs on the staff of the
Philadelphia Evening Ledger. Another example is Thomas A. Daly,
who in addition to column-conducting in Philadelphia, has found
time to publish such collections of whimsical verse as Canzoni, Mad-
rigali, and Songs of Wedlock, written for the most part in the English
of the Italian immigrant.

Something has been said previously of Philadelphia magazines.
Their influence upon the literary life, not alone of Philadelphia but
of the Nation, has from the start been notable. Just as a periodical
like Graham s, back in the years preceding the Civil War, had at
tracted such contributors as Poe, Hawthorne, Bryant, and Longfel
low, so the Saturday Evening Post and the Ladies Home Journal in
the past half century have definitely shaped certain types of Ameri
can writing, have served as a lure for many a budding talent, and
therefore have had their not-to-be-doubted effect upon the national
psychology.

And so it is not unfitting that one Philadelphia magazine editor,
Edward Bok of the Ladies Home Journal, should in a manner bring

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LITERATURE

an era to a close, in 1920, with his autobiography, The Americaniza
tion of Edward Bok, which received the Pulitzer award for that year.
What, it may be asked, has this era so terminated ? Perhaps no bet
ter answer could be found than in Theodore Roosevelt s phrase,
"the strenuous life," which, backed by "Teddy s" toothful grin, once
echoed from coast to coast. This, it will be remembered, was the age
of Orison Swett Marden and the gospel of "Success," of the Oliver
Optic myth, perpetuating the nineteenth century canal-boy-to-presi
dent legend. The respected formula was : begin at the bottom and
work up ; and this was the formula which Edward Bok carried out.
The tradition is one which may be looked upon as having ended with
or shortly after the World War. A new age was now in sight, with
new problems to be faced, new adjustments to be made. It is there
fore not inappropriate that Bok s book should have come within a
year or so after the signing of the Armistice.

True to the traditions of the man who has fought for and won suc
cess, Bok upon his death 10 years later left funds for the establish
ment of a number of awards for meritorious services, including the
Philadelphia Award of $10,000 to the Philadelphia!! or person living
nearby who each year does most to bring honor to his city.

IF WE LOOK at Philadelphia writing since the war, particularly at
that which has been done since 1929, or the beginning of the "De
pression," and which is being done today, the outstanding aspects
that we notice are a certain deepening introspection with regard to
the native scene, on the one hand, and on the other, a certain broad
ening of social-literary interest, to include the problems of America
and of the age.

Philadelphia has long been noted for its "first families," but that
the members of these "first families" are capable at times of an ob
jective view of themselves is indicated by Francis Biddle s The Llan-
fear Pattern, which is by way of being an unsparing expose of local
insularity and the intellectual impotence of a new-rich type such as
the novel places in the Chestnut Hill and Main Line regions. There
is also Granville Toogood, whose first novel, Huntsman in the Sky,
breathes a spirit of revolt.

There is an even more unlovely side of life, in Philadelphia as
elsewhere, a side that is commonly cloaked by the euphemism of
"underworld." It is this side of life that John T. Mclntyre deals with,
in his Steps Going Down., published in 1936.

Among other recent Philadelphia writers, novelists, and poets are
Shirley Watkins, author of This Poor Player (1929) and The Island
of Green Myrtles (1937) ; Roy Addison Helton, Edward Shenton,
Mary Dixon Thayer, author of a number of well-known volumes of

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Catholic verse, and the essayist Benjamin de Casseres. Shenton is an
illustrator and editor as well as writer.

Like De Casseres, who left the city in his youth, others born or
educated in Philadelphia have achieved reputations. This list would
include such writers as H. D. (Helen Doolittle), John Cournos, Ezra
Pound, Alexander Woollcott, and Gilbert Seldes.

There is a sense in which Philadelphia has been the "City of
Scholars," and two of its leading representatives in this respect have
been the Furnesses Horace Howard Furness and his son, Horace
Howard Furness, Jr. editors of the famous "Variorum" edition of
Shakespeare, which is considered the standard by authorities. In
compiling this edition, the elder Furness gathered the largest Shake
spearean library in the world. When he died in 1912, his work was
carried on by his son, although the latter had prepared himself for
a career as physicist and astronomer. Horace Howard Furness, Jr.,
died in Philadelphia in 1930. In his will, he left his father s and his
own library to the University of Pennsylvania, with a fund of $100,-
000 for its maintenance.

Another contributor to the field of literary scholarship was S.
Austin Allibone, compiler of a critical Dictionary of English Litera
ture. Not to be overlooked, either, is the somewhat fantastic Ignatius
Donnelly (another graduate of Central High School, by the way),
who spent the greater part of his life in trying to prove that Francis
Bacon, and not one William Shakespeare, was in reality the author
of Shakespeare s plays. He was the originator of the "great Baconian
cryptogram," which in its day provoked a storm of discussion.

A Philadelphia critic, biographer and man of letters most of whose
work has been done since the War is Albert Mordell, who first attracted
wide attention with his treatise, The Erotic Motive in Literature ( 1919) ,
pointing the application of psychoanalysis to creative writing. His
biography, Quaker Militant: John Greenleaf Whittier (1933) was
much discussed. Mordell has edited many books, but is perhaps best
known by the articles and translations of Lafcadio Hearn, filling a
dozen volumes, which he exhumed from newspaper files. His essay,
The Literature of Ecstasy (1921) offered a new theory of poetry. His
first work was a pamphlet, The Shifting of Literary Values, printed
in Philadelphia in 1912.

In the modern age, one of the best-known native Philadelphia
representatives of bookish lore is A. Edward Newton, whom the
New York Times has termed "the world s most popular book col
lector." He is owner of a library, housed in his "Oak Knoll" home at
Daylesford, Pennsylvania, consisting of more than 10,000 rare vol
umes. Hundreds of college students and other visitors come yearly to
view this collection, which is especially noted for its completeness
where the works of Dr. Samuel Johnson are concerned. Dr. Newton

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LITERATURE

(he is the holder of numerous honorary degrees) is author of such
well known works as The Amenities of Book Collecting, Dr. Johnson
(a play), The Greatest Book in the World, A Magnificent Farce, This
Book Collecting Game, A Tourist in Spite of Himself, and End
Papers. He is also known as a contributor to the Atlantic Monthly.
In 1935, he was elected president of the Friends of the University of
Pennsylvania Library, and was Rosenbach lecturer in bibliography
at the University for the year 1935-36.

Known all over the world and from post-Revolutionary times for
its surgeons, medical schools, and hospitals, Philadelphia, as might
be expected, occupies a prominent place in the field of medical liter
ature. One need but mention such writers as Jacob M. Da Costa,
Samuel D. Gross, D. Hayes Agnew, George B. Wood, and William
Pepper. In the allied province of the natural sciences, the names of
Isaac Lea, Joseph Leidy, Edward D. Cope, and others are remem
bered.

Occasionally, as in the case of Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, we find science
and literature joining hands. Dr. Mitchell was at one and the same
time an eminent nerve specialist and a novelist of repute. In addi
tion to his treatises on neurology, comparative psychology, and the
like, Dr. Mitchell found leisure to write such tales as The Red City ;
Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker; Adventures of Francois, and A Diplomatic
Adventure. They found a wide audience an audience which came
to make almost as many demands upon him as did his medical
practice.

In connection with medical writers, Dr. George Milbry Gould
naturally comes to mind. In addition to editing medical, surgical, and
biological dictionaries, medical encyclopedias, the Medical News, the
Philadelphia Medical Journal, American Medicine, and the like, he
published a number of purely literary works, such as the poetical
volume, Autumn Singer, and two semi-philosophic works, The Mean
ing of Life and The Infinite Presence. He also helped prepare the
Life and Letters of Edmund Clarence Stedman.

In legal writing, Eli Kirk Price and George Sharswood, who re
established the University of Pennsylvania Law School, have won
distinction. In theology, the reputations of Phillips Brooks and Albert
Barnes are but two of a number that have survived the past.

In connection with historical writing, the names of John Bach
McMaster, Henry Charles Lea, and Ellis P. Oberholtzer stand out.

McMaster s best known work is his 8-volume History of the
United States, which required many years of scholarly labor, and
most of which was written while the author was professor of history
at the University of Pennsylvania. McMaster introduced a new
method into the study of American history, in accordance with which
society is interpreted genetically, from the economic point of view.

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

He also wrote Benjamin Franklin as a Man of Letters, The Life of
Stephen Girard, and The United States in the World War.

Henry Charles Lea, in addition to being a historian, was a publicist
and man of affairs. He was, among other things, an early member
and pamphleteer of the Union League Club of Philadelphia. As a
leader in public life, he was the organizer and first president of the
Municipal Reform Association, resigning from the Union League be
cause he felt that the latter body failed to throw its influence on the
side of better government. It was during the last 25 years of
his life that he returned to historical scholarship and penned his
3-volume History of the Inquisition, published in 1888. This was
followed by a number of other works dealing with the same or re
lated periods of Spanish history.

Oberholtzer was the author of a History of the United States Since
the Civil War, which entailed twenty years of work. He also produced
a Literary History of Philadelphia ; A History of Philadelphia and
its People ; Robert Morris, Patriot and Financier ; Jay Cooke, Fin
ancier of the Civil War ; Abraham Lincoln ; Henry Clay ; and Memoir
of John Bach McMaster. He collapsed suddenly in the rooms of the
Pennsylvania Historical Society in 1936 and died shortly after.

Special attention has been paid by many Philadelphia writers to
local and State history. Joseph Jackson has written on Early Phila
delphia Architects and Engineers and American Colonial Architec
ture, and is the author of an Encyclopedia of Philadelphia, as well
as of treatises on Market Street: America s Most Historic Highway
and Dickens in Philadelphia.

Possibly the most prolific of Philadelphia and State historians is
Albert Cook Myers, who has written or edited a long list of works,
including Immigration of the Irish Quakers into Pennsylvania, Nar
ratives of Early Pennsylvania, West New Jersey and Delaware, and
The Boy George Washington.

American Indian lore, travel, adventure, exploration all these
have been favored delving grounds. Among the travel and adventure
writers, Elisha Kent Kane, Arctic explorer, and Dr. Israel Haynes
may lay claim to prominence.

Innumerable literary contributions have come from the pens of
Negro authors who have added histories, novels, poems, essays, short
stories, biographies, dramas in short, all types of writings to the
literary output of the city. Many of these works are valuable merely
from a historical standpoint, while others are of meritorious literary
value.

The first recorded literary work of this group was an account of the
work of Richard Allen and Absalom Jones in saving lives and reliev
ing the suffering of those afflicted with yellow fever in the epidemic
of 1793. This first piece of literature (1794) was the joint production

200

LITERATURE

of Allen and Jones. From then until now there has been a steady
stream of literature of various types.

One particularly interesting piece of work is The Underground
Railroad, a history published by William Still in 1872. It is one of
the most remarkable records in existence concerning the history of
slavery. It is composed chiefly of letters written by fugitive slaves,
sometimes while en route to Canada, sometimes after reaching their
destination, and of letters written by different agents of the "Under
ground Railroad" to the secretary of the Vigilance Committee. These
letters tell in the words of the fugitives themselves of the difficulties,
sufferings, and fears of the runaway slaves, and of the many and
varied devices employed by them to escape.

Prominent among present day writers are Henry B. Jones, Arthur
Huff Fauset, his sister Jessie Fauset (Mrs. Herbert Harris), and Alain
Leroy Locke. Jones is a writer of short stories, one of which, Drums,
appeared in an issue of Liberty during November 1935. Under another
name others of his stories appear frequently in pulp magazines. For
Freedom, a biography of outstanding Negroes written by Arthur Huff
Fauset, has been placed in the libraries of the public school system
of the city. There is Confusion, Plum Bun, Chinaberry Tree, and
Comedy American Style are four novels written by Jessie Fauset, first
Negro woman to win the Phi Beta Kappa key at Cornell.

Locke s entire life has been associated with letters. After a brilliant
record at Central High School he was graduated at 15, and in 1908
graduated "magna cum laude" from Harvard with membership in
the Phi Beta Kappa. The only Negro thus far to win the Rhodes
scholarship, he received the degree Litt. D. from Oxford University
in 1911. He has devoted a great deal of time to magazine work, and
his articles appear regularly in the best American periodicals.

One of the most interesting of literary clubs in Philadelphia is the
Penn Club, organized in 1875 as an outgrowth of the Penn Monthly,
a magazine published from 1870 to 1880. Headquarters of the maga
zine served as a meeting place for the Penn Monthly Association.

Another well-known literary group, the Franklin Inn Club, main
tains a clubhouse at Camac and St. James Streets. It was organized
in 1902, with Dr. S. Weir Mitchell as first president. Membership is
limited to 100. Since its founding the club has been the gathering
place of literary men of distinction visiting Philadelphia. Of about
the same age is the Hathaway Shakespeare Club, a women s literary
group which meets in various large hotels.

The Dickens Fellowship, similarly, is devoted to the works of
Charles Dickens. This club holds meetings in rooms of the Musical
Art Club, Seventeenth and Walnut Streets. Membership is approx
imately 800. The American Fiction Guild, a national association of
professional writers has a local chapter in Philadelphia.

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GROWTH OF THE PRESS

PHILADELPHIA S newspaper tradition may be said to have be
gun in 1685, when William Bradford brought from England
the first printing press used in the Colonies south of New Eng
land. Bradford became involved in political and social disputes in
Pennsylvania, and in 1693 moved to New York. His business was re
vived in 1712 by his son Andrew, who in company with John
Copson began publication in 1719 of the American Weekly Mercury.
The Mercury was the first newspaper in the Middle Colonies and the
third in the New World. The Universal Instructor in All the Arts
and Sciences and Pennsylvania Gazette was the second newspaper
established in Penn s city. It was first issued December 24, 1728, by
Samuel Keimer, who had come to Philadelphia six years previously.

The most important actor in the early drama of printers ink,
Benjamin Franklin, came to Philadelphia in 1723 and applied to
Andrew Bradford for work. The latter had nothing for him to do ;
but William Bradford, happening to be in Philadelphia at the time,
look Franklin to Samuel Keimer, who became Franklin s employer.
(Franklin s unfavorable opinion of Keimer is aired in his autobio
graphy.) In 1725 Keimer started publication of Taylor s Almanac.
Almost immediately an advertisement in the Mercury characterized
it as "a lying Almanac."

Soon after 1725 Andrew Bradford, who had dominated the print
ing business of the Province, began to face steadier opposition.
Keimer still kept up his printing office and managed to do a little
business, although he eked out an existence by some methods not
strictly ethical. After publishing the weekly Universal Instructor for
nine months, during which time it had only 90 subscribers, he be
came involved in debt. Unable to continue the paper, he sold it to
Franklin and Hugh Meredith, who expunged the first part of the
title, calling it the Pennsylvania Gazette. For a while it appeared
twice a week, at 10 shillings per annum, and then was changed back
to a weekly because of distribution difficulties. The energy and in
dustry of Franklin and the improvement in the character of the
paper created public interest.

In 1732 the partnership was dissolved, and Franklin continued the
business on his own account. After his appointment as postmaster,
the circulation of his paper increased ; the Gazette became very

202

GROWTH OF PRESS

profitable. In 1748, engaged in public affairs, Franklin formed a con
nection with David Hall, under the firm name of B. Franklin & D.
Hall. He sold his interest to Hall in 1765. The next year the paper
was printed by Hall and William Sellers, and was issued regularly,
although it suspended publication during the British occupation of
Philadelphia.

Hall and Sellers dissolved partnership about 1805, and the new
firm of Hall & Pierie was established. About 1815 or 1816 this latter
partnership was dissolved, and Hall continued in operation with
Samuel C. Atkinson as partner. David Hall died on May 27, 1821,
and Atkinson took into partnership Charles Alexander, who at once
determined upon a revolution in the character of the venerable
paper. Proposals for the publication of a new weekly journal, to
which they gave the name of Saturday Evening Post, were issued.
The first number appeared on August 4, 1821. The proprietors,
young and ambitious, endeavored to make the paper interesting to
all classes. They encouraged rising talent by means of a "poet s
corner," and gave attention to both foreign and domestic news.
There was also a sufficient variety of news of general interest to at
tract persons outside of Philadelphia. The Atkinsons attended to
business, and the paper gained in popularity and circulation. Its
editor was Thomas dottrel! Clarke.

The Hoch Deutsch Pensylvanische Geschict Shreiber, oder Samm-
lung Wichtiger Nachrichten aus dem Natur and Kirchen Reich
(translated literally, the "High German Pennsylvania Historiog
rapher, or Collection of Important Intelligence from the Kingdom
of Nature and the Church") was issued on August 20, 1739, by
Christopher Saur, of Germantown, as a quarterly journal. Saur cast
his own type and made his own ink.

The name of the publication was changed several times, becoming
meanwhile a monthly publication, until, around 1766, the current
name of Berichte was changed to Germantauner Zeitung, and it was
issued weekly. It wielded much influence for a time and was removed
to Philadelphia in 1777, where it continued until the following spring
under a new name.

The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle for all British
Plantations in America was begun by Franklin in January 1741. It
lasted only six months. The American Magazine or a Monthly View
of the British Colonies also appeared that year, published by John
Webbe, who had engaged Bradford to print the work. Only two or
three numbers were published.

The Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser, third Philadel
phia newspaper in the English language, was established in 1742.
William Bradford, grandson of the first William and nephew of
Andrew Bradford of the American Weekly Mercury, began its pub-

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

lication after he returned from England in 1742. The first issue was
dated December 2. In 1766 his son Thomas became a partner in the
business.

After Bradford s establishment of the London Coffee House in
1754 at what is now Front and Market Streets, the Journal office
was removed to that building. No attempt was made to publish the
Journal during the British occupation, but it was revived at the be
ginning of December 1778, and it appeared regularly until about
1793, two years after the death of Col. William Bradford. The Mer
chant s Daily Advertiser, founded in 1797, was succeeded by the True
American, which began publication the following year. In November
1813 James Elliott and Thomas T. Stiles bought the paper. The latter
became sole owner in 1815 ; Charles Miner became his partner in
1817 ; and then the paper purchased by Thomas Smith and Ebenezer
Cummins, who five years later merged with the U. S. Gazette under
the title The Union United States Gazette and True American.

The Pennsylvania Evening Post was the first evening paper in
Philadelphia. It appeared just before the Revolution, and was issued
three times a week on a half sheet of crown paper. This was the
third evening paper in the Colonies. Its editor and publisher was
Benjamin Towne. To follow the fortunes of Towne is to wade
through some of the muddiest waters of early Philadelphia journal
ism. For business reasons Towne became a "patriot," but after
Washington s defeat at Brandywine he began to curry favor with
the British by printing long, almost jubilant, accounts of British
successes. When Howe s army took possession of Philadelphia he
went out of his way to praise the good manners of the invaders.
Neither he nor his newspaper was molested.

When the British troops evacuated the city, Towne turned Whig
again, and the Evening Post carried an equally fulsome account of
the evacuation. Gen. Benedict Arnold, who became military gov
ernor of the city, made no movement against the printer, and the
Evening Post continued, despite the indignation its owner had stirred
up by his duplicity. Eventually, Towne was ordered to surrender to
the authorities, but apparently was never tried.

In his efforts to recapture favor with the Whigs, Towne promised
to publish a recantation written for him by Dr. John Witherspoon,
member of the Continental Congress and a former subscriber. After
reading Witherspoon s article, however, the publisher refused to
make good his promise, but the "Towne Recantation" found a read
ing public through numerous other journals in the Colonies. Pre
sented in the first person, the recantation read in part :

... I am not only proscribed by the President and Supreme execu
tive council of Pennsylvania, but that several other persons are for
reprobating my paper, and allege that instead of being suffered to
print, I ought to be hanged as a traitor to my country,

204

GROWTH OF PRESS

. . . I never was, nor ever pretended to be a man of character,
repute or dignity. I was originally an understrapper to the famous
Galloway in his infamous squabble with Goddard, and did in that
service contract such a habit of meanness in thinking and scurrility
in writing that nothing exalted . . . could ever be expected from
me . . .

. . .Finally, I do hereby recant, draw back, eat in and swallow down,
every word that I have ever spoken, written or printed to the prej
udice of the United States of America, hoping it will not only satisfy
the good people in general, but also all those scatterbrained fellows,
who call one another out to shoot pistols in the air, while they
tremble so much that they cannot hit the mark.

Towne died on July 8, 1793, having published for a time before
his death a paper, All the News for Two Coppers, which he carried
about the streets himself.

The Pennsylvania Evening Post started as a tri-weekly on January
24, 1775, being published on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays
until January 7, 1779, when it became a semi-weekly. On August 3,
1781, its title was changed to the Pennsylvania Evening Post and
Public Advertiser, and two years later it became a daily under the
title the Pennsylvania Post and Daily Advertiser. It continued as a
daily for six years, until 1789, under this latter name and still under
Towne s proprietorship. It was the first paper to print the Declaration
of Independence.

The Pennsylvania Chronicle and Universal Advertiser first ap
peared on January 26, 1767. It was published by William Goddard.
The Pennsylvania Packet or General Advertiser was first issued on
October 28, 1771, by John Dunlap. This latter journal warmly sup
ported the cause of the Colonists against Great Britain in 1775-6; at
this time it was published semi-weekly with postscripts similar to the
"extras" of today being issued whenever important news was received
from abroad or from the other Colonies. While the British occupied
Philadelphia, the Packet was printed at Lancaster, but resumed print
ing in Philadelphia on July 4, 1778. That day John Dunlap published
an editorial very rare in those days on the evacuation of the city
by the British troops. On September 21, 1784, the Packet, which had
theretofore been issued three times weekly, was converted into a
daily. Shortly afterward the title was changed to the American Daily
Advertiser, and then to Dunlap & Clay poolers American Daily Adver
tiser this when David C. Claypoole, Dunlap s apprentice and later
.,; partner, became sole owner. Dunlap died on November 27, 1812, and
*. was buried with military honors in Christ Church graveyard, Fifth

and Arch Streets.

.-.The excellent work of J. Thomas Scharf and Thompson Westcott,
constantly referred to by students of Philadelphia s history, contains
an erroneous statement regarding Clay poolers Daily Advertiser. Scharf
and Westcott confounded this publication with Towne s Pennsylvania

205

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Evening Post. Historical research by the American Antiquarian
Society proves that the Pennsylvania Evening Post, not the Daily
Advertiser, was the first daily newspaper published in America.

The Daily Advertiser was continued by David C. Claypoole until
September 30, 1800, when he sold it to Zachariah Poulson, Jr., for
$10,000. Under Poulson the Advertiser prospered for 30 years, al
though it never attained a large circulation. Always respectable, never
brilliant, and strictly Whig, Poulson was 78 years old and in feeble
health when, on December 28, 1839, he bade farewell to journalism.

The North American and the United States Gazette, the outgrowth
of a number of journals of various degrees of importance, was first
issued under that name on March 26, 1839, at 63 Dock Street. Its
first publishers, S. C. Brace and T. R. Newbold, soon gave way to
William Welsh, last survivor of a group that had acquired the paper
in an effort to elevate newspaper morality. Before the end of 1839
it absorbed Poulson s Daily Advertiser, and in 1840 it acquired the
Commercial Herald. Welsh also purchased the Philadelphia Gazette,
an afternoon paper.

On October 1, 1845, Welsh sold the North American to George R.
Graham and Alexander Cummings. It joined with the New York
Tribune in revolutionary efforts to obtain fresh news. In 1846 the
two newspapers hired the pilot boat Romer and beat the regular

The PENNSYLVANIA EVENING POST

Price only Two Coppers. Publi/hcd every Tuefday, Tburfday, and Saturday Evenings.

Vol. II. J

TUESDAY. JULY 2, 1776.

fNum

PROCEFDINCS of the PROVINCIAL CONFERENCE of tion divers matters relatin gto the prefentflate of thif province
COMMITTEES, of the province of PIMNSY Lv^tq^^ Ordered on the j^lr fnr ikr nfruQofju- members.

held at Carpenters Hall. [Continued fr ^

FRIDAY,
N addrefs and_

named

Jt\&gt; lUAEL , twenty-five years of ag&lt;7 above fix feet high,
llrong made, his colour between a Mulatto and a Black,
rocks in hi walk, or rather fomewhai lame, occalioned by his
having his thigli bone broke when a boy. Had on when he

TJAM GOVETT Secretary wentawayafmallbrimmedh.it, a brown cloth jacket without
fleevcs, let out in the back, new tow fliirt and troufers, old ihoes.
This day the CONTINENTAL CONGRESS declared Whoever takes up and fecurts laid Negro ID any jail fo as his
the UNITED COLONIES FREE and INDEPENDENT mafter may have h.maga.n ihallhav^e the above reward and rea-
STATES fonable cnarges, paid by the lubkrihcr I

oppofitc the Sw&lt;

O be SOLD, the brigantinc TWO FRIENDS. Sh e

and carries

ing in Second llrcet,
urch in the difbift of Soutbwaik.

WILLIAM THOMAS.
N. B. All maflers of vefTels and others arc forbid to carry,
take, or harbour him at their peril.

, ut A QUANTl l V of white and brown DUCK RAM to be
v^ j\ fojd by Mar) Flanagan, the corner of Front and Spruce

The Front Page News in The Pennsylvania Evening Post

GROWTH OF PRESS

packet with foreign news by several days the first stirrings of the
modern attitude towards news gathering.

At the beginning of 1847 the North American and the United
States Gazette were prosperous Whig papers of similar character
and standing. Neither could hope for any material increase in pros
perity while the other existed. Morton McMichael conceived the idea
of consolidating the two rivals, and this was accomplished on July 1,
1847, when they combined under the name of the North American
and United States Gazette. Born in Burlington County, N. J., Mc
Michael was to write his name in bold letters across the early history
of Philadelphia journalism. Educated at the University of Pennsyl
vania, he became editor of the Saturday Evening Post in 1826. In
1831 he was editor-in-chief of the Saturday Courier, a new enterprise,
and with Louis A. Godey and Joseph C. Neal he began publication in
1836 of the Saturday News. In 1844 the Saturday Gazette was pub
lished, McMichael and Neal being associate editors. The weeklies
have long since ceased to exist, but the North American (it resumed
this name in May 1876) survived until 1925 the oldest daily news
paper in America.

The Inquirer, the first number of which bore the name Pennsyl
vania Inquirer, made its appearance on June 29, 1829, at 5 Bank
Alley, near the Merchants Coffee House. It came at an auspicious
time, since Duane s Aurora, the principal Democratic newspaper, was
then in a weakened state and had vainly sought to sustain itself by
absorbing the Franklin Gazette. One of the editors of the merged
Aurora and Gazette, John Norvell, was dissatisfied with his prospects
for the future, and induced John R. Walker, a young printer, to join
him in the publication of the Pennsylvania Inquirer.

In November of that year, 1829, the new journal passed into the
hands of Jesper Harding and was merged with the Democratic Press.
Harding changed the Pennsylvania Inquirer from a morning to an
evening journal, featuring editorials chiefly political didactic ar
ticles, literary reviews, dramatic criticisms, poetry, and fiction. It con
tained little news, as news is known today, and its advertisements
were displayed blatantly.

Upon their amalgamation on July 1, 1930, the Morning Journal
and the Inquirer became known as the Pennsylvania Inquirer and
Morning Journal, retaining this name until June 2, 1834, when it
absorbed the Daily Courier and changed its title to the Pennsylvania
Inquirer and Daily Courier. Under this caption it soon took its place
in the Whig party as rival and opponent of the United States Gazette,
so that upon absorption of the latter on January 1, 1842 it again
changed its title, this time to the Pennsylvania Inquirer and National
Gazette. In October 1859 the paper was acquired by William W.
Harding, son of Jesper Harding, and on April 2, 1860 its name was

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changed to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The old custom of seeking
yearly subscribers was abandoned, and the price was reduced to
two cents a copy. A large increase of circulation was obtained through
the establishment of the carrier system and street sales. Its eyewitness
reporting of Civil War battles added greatly to its prestige. It was
among the first newspapers to introduce the stereotyping process.

In 1889 the Inquirer became the property of the late James Elver-
son, Sr., upon whose death in 1911 it passed to his son, the late Col.
James Elverson, Jr., who made it one of the most successful morn
ing newspapers in the country. After the colonel s death in 1929, it
became conservative in tone, under Elverson s sister, Mrs. Eleanor
Patenotre, widow of a French citizen. It was sold in 1930 to the
Curtis-Martin Newspapers, Inc., but was returned to the Patenotre
interests a few years later. In 1936 it was acquired by Moses L. Annen-
berg, former circulation manager for William Randolph Hearst and
publisher of the New York Morning Telegraph. Under Annenberg
its style of news reporting was recast into the "human interest" mold.

Among Philadelphia s oldest and largest newspapers (until 1934)
was the Public Ledger., born March 25, 1836. Its publishers declared
at the outset that they could keep on printing at a continued loss
for "one whole year." A half century later the fact had become estab
lished that no one could tell whether a new journal would succeed
or fail in less than two years of experimentation. A. H. Simmons, one
of the Ledger publishers, gathered around him a staff of enthusiastic
men. The new paper announced : "We shall give place to no religious
discussions, nor to political discussions involving questions of merely
partisan character. The Ledger will worship no men, and be de
voted to no parties."

The firm of Swain & Abell published the Ledger until December
3, 1864, when it was sold to George W. Childs, who followed the
course laid out by its founders. He devised new features, introduced
new machinery, and moved the paper to better quarters at Sixth and
Chestnut Streets. It was next acquired by the Adolph S. Ochs in
terests, and finally by Cyrus H. K. Curtis, who afterwards formed
the Curtis-Martin Newspapers, Inc. When the morning Ledger merged
with the Inquirer in 1933, the newer Evening Public Ledger (estab
lished in 1914) was continued under the direction of John C. Martin,
the step-son-in-law of Curtis, who died before the merger.

The Evening Bulletin first saw the light of day on April 12, 1847,
with the resounding title of Cummings Evening Telegraphic Bulletin.
Its publisher was Alexander Cummings, who also published Neal s
Saturday Gazette. In 1856 the name was changed to Daily Evening
Bulletin, and in 1870 to Evening Bulletin. Acquired in 1895 by the
late William L. McLean, the Evening Bulletin is still in the hands
of the McLean family.

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GROWTH OF PRESS

Weekly newspapers published on Sunday gradually disappeared,
as each of the morning dailies began to blossom forth with an ambi
tious Sunday edition. One of the most prominent of the early weeklies
was Taggart s Sunday Times, published on Walnut Street near Eighth.
Others were the Mercury, Sunday World, Republic, Transcript, and
Dispatch.

One of the first Philadelphia dailies to issue a Sunday edition was
the Press, edited by Charles Emory Smith, onetime Postmaster Gen
eral and United States Ambassador to Russia. It was a propaganda
sheet, financed by steel interests in western Pennsylvania. The Press
was subsequently absorbed by the Curtis-Martin publications. This
firm also bought and scrapped the Evening Telegraph and the North
American.

The Philadelphia Record, bulwark of the liberal element in Penn
sylvania, is a descendant of the Public Record, which first appeared
in 1870 as a humble imitator of the Public Ledger. In 1877 William
M. Singerly took hold of the paper and made it a phenomenal suc
cess, both financially and editorially. Its name was changed to the
Philadelphia Record in 1877. It attained a large circulation, and the
price was lowered to one cent in the face of dire predictions. A strong
supporter of the Democratic Party, the Record was particularly
popular with workingmen.

Success of the Sunday Press opened the eyes of other publishers
to the possibilities of a Sunday issue. The Record therefore issued an
eight page Sunday edition so simple were the journalistic demands
of that period and for years it was sold at three cents a copy, while
other Sunday papers were selling at five cents. Singerly was a ver
satile promoter, but apparently he overreached himself, for his
various properties eventually went into receivership. The paper was
then acquired by the John Wanamaker interests. In 1928 J. David
Stern, publisher of the Evening Courier, of Camden, N. J., gained
control of the Record. Under him the circulation and advertising in
creased and the paper developed into an influential organ of liberal
ism.

The Times was a prominent Philadelphia morning newspaper from
1875 until it was merged with the Public Ledger on August 16, 1902.
Until its purchase in 1901 by Adoiph S. Ochs, then owner of the
Ledger, it had been published by Col. A. K. McClure, a prominent
figure in Philadelphia civil and political life. The Times was Demo
cratic in its editorial policies. It was a penny paper, with a Sunday
edition that sold at five cents. During most of its existence it was pub
lished in its own building at the southwest corner of Eighth and
Chestnut Streets.

The Evening Telegraph was first issued on January 4, 1864, at 108
South Third Street. It was a four-page paper, seven columns to the

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

page, and was sold at two cents a copy. At the close of the first year
it was enlarged to eight pages of six columns each, and the price was
increased to three cents. The original proprietors were J. Barclay
Harding and Charles E. Warburton, the former a son of Jesper
Harding, whose name has figured conspicuously in the history of
Philadelphia journalism. After Harding s death, in 1865, the paper
passed to the sole control of Warburton, Harding s brother-in-law,
and later to Warburtons son, Barclay H. The Telegraph, Republican
in policy, was absorbed by the Evening Public Ledger in 1918.

The Evening Times first appeared in 1908, being published by
Frank A. Munsey, millionaire magazine owner. It went out of exist
ence June 16, 1914. Another now defunct evening newspaper, the
Daily Evening Item, was an outgrowth of the Sunday Item, founded
in 1847 by Thomas Fitzgerald. The Item, which continued to issue a
Sunday edition after becoming a daily, ceased publication in 1913.

On May 18, 1925, the Public Ledger Company began the publica
tion of a tabloid newspaper called the Sun. It was issued each week
day morning, and was profusely illustrated with news pictures. The
Sun ceased publication on February 4, 1928.

Another tabloid, the Daily News, which had been established about
thw same time (March 31, 1925) as the Sun, continued in existence,
and survives today. First proprietor of the Daily News was the late
William Scott Vare, long a dominant factor in Pennsylvania politics,

Vare entered the newspaper publishing business in order to ad
vance his prospects as U. S. Senatorial candidate in the 1926 cam
paign. Following his election to the Senate, and his subsequent re
pudiation by that body, he sold a half interest in the News to Bernarr
MacFadden. Vare died in 1934, and the newspaper finally was taken
over by Lee Ellmaker.

The list of foreign-language newspapers in Philadelphia comprises
publications in Spanish, Italian, Hungarian, German, Armenian,
Yiddish, Russian, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian. There are two week
lies, now issued by and for Negroes the Philadelphia Tribune and
the Philadelphia Independent, but at the end of the first decade of the
nineteenth century the Caret, the Chat, the Citizen, and the Pilot were
among the several newspapers being published by this group.

The city has a long tradition of journalistic attainment. In its news
rooms have been trained such prominent writers as Christopher
Morley, poet, essayist, and novelist ; James Gibbons Huneker, critic
and molder of many a budding genius ; and Richard Harding Davis,
novelist and war correspondent. Benjamin Franklin, with his Poor
Richard s Almanac, early wielded wide journalistic influence. Thomas
Paine, Revolutionary pamphleteer, issued from Philadelphia presses
an appeal for liberty of thought and action which resounds even in
modern times.

210

GROWTH OF PRESS
Radio

MORE quickly than it had ever before taken up a new activity,
Philadelphia seized radio in the latter s babyhood and did
much to bring it to its present stage of perfection. Almost immedi
ately after the first broadcasting stations began operating, the roofs
of the city became a wire entaglement reminiscent of No Man s Land.
Newspapers issued weekly supplements full of instructions for build
ing receiving sets, and almost every boy with the least mechanical
bent was soon tinkering with the necessary apparatus.

Families gathered around crystal sets while the young "operator"
manipulated a "cat s whisker," extracting sounds approaching that
of the human voice of phonographic music. "Keep the young folks
at home," advertised the early manufacturers of radio receivers, and
for a long time that is what radio did.

As the manufacture of high grade receiving sets grew apace, Phila
delphia became the home of two of the largest producers, with
another just across the Delaware River in Camden.

Transmitting

Station- of WCAU

"And the night

shall be filled with

music"

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Department stores took the lead in setting up broadcasting stations.
In the early twenties every large department store was advertising
over the air. When the large national networks were formed, Phila
delphia stations were connected with each chain. Individuals entered
the field, and it was not long before radio had proved its value as
an advertising medium. Newspapers began to regret the publicity they
had given to what turned out to be their greatest competitor, but
public interest made it necessary for them to run a daily time table
of broadcasts. Experiments were being carried on all over the country,
and novelties were being presented every day. In Philadelphia began
many practices that are now universal. The first radio record of a
football game, Penn-Cornell ; the first children s program, Uncle
Wip ; the first remote dance-music program, by Charlie Kerr s
Orchestra ; the first street interviews these and many other radio
"firsts" were born in the much cudgelled brains of the city s program
directors and publicity men.

Today there are nine broadcasting stations in Philadelphia: WCAU,
with a power of 50,000 watts, is the Columbia outlet ; WFIL and
KYW are connected respectively with the Red and Blue networks
of the National Broadcasting Company ; WIP represents an inter
city network; and WDAS, WPEN, WRAX, WHAT, and WTEL are
independent stations.

212

STAGE AND SCREEN

THE muse of the stage descended upon Philadelphia under a
cloud of suspicion. Her doubtful reputation had preceded her.
To the Quaker mind, moved by religion to the practice of aus
terity and fixed in it by necessity, she was a hussy to be guarded
against. Her allurements were suspected as an evil likely to ruin the
weak and turn the virtuous from thrift and hard work. It was an
attitude fostered by the spirit of pioneer economy that left no surplus
for the luxury of art.

But charity, another Quaker trait, required that the lady be given
the benefit of the doubt ; her presence was tolerated until it at
tracted a meager success, and then she was outlawed. In time a rising
prosperity brought with it the sparse beginnings of a leisure class,
and the muse was readmitted to the city s precincts. There she
flourished, to the glory of the American theatre and the delight of
her admirers.

A slight adversity made a good beginning. Philadelphia and the
drama have been long boon companions ; only a few other American
cities ranked higher as theatrical centers. It outranked New York
during the early part of the nineteenth century, and could with reason
dispute Boston s claim to the title of "Athens of the New World,"
at least as far as the drama was concerned. The greater physical
growth of New York and the free expression permitted by its civil au
thorities have since raised the New York stage to preeminence, but
that city s theatre has drawn heavily upon Philadelphia for acting
talent and authorship. This city has given to the stage such notable
actors as the Drews and the Barrymores, Edwin Forrest, James E.
Murdoch, and Joseph Jefferson ; among the playwrights and critics it
has nurtured are John Luther Long, Richard Harding Davis, George
Kelly, Clifford Odets, and George Jean Nathan.

In talent and appreciation the city has contributed heavily to the
motion picture industry, whose rise in Philadelphia, as elsewhere,
curtailed the legitimate theatre. Some of the earliest moving pictures
ever exhibited were projected in Philadelphia from a machine in
vented by a Philadelphian. The Lubin Studio, pioneer in this field,
was a Philadelphia enterprise.

In recent years the city has sought a new dramatic importance
through the rise of a little theatre movement aiming to correct what

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

its leaders deem the failure of the commercial theatre to interpret
the American spirit. The groups are free to experiment with new
forms and new material, their receipts being secondary to artistic
integrity. Their stages have been the proving grounds for some suc
cesses of the commercial theatre, whose producers take over the ex
perimental drama which has demonstrated its box-office appeal.
However, in practice, most of these groups have confined themselves
to presentation of plays already given by professional players.

Within the little theatre movement there is a distinct group which
employs the stage as a forum for the expression of a revolutionary
economic philosophy rather than as an artistic medium a group of
pioneers in workers theatres. In Philadelphia its audience has been
meager and its resources slender throughout a brief but exciting
history.

The early difficulties under which the theater labored in Philadel
phia have not wholly disappeared. The urge to censorship is still
extant, often prevails, and usually adds to the trivial and salacious
the allure of forbidden fruit. Such cases are exceptions, however. On
the whole, Philadelphia and the theatre get on well together.

History of The Theatre

DESPITE opposition of the Quakers, attempts to establish theatres
were made persistently during the earliest years of the eighteenth
century. On three different occasions between 1700 and 1713, laws
were passed by the Provincial Assembly prohibiting "stage plays,
masks and revels," and each time the laws were repealed by popular
demand.

There is no record as to when the first local theatrical performance
was held, but in the American Weekly Mercury of 1724, mention
was made of a "Roap Dancing" at the "New Booth on Society Hill,"
and in the Pennsylvania Archives of the previous year there is men
tion of "comedians in town." In a letter dated 1723, James Logan,
then mayor of Philadelphia, stated with distress that a company of
itinerant players had "set up stage just without the verge of the
town" and that "the sober people of the city" wanted him to sup
press the plays, a situation embarrassing for him because Governor
Keith of Pennsylvania Province was in the habit of attending them.

The city apparently was without any form of theatrical entertain
ment until 1743, when Punch and Joan, a puppet show, was presented
"At the Sign of the Coach and Horses," on Chestnut Street against the
State House. In 1742 the first picture show was given in the city when
a "Magick Lanthorn" was exhibited at Joseph Barber s Temple Bar
on Second Street.

The first actors performance recorded in Philadelphia s history

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STAGE AND SCREEN

took place in August 1749, when a company of players enacted Ad-
dison s Cato in William Plumstead s warehouse on Water Street. The
building has been razed, but evidence of the distaste with which the
performance was regarded exists in the journal of one John Smith,
which is now in the Ridgway Library. Smith sets forth : "John Morris
and I happened in at Peacock Bigger s and drank tea there, and his
daughter being one of the company going to hear the tragedy of
Cato acted, it occasioned some conversation, in which I expressed my
sorrow that anything of the kind was encouraged."

Smith s sorrow was assuaged on December 30 of that year, when
the Common Council took steps against this invasion of frivolity. Its
minutes for that date include this paragraph :

The Recorder then acquainted the board that certain persons had
taken it upon themselves to act plays in this city, and, as he was in
formed, intended to make a frequent practice thereof; which, it was
to be feared, would be attended with very mischievous effects, such
as the encouraging of idleness and drawing great sums of money
from weak and inconsiderate people, who are apt to be fond of such
entertainment, though the performance be ever so mean and con
temptible. Whereupon the board unanimously requested the magis
trates to take the most effectual measures of suppressing the disorder,
by sending for the actors and binding them to their good behavior,
or by such other means as they should judge most proper.

Thus bound, the luckless actors departed for New York. In the
company was Nancy George, the first Philadelphia girl to desert the
respectability of home for the glamour of the stage. In his Annals
of Philadelphia, John F. Watson quotes an aged Negro, Robert
Venable, as saying that "many persons fell out with Nancy George
because she went there to play." What the players performed, other
than Cato, is unknown ; the newspapers of the time took note only
of their departure.

Five years later another company, led by Lewis Hallam, was for
tunate enough to attract the favor of Mayor Plumstead, and under
his protection they enacted Rowe s tragedy, The Fair Penitent. For
five more years the drama languished ; then David Douglass re
organized Hallam s company and won the good will of Governor
Denny by promising to perform a benefit for the Pennsylvania Hos
pital. Douglass could not obtain a building in the city for a theatre,
and had one constructed secretly outside the city limits, at what
is now Hancock and South Streets. Opened June 25, 1759, and known
as the Society Hill Theatre, this playhouse was the first to be built
in Philadelphia.

On the opening of the new theatre, aroused church leaders ap
pealed to the Assembly, which passed an act proscribing the drama
in and near Philadelphia. Governor Denny delayed the enforcement

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

of the act, and the Society Hill Theatre was kept open until Decem
ber 1759. Its players performed Tamerlane, King Lear, Romeo and
Juliet, Richard III, Lord Chalkstone, George Barnwell, and Lethe.
Meanwhile, Douglass kept his promise to Governor Denny : Hamlet
was enacted for the benefit of the Pennsylvania Hospital on Feb
ruary 27. This was Philadelphia s first Hamlet and its first benefit
performance.

The liberal element in the city gained strength as commerce ex
panded and external influences modified the townsmen s severe tastes.
By 1766 it was possible for Douglass to build another theatre, this
time nearer the city, on South Street west of Fourth. The Pennsyl
vania Gazette and the Pennsylvania Chronicle now deigned to ac
cept his advertisements. In the new playhouse, which became known
as the Southwark Theatre, the first American tragedy, The Prince
of Parthia, by Thomas Godfrey, Jr., was performed April 24,1767.

Douglass company had a varied repertory, and the Southwark was
a flourishing playhouse until the Revolution forced it to close. The
theatre was reopened during the British occupation, and Tory ladies
united their talents with those of Lord Howe s officers in perform
ances for the benefit of the widows and orphans of soldiers.

After independence had been attained, the society of the new
Republic s capital took up the theatre in earnest, and when George
Washington himself attended a performance at the Southwark, the
poor muse was at least draped with the mantle of respectability. Even
so, many a good Philadelphian believed the mantle cloaked a lady
who still was no better than she should be.

Approval of the polite world resulted in a project for a new
theatre large enough and fine enough to be a fitting playhouse for
the country s capital. The project was realized in the Chestnut Street
Theatre, opened at Sixth and Chestnut Streets in 1794. Here, in the
flickering candlelight from a "profusion of chandeliers," as many as
2,000 persons attended some performances.

In this age of political ferment the muse grew topical. The Slaves
of Algeria was a trenchant prelude to the skirmishes with the Bar-
bary corsairs, and the President was mildly rebuked for his shilly
shallying with England by the authors of Embargo, or Every Man
Has His Own Opinion.

By 1809 the drama had so far outgrown its humble beginnings that
a second playhouse became a profitable possibility, and the Walnut
Street Theatre was built. This theatre is the oldest existing playhouse
in the United States. Its interior has been refashioned to fit modern
tastes and supply modern conveniences. In its old age change has as
sailed it ; burlesque queens have trod the boards where once walked
such great artists as Edwin Forrest and Mrs. John Drew, Edmund

216

STAGE AND SCREEN

Kean, Edwin Booth, Francis Wemyss, Fanny Kemble, Charlotte Gush-
man, and George Arliss. It has housed vaudeville and a group of
Yiddish players.

The first Chestnut (Chesnut) Street Theatre was destroyed by fire
in 1820. A second, which replaced it, was built in 1822 and lives in
theatrical history as "Old Drury." It opened with The School for Scan
dal and had a brilliant career. There Barnuni, wedding ballyhoo to
art, presented Jenny Lind, "the Swedish Nightingale ;" Laura Keene,
Forrest, Booth, and Jefferson also played there. The theatre was razed
in 1855, in the belief that the new Academy of Music would absorb
its patronage ; but the Academy proved too large it engulfed the
average play in deadening space. A third theatre was therefore
erected, on Chestnut Street west of Twelfth.

Its opening on January 26, 1863, was marked by the first instance
of ticket "scalping" in Philadelphia. Seats were sold at auction for
Virginius, starring Edwin Forrest. One "scalper" purchased 500
tickets. When the box office opened, it was surrounded by a milling
crowd of disappointed playgoers for whom there were no seats. The
police barely averted a riot over a practice which the public has
since come to tolerate. There Joseph Jefferson presented his Rip Van
Winkle to a delighted public ; Daly s stock company and E. L. Daven
port, tragedian, frequently occupied its stage. The last performance
was given on October 18, 1910. A few years later the theatre was
razed and an office building erected on the site.

One of the older of the Philadelphia theatres, the Arch Street, has
passed into oblivion. It was opened October 1, 1828, with a comedy
The Honeymoon ; a farce, Three and the Deuce ; and the reading of a
prize address by "a gentleman of the city." This auspicious begin
ning was of no avail ; the salaries paid to actors were extraordinarily
high for that time, and the playhouse closed December 24 for lack
of funds. A series of sporadic openings and premature closings marked
its history until Mrs. John Drew took it over in Civil War times. Her
genius kept it open until 1892. Within the next 10 years it was a
German theatre, and then a Jewish theatre ; and from 1902 to 1907
was known as Blaney s Theatre. It became a Jewish theatre again
in 1915 and so remained until 1934, when it closed for the last time.
In 1935 the building was razed.

The Garrick, at Chestnut and Juniper Streets, which opened in
1901 with Richard Mansfield playing the lead in Monsieur Beaucaire,
was razed in 1937. The playhouse was identified with many famous
stars and attractions. Among the former were Mrs. Patrick Campbell,
John Drew, Ethel Barrymore, Walter Hampden, George M. Cohan,
Otis Skinner, Jane Cowl, Jeanne Eagels, Fred Stone, David Warfield,
Alia Nazimova, and Helen Hayes.

217

Walnut Street Theatre
"Ghosts of Kean, Booth, Bernhardt
and Drew haunt the Green Room"

The First Chestnut Street Theatre

"Amid a profusion of chandeliers

Thespis reigned in 1794"

STAGE AND SCREEN

Personalities of the Stage

PHILADELPHIA has made an important contribution to the drama
in actors and actresses born or reared in the city : Edwin Forrest,
James E. Murdoch, the Jefferson, Davenport, Drew, and Barrymore
families, Rose Eytinge, Francis Wilson, Ed Wynn, Frank Tinney,
Janet Gaynor, Jeannette MacDonald, George Bancroft, Vivienne Se
gal, Constance Binney, W. C. Fields, Walter C. Kelly, Eddie Quillen,
Eleanor Boardman, to name some of the better known.

Edwin Forrest (1806-1872) was born at 51 George (now South
American) Street. One of Philadelphia s most famous actors, he first
appeared in juvenile roles for a Thespian society. His first appearance
on a regular stage was made at the Walnut Street Theatre, and his
last appearance as an actor was in the role of "Richelieu" at the
Globe Theatre, Boston, April 2, 1872.

He made his debut as a star at the Chestnut Street Theatre on
July 5, 1826, in Othello, and was one of the first American actors
to invade the English stage. Forrest made two tours in England, the
first in the Spring of 1836, the second in 1845. Criticism of his per
formances abroad created resentment on this side of the Atlantic.
This feeling persisted, and a few years later it resulted in one of the
most remarkable tragedies connected with the stage. William
Macready, an English actor, came to this country with an English
company to present Shakespearean plays. Macready arrived in the
spring of 1849. In May of that year he opened as Macbeth, at the
Astor Place Theatre, New York. In revenge for the treatment accorded
Forrest in London, the gallery audience hissed Macready and his
company. A tumult followed, and was continued in the street, where
fighting broke out and soon assumed the proportions of a riot.
Twenty-two men were killed and several hundred injured.

In 1822 at the age of 16, and for many years thereafter Forrest
toured the country. After Forrest s return to his home he bought a
brownstone mansion on Broad Street and retired. In 1860 he was
persuaded to return to the stage, but failing health marred his last
appearance. He died December 12, 1872, broken and unhappy, his
sensitive nature shattered by the tumult which had resulted from his
trip to England.

His will provided for the establishment and maintenance of a home
for aged actors. The Edwin Forrest Home, at Forty-ninth Street and
Parkside Avenue, is comparatively new, but from 1876 until a few
years ago the home was maintained on the actor s estate in Holmes-
burg. The institution is a sanctuary for actors and actresses more
than 60 years old, or those unable to continue their profession be
cause of infirmities.

Another organization for stage folk, the Charlotte Cushman Club,

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

formerly had a clubhouse at 1010 Spruce Street and now maintains
a room at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, where actresses who are taken
ill while in the city are cared for.

James Edward Murdoch was born January 25, 1811. Before his
death at 82 he had played at the Haymarket in London for 110
nights, devoted himself to a prolonged study of Shakespeare, and
published a monograph on the cultivation of the voice. He had also
studied voice culture in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. His great
est roles were those of Young Mirable in The Inconstant, Charles
Surface in The School for Scandal, Rover in Wild Oats, and Don
Felix in The Wonder.

Joseph Jefferson, born at Spruce and Fifth Streets, February 20,
1829, grew up in the atmosphere of the theatre. His mother, father,
and grandfather were stage folk, and he appeared on the stage as a
baby. He played many comedy parts in Philadelphia as a youth, but
his outstanding success was the title role in Rip Van Winkle, which
he played for years. In 1849 he toured the South. In 1861 he made
a tour of Australia, and four years later appeared at the Adelphi in
London. The noted dramatic critic, William Winter, rated him among
the greatest actors of all time.

Long in the annals of the Philadelphia theatre is the name of
Davenport, nine generations of whom have appeared before theatrical
audiences in England and America. At one time 10 members of the
family were on the stage simultaneously. Fanny Davenport, sister of
E. L. Davenport, played many of "the divine" Sarah Bernhardt s roles
in America, and her niece of the same name appeared in Topaze a
few years ago. Harry, son of the illustrious E. L. and now in Holly
wood, is perhaps the most unusual of this family, because of his long
career behind the footlights which began in Philadelphia in 1871
when he was just five years of age. He still treasures the first money
he earned on the stage in Philadelphia.

Mrs. John Drew was the matriarch of Philadelphia s second great
theatrical family and one of the greatest of American actresses. Born
January 10, 1820, in London, she came to America at the age of
seven, and as a young girl played at the Walnut Street Theatre in
support of Booth. She married John Drew, her third husband, in 1850.
After his death she managed the Arch Street Theatre for 30 years and
then moved to New York, appearing there in a few all-star revivals.
Finally she returned to Philadelphia to live with her son. She died in
Larchmont, N. Y., August 31, 1897.

John Drew, the younger, was born in Philadelphia November 13,
1853, and made his first appearance at the Arch Street Theatre in
1873 in Cool as a Cucumber. He joined Augustin Daly s company
in New York, and remained with it for years. He played 70 parts
with Daly and in support of Booth, Fanny Davenport, and other

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STAGE AND SCREEN

stage notables. Later Drew joined Charles Frohman. He died in
1927 while touring the West with the comedy revival, Trelawney of
the Wells. Petruchio, in The Taming of the Shrew, was his favorite
role.

Of all the stars Philadelphia has given to the theatre, none have
shone more brightly than the members of the Barrymore constella
tion Ethel, Lionel, and John, children of Georgiana Drew and
Maurice Barrymore. John was born in Philadelphia February 15,
1882. In his youth he studied art, and professed a distaste for the
theatre ; but he had appeared in Camille with Ethel and Lionel while
the three still were children. By 1903 he was playing the male lead
in Richard Harding Davis The Dictator a role which took him to
London in 1905.

For 10 years his star rose steadily. His portrayal of the title role
in Peter Ibbetson sent critics into superlatives, and when he returned
to the higher realm of Shakespearean repertory their praise con
tinued. In 1921 his Hamlet was a sensation in America, and in London
a critic said Barrymore seemed to have "gathered in himself all the
Hamlets of his generation." He has also portrayed on the screen
leading roles in such successes as Don Juan, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,
Moby Dick, Manon Lescaut, General Crack, Svengali, Grand Hotel,
and Rasputin.

Ethel was born in Philadelphia on August 15, 1879. Her success
has been, if less spectacular, more solid than her younger brother s,
and the range of her acting has been limited only by the vehicles
available. Her portrayals of Lady Teazle in School for Scandal and
the leading roles in Captain Jinks, Mid-Channel, Our Miss McChesney,
Declasse, and The Constant Wife have left an indelible impression
upon the theatre in America and England. She was somewhat less
successful on the screen in The Nightingale, The White Raven, and
Rasputin.

Eldest of the Barrymore trinity is Lionel, born in Philadelphia
April 29, 1878. At 15 he was playing small parts in a company with
his uncle, Sidney Drew, and later appeared in The Rivals. His first
real success was in support of his uncle, John Drew, in The Mummy
and the Humming Bird. After years of trouping he renounced the
stage and turned to painting. In 1918 he returned to the stage and
achieved great success in The Copperhead, a play of Civil War time.
His screen career began with D. W. Griffith in the old Biograph studio
in New York. Recognition as a screen actor was slow in coming, but
in a long string of films The Mysterious Island, The Lion and the
Mouse, Body and Soul, A Free Soul, The Man I Killed, Grand Hotel,
Arsene Lupin, The Yelloiv Ticket, and others his fame has grown
with every role.

Francis Wilson, born in 1854 of Quaker parents in Philadelphia,

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is best remembered as a comedian in many comic operas. But he
also achieved success several times in his own plays. He died in New
York on October 7, 1935. Ed Wynn, popular comedian, was born in
Philadelphia in 1886. He made his first appearance in vaudeville as
a lad of 15. Later he played in such Broadway successes as The Per
fect Fool, Simple Simon, The Laugh Parade, and The Grab Bag.

W. C. Fields was born in Philadelphia in 1879. As an actor and
juggler he appeared in England, France, and Germany, and from
1915 to 1921 was in each successive edition of Ziegf eld s Follies. His
film career began with D. W. Griffith in 1925. He proved a great
screen comedian and has scored increasing success in Sally of the Saw
dust, It s the Old Army Game, Ttvo Flaming Youths, Mrs. Wiggs of
the Cabbage Patch, David Copperfield, Poppy, The Man on the Fly
ing Trapeze, and others.

Charlotte Greenwood s career has also been divided between the
stage and the newer medium of the films. Born in Philadelphia in
1893, she first attracted attention in the Winter Garden production,
The Passing Show, and has appeared in many popular films.

Other native Philadelphians to acquire prominence in the dramatic
field were August, Charlotte, and Charles Durang, Eph Horn, McKean
Buchanan, Robert Butler, Harry A. Perry, Eliza Logan, Celia Logan,
Herman Vezin, Henry Langdon, Mrs. Oscar Beringer, Minnie Palmer,
Hugh J. Ward, George Frederick Nash, Jack Norworth, Margaret Dale,
Charles Hopkins, Ethelin Terry, Margaret Lawrence, Evelyn Herbert,
George Gaul, Frances Carson, and Emma Haig.

Playwrights

PHILADELPHIA S writers for the stage have done their share
- in the advancement of the theatre. The real beginning of Ameri
can dramatic literature was made with Edwin Forrest s offer of prizes
for original plays. In 1759 Thomas Godfrey, Jr., wrote America s
first play, The Prince of Parthia ; and 1801 had seen the per
formance of Charles Jared Ingersoll s verse tragedy, Edwy and
Elgwia, based on English history ; Mordecai Noah, David Paul
Brown, and James Nelson Barker were early Philadelphia play
wrights. Forrest s contest brought out John Augustus Stone, whose
Metamora, Forrest s greatest vehicle, still survives ; and Robert
Montgomery Bird, three of whose plays, Oraloosa, The Gladiator,
and The Broker of Bogata, were among those awarded Forrest prizes.
George Henry Boker once called the handsomest man in America
one of the founders of the Union League and sometime minister
to Turkey and Russia, wrote Calaynos, Anne Boleyn, and The Be
trothal. His masterpiece, Francesca da Rimini, in which Lawrence
Barrett first made his mark, was successfully revived by Otis Skinner
in 1901.

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John Luther Long, born in Hanover, Pa., in 1861, wrote the short
story, Madame Butterfly, in 1900. David Belasco sensed its dramatic
possibilities, and collaborated with Long in writing the play of the
game name. Later the play was used as a basis for the Puccini opera,
Madama Butterfly. The Darling of the Gods followed, with Blanche
Bates and George Arliss costarring. The Belasco-Long collaboration
ended in 1904 with Andrea. Other Long plays were The Dragon Fly,
Dolce, Kassa, and Crowns.

Ernest Lucy, who made Philadelphia his home, wrote Chatterton.,
in which Julia Marlowe starred.

John T. Mclntyre s imaginative comedy of a dream world, A Young
MaTi s Fancy, was produced in 1919 and was praised in some quarters
for its poetic charm.

That there can be depth and interest in common things was the
conviction of Edward Childs Carpenter, another Philadelphia drama
tist, born in 1872. He submitted his Barber of New Orleans in a prize
contest conducted by the New York Globe, and the play was pro
duced by William Faversham in 1908. He wrote a half dozen plays,
his most successful being The Bachelor Father, produced by Belasco
in 1928.

Elliot Lester, born in Philadelphia in 1894, deserted the profession
of teaching at Temple University when his first play, The Mud Turtle,
achieved success, and he followed this with Take My Advice, a
criticism of contemporary life.

George Kelly has established himself in the vanguard of American
dramatists whose plays demand serious consideration. Born in Phila
delphia in 1887, he played for five years in vaudeville, where his
brother Walter, "The Virginia Judge," had long been popular. His
first plays were sketches, and his most successful three-act play, The
Show-off, was an amplification of one of these with its plot laid in
Philadelphia. It was produced in 1924. His satire of the little theatres,
The Torch Bearers, was a success ; and in 1926 he turned to serious
drama, writing Craig s Wife, winner of a Pulitzer Prize. Behold, The
Bridegroom in 1928, and Philip Goes Forth in 1930, were less popular.
His comedy, Reflected Glory, was produced in Philadelphia in Jan
uary 1937.

Langdon Elwyn Mitchell, son of the author-physician, Dr. S. Weir
Mitchell, was born in Philadelphia in 1862, and became well known
as a playwright. He wrote In the Season, produced at St. James
Theatre, London, in 1893, and dramatized Thackeray s Vanity Fair
under the title Becky Sharp, a play produced by Mrs. Fiske in 1899
and later put on the screen in colors. His Pendejinis was produced by
John Drew in 1916, and The New York Idea, his most successful
dramatic offering, in 1906.

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Other Philadelphia playwrights were Richard Harding Davis and
Thomas Fitzgerald, the latter known for many satisfactory plays dur
ing the closing years of the nineteenth century.

The city s latest claimant to dramatic fame is Clifford Odets, who
rose from the obscurity of a stock player with the Group Theater
in New York. In three days he wrote Waiting for Lefty, a one-act
play that met with tremendous success. He followed in rapid succes
sion with Awake and Sing, Till the Day I Die, Paradise Lost, and
Golden Boy. His plays, anti-Fascist in content, in instances reflect the
alleged degeneracy of middle-class society in the changing social order.

Existing Theatres

PHE city s modern legitimate theatres have housed a full share of
* the outstanding dramatic performances of the present century.

The Walnut Street Theatre, Ninth and Walnut Streets, (see Tour,
Where the City Fathers Walked) believed to be the oldest existing
playhouse in America, still follows its ancient traditions though with
lagging footsteps. Those who have appeared on its stage run the
gamut from circus performers to the greatest names in the history
of the American theatre. Remodeled many times since its erection in
1808, an aura of its former greatness still lingers round it.

The Forrest, on Walnut Street at Quince, named for Edwin Forrest,
was opened May 1, 1928, with Under the Red Robe, a light opera.
Designed for spectacular musical and dramatic productions, the
theatre has a large and excellently equipped stage. The building is
fireproof, and has a seating capacity of approximately 2,000.

Keith s, on Chestnut Street between Eleventh and Twelfth, was
built under the personal direction of B. F. Keith, and was opened
November 2, 1902. By the will of Andrew Keith, son of the founder,
the theater was bequeathed in equal shares to William Cardinal
O Connell, of Boston, and the president and fellows of Harvard
College. It was a vaudeville house until September 1928, when the
Shuberts made it a home for drama and musical comedy. Later it
became a motion-picture house. It was the first so-called "million-
dollar theatre" in the country ; on its stage have appeared Sarah
Bernhardt, Lillian Russell, Maggie Cline, Will Rogers, Sophie Tucker,
Belle Baker, Chic Sale, the Dooleys, and Charlie Chaplin.

The Chestnut Street Opera House at 1021 Chestnut Street, is one
of the oldest playhouses in America still in operation. It was opened
in 1865, and during its career has been the scene of hundreds of
dramatic and musical successes. Today the theatre is equipped to
show motion pictures as well as to present stage attractions. It is the
home of the American Theatre Society, an organization which has
been very successful in presenting plays under a subscription plan.

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The Broad Street Theatre, at 261 South Broad Street, for upwards
of a half century one of Philadelphia s most noted theatres, dates
back to 1876. It has changed ownership many times. The Kiralfy
Brothers, who built this playhouse of Moorish design, called it the
Alhambra Palace. For a time it was the home of the McCaull Opera
Company, and its stage was the scene of several of the earlier Gilbert
and Sullivan successes. It was in this theatre, in 1888, that Julia Mar
lowe made her debut. In 1895, the Nixon-Zimmerman interests gained
control of the Broad, and under their management many of the
great stars of Broadway, including John Drew, Viola Allen, Alia
Nazimova, Maude Adams, Sarah Bernhardt, and Mrs. Patrick Camp
bell played here. With the depression and the inroads made by the
motion-picture theatres, the Broad lost a prestige it was never to
regain. It closed after the 1935-36 season, was razed in the fall of
1937, and its site is a parking lot.

The Erlanger Theatre, built by the Erlanger interests at Twenty-
first and Market Streets in 1927, was devoted largely to musical
comedy, and presented some of the front-rank stars of the day, among
them Fred Stone, Will Rogers, Helen Morgan, Fred Allen, and W. C.
Fields. Occasionally motion pictures have been shown there.

The Locust Street Theatre, on Locust Street near Broad, was opened
in March, 1927, as a motion-picture house. Not until 1931 did it
change to legitimate drama, the first play being The Greeks Had a
Word for It. The theatre is of Gothic design.

The Shubert, on Broad Street below Locust, was built in 1917-18,
and for a time was the leading house of the Shubert interests in
Philadelphia. Among the many productions presented here were
The Student Prince, Sinbad (with Al Jolson in the starring role),
and The Vagabond King. The house is now devoted to burlesque.

The first Negro theatre in the city was the Standard, South Street
east of Twelfth, which opened September 8, 1888. It remained a legiti
mate theatre until 1934 when it became, as it is now, a motion-picture
theatre. In 1912 the first Negro moving picture theatre, the Key
stone, was opened at 937-41 South Street, but it closed in 1934. In
1919 the Dunbar Theatre, now the Lincoln, opened at Broad and
Lombard Streets, with an all-Negro cast in the play Within the Law.
For several seasons this theatre which was named for Paul Laurence
Dunbar, a famed Negro poet, ran only legitimate dramas. Later,
however, it was taken over by other interests, and it became a moving-
picture house. It was opened in September, 1937 as a Jewish Theatre.

The Bijou, on Eighth Street above Race, opened November 4, 1899,
was the first Philadelphia theatre with a continuous vaudeville bill.
Upon the opening of the Keith Theatre on Chestnut Street in 1902,
a stock company occupied the Bijou. In 1907 vaudeville was resumed,
giving way to burlesque in 1910.

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The Trocadero, at Tenth and Arch Streets, has been a burlesque
house for about 30 years. The theatre occupies a site originally used
by a playhouse devoted to the presentation of Negro minstrels.

The Little Theatres

ITHE American theatre, moved by the demand for profits, has de-
- rived new energy from the little theatre movement, the success
of which is twofold : it provides a medium of self-expression for
thousands of talented players, and serves as a testing ground for
playwrights who might be denied a hearing by professional pro
ducers.

In uncounted barns, dwellings, warehouses wherever a stage may
be erected earnest members of little theatre groups nowadays are
busy experimenting with new dramatic forms and new material.
From the obscurity of these groups emerge some of the current
drama s first playwrights and some worthwhile plays. Philadelphia
has not been laggard in the movement. In the city and its environs
are more than 200 little theatre groups, many independent, others
associated with some school, college, church, or other institution.

Foremost among them is the Hedgerow Theatre, in Rose Valley
not within the city limits, but within its cultural orbit. It began in
1923, with no assets other than a decrepit gristmill and the enthu
siasm of its director, Jasper Deeter, who had abandoned a successful
career on the professional stage to found the Hedgerow. The com
pany lives a communal life. The work of the group, even the menial
domestic work, is performed by the members, and the profits are
shared equally. The actresses of an evening may on the morrow be
found in the garden hoeing peas ; the actors may combine a talent
for acting and for stage carpentry.

The group remodeled the building which houses the theatre. It
seats 168 and is open 50 weeks each year, six nights a week from
April to October, and three times a week during the winter. The
company has a wide and increasing repertory. Plays which have had
their premieres at Hedgerow include Cherokee Night, by Lynn
Riggs ; The D. A. 9 by Bayard Veiller ; Plum Hollow, by Alvin Kerr ;
Wolves, by Romain Rolland ; King Hunger, by Andreyev ; and
Winesburg, Ohio, based on the collection of short stories of the same
name by Sherwood Anderson. In 1934-35 the group toured the coun
try, and gave 76 plays before an aggregate audience of 120,000.

Another group, the Stagecrafters, began in 1929 with 17 members.
It now has 350, all residents of Germantown or Chestnut Hill. After
four years in a remodeled blacksmith shop at 8132 Germantown
Avenue, the group erected a new building at the same location. This
playhouse was opened October 12, 1936, with the production of

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Robert Sherwood s The Petrified Forest. Plays are presented on the
second Thursday and Friday of each month, from November through
April.

The Alden Park Players are an organization of residents of the
Alden Park Apartments, a group of apartment buildings in German-
town, adjoining Fairmount Park. It was organized in 1930 and has
had the enthusiastic support of other residents of the apartments.
The group has produced many Broadway successes, often under pro
fessional direction, in a theatre which is set up each winter over
the apartment swimming pool.

The Chestnut Hill Players perform in a renovated barn at Allen s
Lane and McCallum Street. Subscribers to the number of 150 make
this playhouse self-sustaining. Its repertory has included plays by
Molnar, Ibsen, Shaw and Barrie.

A converted barn at 4821 Germantown Avenue houses the German-
town Theatre Guild, which in its three years of life up to 1936 had
produced 170 plays, many of them experimental or with a limited
audience appeal.

One of the city s older and more successful theatrical groups is
Plays and Players, organized in 1911 by Mrs. Otis Skinner. The com
pany produces dramas, operas, and ballets in its own well-equipped
theatre at Seventeenth and Delancey Streets. A self-sustaining or
ganization, it maintains club rooms and a theatrical library.

The Showcrafters, organized in 1934, utilize a small second-floor
dance hall at Bridge Street and Frankford Avenue. Their theatre,
triangular in shape, seats few spectators, but its members have done
well with some of the lighter Broadway successes.

An organization which has had the inspiring assistance of Jasper
Deeter is the Theatre League, a group of young people producing
some of the advanced plays in an old garage at 2034 Chancellor
Street. Its equipment is improvised, but it has had considerable suc
cess with some important plays, among them The Sisters 9 Tragedy,
It s the Poor that Helps the Poor, Cradle Song, Marriage Contract,
and Pillars of Society.

The city s youngest little theatre group, the Quince Street Players,
is another which emulates Hedgerow. Its resources are communalized,
and the members share the meager profits of their productions. Their
theatre, at 204 South Quince Street, is an unadorned second-floor loft
accommodating few spectators.

The most successful, financially, of all the little theatre groups in
or near Philadelphia is the Players Club of Swarthmore, the majority
of whose members are employed in the city. The club, which grew
out of a benefit minstrel show presented in 1911, has its own club
house and theatre, with a large and well-equipped stage and a com
modious auditorium.

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The Mask and Wig Club of the University of Pennsylvania has at
tained a high reputation throughout the eastern United States for
its musical plays, written and acted by members. At Temple Univer
sity a similar organization, the Templayers, produces plays written
by its own members or by accepted dramatists.

It is impossible to distinguish strictly between the little theatre
groups and those which might be more properly classified as ama
teurs. The little theatre stages are not always occupied by experi
mental or significant drama, and on occasion the amateur groups
make a genuine contribution to the theatre. Some of the more im
portant of these borderline groups are : The Lincoln Drive Players,
performing at the Unitarian Church, Germantown ; Neighborhood
Center Players, 428 Bainbridge Street; Torresdale Dramatic Club,
parish house of All Saints Church ; Old Academy Players, 3544 In
dian Queen Lane ; and Three Oaks Dramatic Club, Germantown
Women s Club building on Washington Lane. The Neighborhood
Center Players are especially noteworthy for the inspiration given to
playwriting by the yearly contests they foster. They are one of the
few little theatres which frequently include new and untried plays
in their productions.

The Workers Theatre

AKIN to the little theatre groups in facilities, but distinct in em
phasis and direction, the Workers Theatre has attempted to
present plays which would arouse class consciousness. For ten years,
after the World War, a number of groups presented such drama in
Philadelphia, but their productions generally died aborning because
of a lack either of funds or experience.

In 1926 a group led by Alfred Sobel organized the Workers Theatre
Alliance, and the movement began to assume some consciousness of
its direction. In the face of the same disheartening difficulties which
had dampened the ardor of its predecessors, the Workers Theatre
Alliance succeeded in presenting several provocative one-act plays:
The Sisters Tragedy, by Richard Hughes ; Victory, by John Laessen
and Simon Felshin ; The Second Story Man, by Upton Sinclair ; and
Mr. God Is Not In, by Harbor Allen. The last named play was an
acid satire on organized religion.

The Vanguard Group of players took up the laborers torch in
1928 at the point where the Workers Theatre Alliance had met de
feat. Jasper Deeter was the Vanguard s first director. Only one play,
The Miners, was presented before dissension between the players
and their director caused production to be suspended. The Vanguard
Group was reorganized under Harry Bellaver, also of Hedgerow, and

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STAGE AND SCREEN

such plays as What Price Coal?; Last Days of the Paris Commune;
Bound East for Cardiff; The Big Stiff; and The Unemployed were
presented.

Another group, organized in 1926, is the Labor Institute Drama
Guild, a part of the educational and cultural program of the Labor
Education Center (formerly the Labor Institute) , at 415 South Nine
teenth Street. Among its early presentations, given in Yiddish as well
as in English, were The Clock That Struck Thirteen, adapted from
a story by Sholem Aleichem ; and Bebele, by Perez Hirshbein ; also
such dramatizations as Money, by Michael Gold ; and The Everlasting
Song, by Mark Arnstein.

Theatre Crafts, a group of 40 semi-professional actors, was or
ganized in 1932. Its membership included Clifford Odets ; Abner
Biberman, who afterwards joined the Theatre Union in New York ;
and Ted Burke, director of the group.

In presenting plays of social protest, Theatre Crafts was unique
among little theatre groups. Its repertory consisted of only two
plays : Precedent, which dealt with the imprisonment of Tom Mooney
in San Francisco, and John Golden s Gods of Lightning, a dramatiza
tion of the Sacco and Vanzetti case.

To foster greater cooperation between the little groups, the New
Theatre (organized in 1934) sponsored a theatre festival in 1936.
This marked the third conference of the New Theatre League, at
which the Philadelphia center acted as host to more than 100 dele
gates from similar organizations throughout the country.

With the broadcast of a scene from Albert Bein s Let Freedom
Ring, in March 1936, the New. Theatre made its radio debut. In
addition to their dramatic activities, these players also maintain a
Film Section, which from time to time has made available to its
audiences, at low prices, such screen plays as Ten Days that Shook
the World, Broken Shoes, Poll de Carotte, and Thunder Over Mexico.
Outstanding achievements in the dramatic field were the presenta
tion of Black Pit at the Erlanger Theatre, Too Late to Die at the
Locust, and the only Philadelphia performance of Let Freedom Ring,
at their own theatre on North Sixteenth Street.

Puppet Shows and Marionettes

T&gt; UPPET shows in Philadelphia date back to 1742. In 1781 Charles
-- Willson Peale, the famous painter, exhibited at his home (Third
and Lombard Streets) a series of transparent scenes showing events
which occurred during the War for Independence.

In the winter of 1786, puppet shows were given on the third floor
of a house near Second and Pine Streets, and were directed by Charles
Dusselot, a young ex-officer in the French Guards of Louis XVI. A

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skilled mechanic, Dusselot introduced variety in his shows and suc
ceeded in representing sea fights, a water mill, and various mobile
figures. The puppet plays included Poor Soldier, in which the songs
of Norah and Darby were sung behind the scenes by Mrs. Dusselot
and others.

Today, 1937, Philadelphia has revived the ancient and piquant art
of puppetry and in cooperation with the Board of Education is dem
onstrating its ingenuity to various trade unions, settlement houses,
schools, hospitals, and other institutions without facilities for the
production of the legitimate drama. On the eighth floor of the
Y.W.C.A. building, at Eighteenth and Arch Streets, such ancient favor
ites as Punch and Judy, Dr. Faustus, Little Black Sambo, and the more
modern Marx Brothers have their headquarters. These puppet shows
were begun in January 1936, with plays written by the staff, and
figures and costumes created in the workshop. This is a WPA pro
ject, part of the Federal Theatre program.

Minstrels

^ HREE generations of Philadelphia theatregoers have enjoyed

L the songs and comedy of what is known as Negro minstrelsy.
The claim that this form of entertainment had its inception in this
city in 1842 is based upon the statement of William Whitlock, who
that year appeared in the Walnut Street Theatre with Master John
Diamond.

Buckley s Serenaders are known to have given a minstrel show in
Musical Fund Hall in 1849, and four years later a member of the
troupe, known as Sam Sanford though his name was Lindsay, opened
his "Opera House" on Twelfth Street below Chestnut. He moved
his entertainers to Cartee s Museum, Eleventh Street and Marble
Alley, in 1854, and this new "opera house" was a home of minstrelsy,
under successive managers, for 55 years. Manager Robert F. Simpson
changed the name of the house to Carncross and Dixey s in 1862, in
honor of two of the most popular minstrels in the troupe.

Lew Simmons and E. N. Slocum opened the "Arch Street Opera
House," on Arch Street west of Tenth, in 1870, and that same year
Carncross, together with Dixey and Simmons, opened the American
Museum, Menagerie and Theatre, on the northwest Corner of Ninth
and Arch Streets. Three homes of minstrelsy were thus operating
successfully for some time, an indication of the popularity of the
song and laugh brand of stagecraft in Philadelphia. Stage stars such
as Raymond Hitchcock and Eddie Foy had their start on the Quaker
City s minstrel stages.

Frank Dumont succeeded Carncross upon the latter s retirement
from the theatre in 1895, managing the Eleventh Street house until

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STAGE AND SCREEN

1909, when he took over the theatre at 10th and Arch, which he
operated until his death in 1919. Emmet J. Welch, ballad writer and
singer, was his successor, Welch s Minstrels carrying on the old tradi
tions. A fire in 1929 damaged the playhouse, and in 1931 the onetime
old home of sentimental ballads gave way to the raucous automobile,
being demolished to provide a parking lot.

Hedgerotv Theatre
Where stars are born

: :;

f^w

.JUJ *MR&gt;.

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE
The Cinema in Philadelphia

HILADELPHIA was a pioneer city in moving pictures. In 1860
Dr. Coleman Sellers made the first photographs of motion, and
the machine which he devised for showing them was patented in 1861
as "a new and useful improvement in the mode of exhibiting stereo
scopic pictures of moving objects." The apparatus was looked upon
as merely an interesting toy. It was, however, the first step in motion
pictures, and 25 years later its principles were employed by Edison.

On February 5, 1870, Henry R. Heyl displayed at the Academy
of Music an invention which he called the "phasmatrope," described
as "a recent scientific invention designed to give to various objects
and figures upon the screen the most graceful and lifelike move
ments." His machine was a converted projecting lantern, in front of
which was a large revolving disk containing 16 openings near thr
edge, into which lantern slides were arranged. A disk is still used
on motion-picture projectors and in recent television apparatus.

The first motion pictures from flexible films were cast upon a
screen at Franklin Institute by C. Francis Jenkins in 1894 ; the first
in a Philadelphia theatre were exhibited at Keith s Bijou in 1896.
Two years later a Philadelphia optician, Sigmund Lubin, opened a
studio for making motion pictures on the roof of a building on Arch
Street near Ninth. In the following year these and others were shown
at Betzwood, and in 1899 Lubin opened at Seventh and Market
Streets a motion-picture theatre probably the first in the United
States. For 15 years Lubin continued as a producer, with studios at
Nineteenth Street and Indiana Avenue.

Jeanette MacDonald, the movie star, was born in Philadelphia
the early part of the twentieth century, and attended West Philadel
phia Girls High School. Her first job was in the chorus of a Ned
Wayburn show in 1920, and success in other musical comedies fol
lowed. Her film career began in 1929 in The Love Parade, with
Maurice Chevalier.

Another Philadelphia screen actress is Janet Gaynor, born here on
October 6. 1907. Seventh Heaven, in which she appeared in 1926,
brought her fame ; and she was subsequently starred in Sunny Side
Up (the first musical comedy written expressly for films), The Man
Who Came Back, Daddy Long Legs, and The Farmer Takes a Wife.

Constance Binney, born in Philadelphia in 1900, made her first
stage appearance 17 years later in New York s Bijou Theatre, in
Saturday to Monday. In 1920 she made her first appearance on the
screen.

Vivienne Segal, born in Philadelphia in 1897, began her film career
in 1929, after some experience on the stage. She has appeared in

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many films, including Song of the West, The Bride of the Regiment,
and Viennese Nights.

Other Philadelphia-born cinema players include Eleanor Board-
man, star of The Auction Block, and George Bancroft, typifier of
rugged force in numerous screen roles.

With more than 150 moving-picture theatres in the city, Phila-
delphians have no lack of facilities for viewing the latest products of
the film industry. Eleven of these theatres, situated in the downtown
section of the city, are "first run" houses : Aldine, Arcadia, Boyd,
Earle, Erlanger, Fox, Karlton, Stanley, Stanton, and Trans-Lux. In
addition, the Europa shows the best of the Continental films, and for
several years the Mastbaum, at Twentieth and Market Streets, largest
house in the city, displayed "first run" pictures of exceptional merit.

The interest in current news was the inspiration for the Trans-Lux
Theatre, which opened on January 1, 1935. The exterior of the build
ing superimposes cubic masses of blue upon silver in a distinctive
design. The News Theatre, 1230 Market Street, was opened in 1937.

Memorial Arch at Valley Forge
Dedicated to the thirteen original colonies.

233

Music

MUSICAL progress and appreciation in Philadelphia have kept
faith with the long-haired Hermits of the Wissahickon who,
at the city s first concert in 1703, wrung somher strains from the
viol, the oboe, and the trumpet. It is not difficult to resurrect that
scene of long ago the music-starved Colonials tapping their feet
in tempo with the kettledrum; the half-austere, half-exalted ex
pression upon the faces of the musicians ; the lack of symphonic
richness. From this early recital at the ordination of Justus Falkner
in Old Swedes Church, musical endeavor in Philadelphia has marched
down an ever-widening path, emerging finally into the broad highway
of accomplishment.

Music in modern Philadelphia is symbolized by the renowned
Philadelphia Orchestra and the Curtis Institute of Music. Under the
driving force of Leopold Stokowski s genius, the former has come to
be recognized as one of the great symphonic organizations of the
world. Philadelphia s musical tradition, however, does not entirely
center about the orchestra and the Academy of Music in which it
plays. Numerous singing societies, choral groups, orchestral clubs,
and organization of various kinds reflect the musical tendencies of
its people.

That Philadelphia was a musical center as early as Colonial times
was due partly to its geographical location midway between Boston
and the capital of southern secular music, Charleston. This fortunate
circumstance helped it to absorb musical influences from each, while
developing its own appreciation.

The city s next modest step in music, following the Hermits con
cert in 1703, was the purchase and installation in Christ Church, in
1728, of its first organ. In 1743 Gustavus Hesselius was manufacturing
spinets and organs in the city, and this date marks the beginning of
the history of the American pianoforte.

The American Company opened the Southwark Theatre on Novem
ber 14, 1766, giving as its first performance Thomas and Sally, or,
The Sailor s Return. Philadelphia was in the forefront operatically
when other cities were experimenting with crude band concerts, and
was also the first city in the country to present a really ambitious
concert, which took place May 4, 1786. A "grand concert" with 230

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vocal and 50 instrumental performers was given on that date at the
German Reformed Church in Race Street.

Choral and secular music, meanwhile, had been developing at a
rapid pace. By the latter part of the eighteenth century, and in the
early years of the nineteenth, many Philadelphia musicians were
devoting a major part of their time to the advancement of choral
music in churches and independent societies. Publication of books
dealing with hymn singing and choral selections increased.

In 1852 a drive was organized to obtain money for construction of
the Philadelphia Academy of Music. The sum of $400,000 was raised,
and five years later the Academy was formally opened. In February
1857 the building saw its first opera, II Trovatore. This presentation
conclusively demonstrated the Academy s worth to Philadelphia
music lovers. The acoustics was declared the finest in the United
States, and even today the Academy is distinguished for its acoustic
excellence.

Another event of importance was the arrival, in 1907, of Oscar
Hammerstein. He built, at Broad and Poplar Streets, the gigantic
opera house known as the Metropolitan. Hammerstein scoffed at

The Academy of Music
"Where rich memories are born"

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

warnings that the venture would fail because the building was too
far from the center of the city. Whether or not the location was a
vital factor, the house, despite its spacious stage and elaborate ap
pointments, was not successful. To the bitter disappointment of him
self and local music lovers, Hammerstein was able to present opera
for only two years. Later, however, the Metropolitan was the scene
of intermittent operatic productions.

The twentieth century ushered in a new era in Philadelphia music.
In the years to follow, the city surged forward in a magnificent musi
cal advance that ultimately placed it among the leaders as a world
musical center.

Philadelphia Orchestra

HPHE Philadelphia Orchestra was organized in 1900, as an out-
* growth of the defunct Philadelphia Symphonic Society, which had
been founded in 1893, with William Wallace Gilchrist as its leader.
The orchestra s first concert was held November 16 under the baton
of Fritz Scheel. During the winter of 1900-01 a series of six concerts
was given in the Academy of Music, and in the spring of 1901 the
orchestra, still under Scheel s direction, gave a concert for the benefit
of the soldiers and sailors of the Philippine campaign.

These concerts were received with so much favor that a movement
was set afoot to establish the orchestra on a permanent basis.

Up to that time, Philadelphia music lovers had to get along with a
few concerts given each year by touring symphony orchestras, or else
go to New York. Finally, through the efforts of Alexander Van Rens-
selaer and a committee composed of John H. Ingham, Oliver Boyce
Judson, Edward S. McCollin, John C. Sims, Henry Wheelen, Jr., Oscar
A. Knipe, and Dr. Edward I. Keffer, the Philadelphia Orchestra
Association was formed. Scheel was engaged as the regular conductor ;
and although the early years of the orchestra s existence were marked
by financial difficulties, public-spirited citizens from time to time
aided with generous contributions.

Scheel died in 1907. After an exhaustive search throughout Europe,
Carl Polhig, Royal Court Conductor of the King of Wurttemburg,
was engaged as conductor. Polhig s leadership over a period of five
years, however, was not especially impressive.

The year 1912 was important in the development of the orchestra.
Leopold Stokowski, who had been conducting the Cincinnati Orches
tra, was engaged to lead the Philadelphia organization. A man of
artistic temperament and spectacular methods, the maestro began
a long series of experiments with new symphonic works, new methods
of instrument arrangement, and new styles of presentation. In the 20
succeeding years the fame of Stokowski spread throughout the world.

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Among his innovations was the arrangement of the orchestra per
sonnel on a level platform instead of in the conventional amphi
theatre. He became noted, also, for his rebukes to noisy and to
late-arriving patrons. On one occasion, during the season of 1926, he
chided tardy arrivals by opening the concert with an "orchestra"
composed of a cellist and a violinist, permitting the other orchestra
members to straggle in two or three at a time. In 1929 he rebuked
patrons who had hissed a Schonberg number by suggesting they sur
render their seats to others who would appreciate good music.

A few years later, when orchestra patrons criticized the appear
ance of modern compositions on the programs, the blond conductor
arranged a program with a division between "regular" and "modern"
numbers, virtually inviting those who disliked the new music to
leave. On still another occasion he interrupted a concert to upbraid
a few members of the audience, maintaining that their applause of
a Bach transcription disturbed the delicate mood inspired by the
music.

Stokowski s conductorship ended with the close of the 1935-36
season. He had decided to devote more time to musical research and
to experimentation in connection with motion pictures. In the spring
of 1936 the orchestra made a nation-wide tour. Stokowski was the
chief conductor, while Saul Cohen Caston and Charles O Connell al
ternated on the podium as associate conductors. However, the 1936-37
season saw a new conductor, Eugene Ormandy, with Stokowski acting
as musical director and conducting a limited number of concerts.

Closely affiliated with the orchestra is the Youth Movement in
Music, instituted by Stokowski with two concerts for youths, which
he directed, in 1933. In response to his appeal for some sort of or
ganization among the younger music lovers, clubs were formed and
placed under the guidance of orchestra members. Their purpose was
a discussion and exchange of ideas on singing, drama, and orchestra
tion.

The Concerts for Youth Committee, of which C. David Hocker is
chairman, acts in an advisory capacity to the movement. The com
mittee arranges auditions for unusually talented youngsters. One of
those selected at an audition was Eugene List, who later obtained a
position with the Philharmonic Society of New York, and was en
gaged for an extensive tour of Europe. The youth concerts are well
attended, and the 100 youth clubs had a membership of more than
1,000 in 1937.

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Curtis Institute of Music

T^OUNDED in 1924 by Mary Louise Curtis Bok, the Curtis Institute
"endeavors, through contemporary masters, to inculcate into stu
dents of today the great traditions of the past." It provides free tuition,
individual instruction by world-famous artists, financial assistance,
and also arranges preparatory stage and radio performances for stu
dents of merit.

Student soloists, ensemble groups, and the Curtis Orchestra par
ticipate in approximately 25 programs each season. They are broad
cast from the institute auditorium and from Philadelphia s radio
studios over a national network. Students also appear before edu
cational and civic organizations within a hundred-mile radius of the
city. Some of them are permitted, at the discretion of the school, to
accept professional engagements.

Admission to the institute, which is situated on Rittenhouse Square,
is limited to those whose inherent musical gift shows promise of
development to a point of professional quality. Auditions are held
within a month after application for enrollment, the final decision
as to the suitability of the applicant resting upon talent shown in
the examination.

Since Curtis Institute was founded, 246 students have been grad
uated. Among these were Helen Jepson, Rose Bampton, Conrad Thi-
bault, Charlotte Symons, Samuel Barber, Wilbur Evans, Benjamin
de Loache, Boris Goldovsky, Edwina Eustis, Edna Phillips, Shura
Cherkassky, Sylvan Levin, Eugene Lowenthal, Agnes Davis, and Ira
Petina.

Other Musical Groups

T7OR a number of years orchestral concerts were given in an open-
air pavilion on Lemon Hill in Fairmount Park. The orchestra
consisted of about 50 musicians, many of them members of the Phila
delphia Orchestra. The programs were made up generally of semi-
popular works of great composers, arranged to appeal to different
gradations of understanding and appreciation. These concerts were
popular and well attended, a gathering of more than 10,000 having
been estimated on one Sunday. Since the auditorium could accom
modate only a fraction of this number, thousands were forced to
find seats on the surrounding lawns.

Among the conductors who appeared at Lemon Hill from 1922 to
1925 were Thaddeus Rich, Richard Hageman, Willem Van Hoog-
straten,- Henry Hadley, Alexander Smallens, Nahan Franko, and
Victor Kolar. Other musical celebrities to appear at the Lemon Hill
concerts included Olga Samaroff, Elsa Alsen, Elly Ney, and Rence

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Music

Thornton. The concert season at Lemon Hill lasted for seven weeks
during July and August. These concerts were supplanted by the
Robin Hood Dell programs, begun in 1930.

During the seventh (1936) season at the Dell, operas and ballets
were presented in addition to "straight" concerts, with Jose Iturbi as
musical director of these concerts which are a cooperative venture on
the part of members of the Philadelphia Orchestra. The Dell, a
natural amphitheater which accommodates 6,000, is also in Fairmount
Park, and most of the musicians are members of the Philadelphia
Orchestra. Concerts are scheduled for six nights each week during the
season. If inclement weather interrupts the schedule, performances
are held over until weather permits.

The Philadelphia Grand Opera Company, organized in 1926, affi
liated itself two years later with the Curtis Institute of Music, pro
viding graduates of the institute with an opportunity to appear in
grand opera. The late William C. Hammer, a trumpeter, was one of
the founders ; Artur Rodzinski was its first conductor. No perform
ances have been given by this group in recent years.

The Savoy Opera Company, founded in 1901 by the late Dr.
Reginald Aliens, presents Gilbert and Sullivan operas exclusively.
The group is sponsored by the School of Music of the University of
Pennsylvania, and the proceeds of its performances go to the school.
The operas are usually given with a cast and chorus of 100 or more.

Philadelphia s keen appreciation of music also reveals itself in the
existence of many other groups. The Stringart Quartet, a well-known
chamber music ensemble organized in 1933, seeks to advance the
more obscure classical music. This group is composed of Leon Lawisza
and Arthur Cohn, violinists ; Gabriel Braverman, violist ; and
Maurice Stad, violoncellist. The quartet annually presents a number
of subscription concerts in Philadelphia and vicinity.

The Strawbridge & Clothier Company Chorus was founded in 1885
by a group of employees. Since 1905 Dr. Herbert J. Tily, who was
made president of Strawbridge & Clothier in 1927, has directed the
chorus. Dr. Tily has written much of the music sung by the group,
including a number of well-known cantatas. The chorus gives an an
nual concert at Robin Hood Dell, as well as performances in the
Strawbridge & Clothier store during the Christmas and Easter seasons.

Victor Herbert, renowned composer of light operas, wrote many
numbers especially for this group. Long identified with Philadelphia
music, Herbert is best remembered for his annual engagements at
Willow Grove Park, just north of the city. These extended over a
period of 20 years. His first contact with the Philadelphia public dates
back to the time when he gave concerts in Washington Park on
the Delaware. He also appeared here in the old days as conductor

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of the Philadelphia Operatic Society. In 1916, at the request of Dr.
Tily, he came to the city and gave at the Metropolitan Opera House
a concert which included only his works. Many of his compositions
were presented for the first time in Willow Grove Park ; others were
started or completed during his stay there.

The Keystone Quartet, whose personnel has remained unchanged
since its formation in 1918, is composed of employees of the Pennsyl
vania Railroad. This group has been heard in all parts of the world,
both on the radio and in personal appearances. The quartet has broad
cast frequently on short wave transmission to Europe, and in 1930
took part in the first television broadcasting of this kind.

The Orpheus Club of Philadelphia, one of the oldest singing
societies in the city, was organized in 1872. Composed of professional
and business men, the chorus numbers about 70 voices. Concerts are
given three times a year at the Academy of Music. The American
Opera Guild, organized in 1935, promotes musical appreciation
among American singers of talent and provides training facilities for
them. The guild plans to present operas in English, with local
singers. Operas will be staged and rehearsed in Philadelphia before
the company goes on tour.

Philadelphia is the home of the oldest German singing organiza
tion in the United States the Maennerchor Society, founded in
1835. The Mendelssohn Club, founded in 1874 by Dr. William Wal
lace Gilchrist, gives a number of special performances each year in
conjunction with the Philadelphia Orchestra. The Canzonetta
Chorus, organized in 1920, gives two performances yearly in the
ballroom of the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel. During the Lenten season
it offers a number of concerts in which sacred music is featured. Lit
Brothers department store maintains a chorus of employees, giving
annual concerts for charity at the Bellevue-Stratford.

Valuable training in music and drama is also offered by the Settle
ment Music School, 416 Queen Street, which was founded in 1908 and
incorporated in 1914. The present school was erected in 1917 from
funds donated by Mrs. Edward W. Bok. Each student is required to
pay a reasonable tuition fee, but only a few are able to pay for the
full cost of instruction.

Celebrities

THE concert artist and musician, Philadelphia offers a life
ideally adapted to study. The traditions of the city are inspiring,
and Philadelphians are especially sympathetic to the musical student.
Many world-renowned artists were born and educated, or have lived
here.

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Music

Josef Hofmann, celebrated pianist and dean of the Curtis Institute
of Music, resides in Merion Penna. Born in Poland in 1876, Hofmann
at an early age attracted the attention of the composer Rubinstein.
When only 10 years old, Hofmann toured the United States and
was acclaimed a child prodigy. Today he is recognized as one of the
greatest living pianists. Hofmann, now an American citizen, has been
associated with the Curtis Institute since its inception in 1924.

Mme. Olga Samaroff, at one time the wife of Leopold Stokowski,
was born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1882, and made her American
debut as a pianist at Carnegie Hall in 1905, with the New York
Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Walter Damrosch. Since
then she has given many concerts either alone or with such artists as
Kreisler and Zimbalist, and with the Kreisler Quartet. At present,
Madam Samaroff is associated with the Philadelphia Conservatory.

Harl MacDonald, one of the most promising of modern composers,
is professor of music in the University of Pennsylvania s Department
of Music. Born in Boulder, Colorado, in 1899, MacDonald has com
posed many symphonies, modern in treatment and often dissonant
and barbaric in style and rhythm.

One of the outstanding opera singers of today, Dusolina Giannini,
was born in Philadelphia in 1902, of Italian parents. For years her
father conducted a small opera house known as Verdi Hall, in South
Philadelphia, where she and her sister Euphemia learned to sing
the songs of Italy under the tutelage of their parents. Ferruccio
Giannini himself had been an opera singer, and he soon recognized
the great possibilities in Dusolina s voice. He took his daughter to
Mme. Marcella Sembrich, under whom she was trained for an
operatic career. She made her debut at Berlin in 1925 in Aida, and in
1936 she created a sensation in New York. Later in 1936 she toured
Europe, her star gaining brilliance with every appearance.

The baritone, Nelson Eddy, rose to national prominence from the
newsroom of a Philadelphia newspaper. In 1933 Eddy sang in Parsi
fal with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Eddy was born in Providence,
Rhode Island, in 1901, and came to Philadephia fourteen years later.
While working as a newspaper reporter, he studied singing under
the late David Bispham, making his first theatrical appearance as a
minor character in The Marriage Tax in 1922. Success followed on
the concert stage, in grand opera, in the motion pictures, and on the
radio. Among films in which he has appeared are Dancing Lady.,
Naughty Marietta., Rose Marie, and Maytime.

David S. Bispham himself was one of the greatest operatic baritones
this country ever produced. For years he sang many of the leading
baritone roles with the Metropolitan Opera Company, creating a
number of notable parts. After his retirement from the operatic

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stage he devoted himself to vocal teaching, a field in which he also
won signal success. Bispham, whose parents were Quakers, was born
in Philadelphia January 5, 1857.

Another of the city s noted contemporary singers is Marian Ander
son, a Negro, whose success began with her first professional appear
ance as contralto soloist with the Philadelphia Philharmonic Sym
phony Society. A recital in New York followed. Competing against 300
singers, she won the New York Philharmonic contest and later went
abroad to begin a series of tours and courses of study. Of the same
age as Dusolina Giannini, Miss Anderson is hailed as having one of
the rarest contralto voices in modern times.

The music critic who possibly did more than any other man in
America to "discover" such musical geniuses as Strindberg and
Stravinsky was the Philadelphian, James G. Huneker. Born here Jan
uary 31, 1860, Huneker studied music in New York and Paris, and
then became assistant to Rafael Joseffy, teaching at the then newly
founded National Conservatory. Afterwards, becoming a "steeplejack
of the seven arts," as he whimsically termed it, he wrote for the
New York Morning Recorder and Advertiser, and then joined the staff
of the Sun as dramatic critic, art editor, and special writer. Following
an extended tour of Europe, Huneker in 1918 became connected with
the New York Times as music critic. When death ended his brilliant
career in 1921, he was with the New York World. During a part of
this time he traveled weekly to Philadelphia to conduct a column in
the Philadelphia Press. His published volumes of epigrammatic ap
preciation of art and letters included Mezzotints in Modern Music.,
Melomaniacs, Overtones, Iconoclasts, Book of Dramatics, and others.

Among other Philadelphians prominent in the music world are
Josephine Lucchese, soprano ; Wilbur Evans, baritone ; Henri Scott,
basso ; Nicholas Douty, tenor ; Edward Ellsworth Hipsher and Guy
Vincent Rice Marriner, directors; Alexander McCurdy, Jr., Russell
King Miller, and Norris Lindsay Norden, organists ; Samuel L. Laciar,
music critic ; and Dr. James Francis Cooke, composer.

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PAINTING AND SCULPTURE

ALTHOUGH Philadelphia s early days were notable for utilita
rian rather than artistic achievement, this city long has oc
cupied an enviable position as a shrine of the arts. During the
city s early settlement there was neither the money, time, nor incli
nation for anything but practical accomplishment. Then, gradually,
with the growth of trade, there emerged a class with the necessary
time and money to indulge in cultural pursuits. Those who ap
preciated "the true and beautiful" found expression for their ap
preciation in the collecting of rare treasures and in patronizing paint
ing and sculpture. The more utilitarian crafts such as the making of
silverware, pewterware, and furniture also were encouraged.

In the field of furniture-making particularly, Philadelphia ac-
chieved real distinction. Its late eighteenth century cabinetmakers
evolved an ornate style known as "Philadelphia Chippendale" for
the reason that it was derived in part from the engravings published
by Thomas Chippendale in his Cabinet Maker s Directory of 1754-
1755 and 1761. The market provided by a large and increasingly
prosperous merchant class, and the unofficial boycott on foreign
goods which existed in the American colonies as early as 1761 in
protest against the odious import taxes on British wares, combined
to place domestic goods at a premium and to develop a pride in
fine local workmanship. On the other hand, loss of contact with the
center of current taste was evident in a continued vogue of the florid
Chippendale style until well after the close of the Revolution,
whereas in England the classic Adam style had been launched some
years earlier.

The work of four early cabinetmakers, represented at the Penn
sylvania Museum of Art Benjamin Randolph, Jonathan Goste-
lowe, Thomas Tufft, and Edward James exemplifies the unique
features of early Philadelphia furniture craft.

Such painting as was done, particularly at the beginning of the
eighteenth century, was practiced by men who had little if any pre
liminary training. Spoken of as limners (a corruption of the old
English term "illuminer," or decorator of manuscripts), they traveled
from town to town with a stock collection of portraits complete ex
cept for the faces. It usually required but one sitting to fill in the
individual likeness.

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The Historical Society of Pennsylvania has in its possession what
are probably among the earliest paintings done in Philadelphia. They
are three portraits (of Robert Morris and of the artist and his wife)
by Gustavus Hesselius, who came to Philadelphia from Sweden in
1711. Hesselius, the first organ-builder in the Colonies, executed a
number of portraits and designs for churches.

Other early painters included John Meng ; William Williams,
Benjamin West s first instructor ; Matthew Pratt, who worked as
West s assistant for a time ; and James Claypoole, a miniature painter
who also served as Sheriff of Philadelphia for several years. Pierre
Eugene du Simitiere, artist and naturalist, became one of the curators
of the American Philosophical Society ; and Joseph Wright, who
modeled miniature heads in wax, was appointed by President Wash
ington as first draughtsman and die-sinker in the United States Mint.
Among their contemporaries were Henry Bembridge, John Wesley
Jarvis (one of the first American artists to study art anatomy), Robert
E. Pine, and Jean Pierre Henri-Louis.

The first painter of consequence born on American soil was Phila
delphia s celebrated Benjamin West (1738-1820). A Quaker, whose
sect tolerated no pictures save family portraits, West spent most of
his life in England.

The reasons which took West to London also actuated many other
American artists. New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, in West s day,
offered little encouragement to any sort of artist other than the itiner
ant portrait painter. The lack of art museums, of artistic companion
ship, and of any real interest in the arts drove Americans to seek
fame and fortune abroad. London at that time was the hub of the
civilized world, with Hogarth, Reynolds, and Gainsborough at the
height of their fame. And an abundance of art lovers and patrons
contrived to give the town an atmosphere particularly stimulating
to aspiring artists.

Ultimately, West acquired an eminent position in London as a
painter and teacher. He was favored with the royal patronage, and
became a founding member, and later president, of the Royal Acad
emy. He was always ready to assist young American artists, financially
as well as didactically. Among his students or proteges were Gilbert
Stuart, Copley, Malbone, C. W. Peale, Matthew Pratt, and Thomas
Sully.

West s chief claim to interest today probably lies in his canvas,
The Death of (General) Wolfe, in which the figures are clad in
clothes of the period, instead of the classical robes with which
painters at the time commonly arrayed their historical subjects.

Of the famous Peale family, which includes several painters,
Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) is probably most outstanding. His
studies of Revolutionary patriots are on permanent exhibition at the

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PAINTING AND SCULPTURE

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, which he helped to found.
His son Rembrandt (1778-1860) at the age of 17 executed a portrait
of Washington, from whom he obtained three sittings. Another son,
Raphael (1774-1825) devoted his energies principally to still-life
subjects. Still another, Titian (1800-1885), occupied himself with the
delineation of animal life. He executed most of the plates in the first
and fourth volumes of Charles Lucien Bonaparte s American Orni
thology. James Peale, brother of Charles, is known for his many
miniatures and portraits in oil. He served during the Revolution as
an officer in the Continental line.

Patriotism and painting marched hand in hand during the Revo
lution, when the artist packed his palette and brushes in his camp
baggage and started off to war. One of Charles Willson Peale s best
known portraits of Washington was painted when the artist was a
captain with the general. The canvas was begun at Valley Forge,
continued at New Brunswick a day or two after the battle of Mon-
mouth, and finished later in Philadelphia.

Because portrait painting was at the height of its popularity in
England during the eighteenth century, American painters, whose
viewpoints were derived from the mother country, likewise devoted
themselves to this branch of art. After the Revolution, a number of
artists from various parts of the world were attracted to the young
republic. All were eager to attempt likenesses of George Washing
ton, who perhaps served as the subject of more paintings, etch
ings, and lithographs than any other man of his time. A ship dock
ing at the port of Philadelphia from Canton, China, during this
period, brought paintings of Washington done on glass by an emi
nent Chinese artist.

The most distinguished delineator of President Washington was
Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828), who is credited with 124 studies of his
subject and who probably worked on about 1,000 different canvases.
A colleague of West s, and a student of anatomy under Dr. William
C. Cruikshank, Stuart never acquired the power of handling large
canvases with the fluency and grace of Reynolds and Gainsborough ;
but within the compass of a single portrait he was distinctly success
ful.

Stuart, who was born in Rhode Island, set up a studio in Philadel
phia late in 1794, soon after his return to America from a long
period of study abroad. His sojourn in this city is memorable by
reason of the brilliant series of women s portraits he completed here,
and for the three famous studies of Washington done during the
latter s old age all executed either in Philadelphia or in nearby
Germantown. For the first, a bust portrait identified as the Vaughan
Type, Washington sat during the winter of 1795. The second, a life

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size standing portrait known as the Lansdowne Type, was completed
in the spring of 1796.

A short time later, Stuart moved his studio to Germantown, where
in the autumn of 1796 Washington sat for the now familiar "Athe
naeum Head," which is unfinished as to the stock and coat, but is a
highly idealized representation of the first President s features dur
ing his declining years. Stuart took the painting with him to Boston
when he moved there in the summer of 1805. He died in Boston 23
years later.

Stuart s color is still alive and fresh. His portraits reveal a feeling
for form, as expressed in the modulation of values, and a notable
capacity for character analysis. It is probable that he will always
rank among America s finest portrait painters.

The era of the new republic also produced William Birch, minia
ture painter and engraver, who is known for the development of a
red-brown enamel which he used as background in his miniatures ;
Bass Otis, the first American lithographer, whose work was prophetic
of the multitude of colored pictures which were to come tumbling
from the presses of Currier & Ives ; and James Sharpies, painter of
the French-influenced pastels which hang in Independence Hall. Some
time during the years between 1801 and 1807, the city also served as
host to Edward Green Malbone, as skilled a painter of miniatures as
Stuart was of portraits.

William Birch s son, Thomas (1779-1851), also achieved distinction
as an engraver, producing jointly with his father the much-prized
Views of Philadelphia. His most important work, however, was done
in landscapes and marine subjects.

Washington Crossing the Delaware, the study of Lafayette in In
dependence Hall, and a full-length portrait of Queen Victoria which
the artist was commissioned to paint for the Sons of St. George of
Philadelphia, are among the most important works of Thomas Sully
(1783-1872). Born in England, Sully came to America at the age of
nine and in 1808 settled in Philadelphia, where he remained for the
rest of his life. His painting technique was largely self-taught, al
though he was undoubtedly influenced by Stuart and Lawrence. He
was a prolific portraitist; and was onetime president of the Penn
sylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, which possesses today a number
of fine specimens of his work.

Among the minor painters of post-Revolutionary Philadelphia
were John Neagle, whose series of American theatrical portraits now
line the walls of the Players Club in New York City ; Robert Fulton,
known as the designer of the first successful steamboat ; Benjamin
Trott, the miniature painter ; Samuel Jennings, whose canvas, The
Genius of America, hangs in the main room of the Free Library ; John
Joseph Holland, landscape and scene painter ; John James Barralett,

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engraver, and John Lewis Krimmel, whose work anticipated the Diis-
seldorf School. Adolph Ulric Wertmuller, a Swedish painter who
settled in Philadelphia in 1794, is celebrated chiefly for his canvas
Danae, which he was forbidden to exhibit publicly because it was a
nude. Private exhibitions of the painting, however, netted the artist a
handsome income.

Philadelphia was the birthplace of the pioneer American sculptor,
William Rush (1756-1833). A wood carver by profession, Rush
developed great skill in designing figureheads for ships. His River
God for the ship Ganges is said to have been revered by the Hindus
who came in boatloads to see it. The Pennsylvania Academy, which
he helped to establish, possesses an interesting memento of Rush in
the plaster cast made from the original portrait of himself which he
carved in a pine knot.

Had time permitted, Rush would doubtless have attempted marble
instead of confining his efforts to wood and clay. However, he was
rather indifferent to the material used. Of more significance, he in
sisted, was the artist s ability to visualize the figure in the block.
Removal of the surface he regarded as merely mechanical ; often
when time was lacking he would hire a wood chopper and stand by
giving directions where to cut. Rush had ideas in abundance, a sense
of grace, and much facility.

Another early Philadelphia marine painter was James Hamilton.
Like his predecessor, Thomas Birch, Hamilton also painted land
scapes that are much prized today.

With the interest in the mezzotint stimulated by the work of John
Sartain, who became associated with Grahams Magazine in 1841,
the use of illustrations grew in vogue as a distinctive feature of
American periodicals. Other engravers of this early period were
Cephas Grier Childs, Daniel Claypoole Johnson (the "American
Cruikshank") , James Barton Longacre, and William Mason. Felix
Darley s pen and ink sketches were in the manner of the best English
illustrations of the time.

Painting in Philadelphia continued to reflect Continental ten
dencies. The assault on the stilted classicism of West and David, which
led to French Romanticism and indirectly stimulated the rise of the
anecdotal schools of Diisseldorf and Munich, deluged the United
States with an avalanche of story-telling pictures soaked in German
sentimentality. This type of painting, exploited by a number of
Philadelphia artists whose names are now forgotten, was enormously
popular, for it was intelligible even to those who knew little about
art. During this period, an extraordinarily rapid increase in the
fortunes of persons of little culture led to the foundation of many
private collections by ambitious owners for whom the anecdotal
picture held greatest appeal.

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Another Continental movement, the landscape painting school of
Corot and Turner, helped shape one of the first native developments
in American art. Applying the style of their European masters,
American landscape painters turned to the scenic loveliness of
America for their subject matter.

Foremost among the city s scenic painters of this period were Wil
liam Trost Richards (1833-1905) noted for his marine paintings; and
the Moran brothers, Thomas, Edward, and Peter. A member of the
Pennsylvania Academy, Thomas Moran was the first important artist
to paint scenes of what are now our national parks, such as the
Yellowstone.

Outstanding for their historical paintings were Emmanuel Leutze,
a native of Germany, who spent many years in Philadelphia, and who
executed the well-known painting, Washington Crossing the Dela
ware ; Peter F. Rothermel, painter of the colossal Battle of Gettys
burg ; and James R. Lambdin, known for his portraits of the Civil
War period.

With the renascence of Romanticism, France became increasingly
dominant in shaping the artistic ideals of Europe, and, in turn, of
the United States. Particularly profound in their influence on
American painters, because of their preoccupation with outdoor
phenomena, was that group of independents known as the Impres
sionists. Their movement gave impetus to a trend among American
artists which was apparent from the second half of the nineteenth
century the great trek to Paris.

The realistic approach began with Courbet, but with increasing in
sistence made itself felt in art toward the end of the last century ; it
is manifested in the straightforward works of Thomas Eakins (1844-
1916) . Although he was in the vanguard of the American movement
to Paris, where he studied under Bonn at and Gerome, Eakins re
turned to America to paint the subjects of his native land in a style
peculiarly his own. Possibly because he had grown up amid the
prevailing red brick row houses of Philadelphia and its tree-shaded
streets, in a period when houses and clothes were sombre and oil or
gas afforded a meager illumination, Eakins painted his canvasses in
colors that were dark and warm. Moreover, most of the paintings he
had seen in his youth had been in that tradition, and when he went
abroad impressionism had barely begun.

Indeed, not only impressionism but most of the leading tendencies
of French art passed him by completely the cult of the exotic and
the Oriental, the return to the primitive, the increasing subjectivism,
the decorative bent, the trend toward abstraction, the restless search
for new forms and colors. Unlike many of his contemporaries who
either became expatriates or drew a veil of pretty sentiment over
America s crudities, Eakins, while revolting against its puritanism,

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accepted his environment with the same robust affirmation as did
Walt Whitman.

Eakins influence would be difficult to trace. His work had few ele
ments to make it popular ; it called for too fundamental a knowledge
to attract imitators. However, he exercised an unmistakable power
over his students at the Pennsylvania Academy, from which his ex
pulsion, because of prudish objections to his insistence on reality in
the life class, provoked a student parade of protest on Chestnut
Street.

Eakins early pre-occupation with science his chief interest next
to painting was demonstrated again and again in his work. He
encouraged a study of anatomy before drawing the human figure, and
emphasized that space and form relationships should be determined
by perspective. Even his color was rationalized. To learn the funda
mentals of the human figure, Eakins studied at Jefferson Medical
College, and probably knew more about the structure of the body
than any other artist of his time. His medical studies inspired the
sensational Gross Clinic hanging in Jefferson College ; also, the Agnew
Clinic at the University of Pennsylvania, which when first exhibited
aroused a storm of protest and indignation.

There is evidence that Eakins name will also be remembered for
his success with the camera. Like Eadweard Muybridge, he experi
mented with motion ; but where Muybridge studied movements from
different positions at the same time, Eakins concentrated on pro
gressive action seen from one position. In 1884 he conducted experi
ments at the University of Pennsylvania demonstrating the muscular
action of horses and athletes. His viewpoint was that of the motion
picture ; and his lecture, using the zoetrope, at the academy in 1885,
was possibly the first exhibition in the United States of motion
pictures taken from a single angle.

Mary Cassatt (1845-1926), among the most distinguished Americans
to follow the leadership of Degas, Manet, Cezanne, Monet, Renoir,
Morisot, and Pissarro, spent most of her life in France. Born in Pitts
burgh, the daughter of a well-to-do banker, she was taken to Paris at
the age of five. Upon returning to the United States five years later,
the family settled in Philadelphia, where Mary studied at the
Academy of the Fine Arts. In 1868 she went to Europe, where she
found study more profitable in the galleries than in the academies.
So captivated was she by Correggio that she remained in Parma eight
months. She admired the discriminating firmness of Holbein, the in
sistent purity of Ingres, she copied Parmigiano ; her own color prints
benefited by her response to the compositional novelties of the Japan
ese wood-block printers that took Paris by storm in the early seven
ties.

However, the work of Degas had the greatest influence on her. His

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manner can be traced throughout all her work. Regarded primarily
as a painter of mother and child subjects, Mary Cassatt was actually
an artist of considerable versatility. The color etchings which supple
ment her paintings testify to the scope of her inventiveness.

Daniel Ridgway Knight, a Philadelphia painter who won inter
national distinction with his large and typical French Salon picture
exhibited at the Philadelphia Centennial in 1876, likewise passed the
greater part of his life abroad. The Philadelphians, Earl Stetson
Crawford and Elisha Kent Wetherill, whose work shows a decided
Whistler influence, were also Paris-trained.

Like other artists of the period, the Negro painter, Henry Ossawa
Tanner (1859-1937) spent much of his life in Europe. Coming to
Philadelphia from Pittsburgh in 1870, he later studied under Thomas
Eakins at the Academy of the Fine Arts. His Biblical paintings at
tracted attention immediately, and the late John Wanamaker pur
chased several, one of which, Christ Learning to Read, hangs in the
Philadelphia store. Two of his paintings were purchased by the
French Government and hung in the world-famed Luxembourg Gal
leries in Paris. Others of his works hang in the Metropolitan Museum
in New York (Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah) ; Memorial Hall
in Fairmount Park (The Madonna Annunciation) ; the Carnegie
Institute ; the Wilstach collection ; the Chicago Art Institute ; the
Los Angeles Art Gallery ; and many other places. About 1899 Tanner
left Philadelphia for Paris where he accomplished much of the work
which achieved for him universal fame as a painter of Biblical scenes.

Cecilia Beaux, one of the academy s most successful students,
painted chiefly in France. Characterized by forthright brushwork and
feeling for audacious design, her canvases suggest a kinship with
Sargent s. Her work has a masculine power and vigor, without any
suggestion of stylistic imitation or technical affectation.

The sculptors for whom nineteenth century Philadelphia is note
worthy similarly made their pilgrimage to Paris. Howard Roberts,
whose first important work, La Premiere Pose, was shown at the
Centennial Exhibition, pioneered in promoting the ideals of the
modern French school in this country. The American Indian was first
utilized as a sculptural subject by John J. Boyle, a native of New
York, who is represented by The Stone Age in Fairmount Park ; he
also modeled the heroic-size statue of Franklin which stands along
side the old post-office building on Chestnut Street near Ninth. Joseph
A. Bailly, a native of Paris who opened a violin studio in Philadel
phia at the age of 25, is known for his figure of Washington and for
other works.

Alexander Milne Calder is best known for his gigantic bronze of
William Penn atop City Hall. His son, Alexander Stirling Calder,
has executed some of the Parkway s most important sculpture. A

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statue of Dr. Samuel Gross, now in Washington, D. C., and the six
heroic figures adorning the Witherspoon Building at Juniper and
Walnut Streets are among his outstanding studies.

Edmund Austin Stewardson was a sculptor of great promise whose
career was terminated by his death at 32. He lived to complete only
one work, The Bather, but this is accounted a fine specimen of Ameri
can art. The highly acclaimed Fountain of Man was produced by the
academy s long-time teacher, Charles Grafly, also esteemed for his
portrait busts and bronze groups. The Meade Memorial in Washing
ton, D. C., The Symbol of Life, Pioneer Mother, and In Much Wisdom
are among his most important works.

The turn of the century ushered into prominence such artists as
Edwin Austin Abbey, Violet Oakley, Maxfield Parrish, Joseph Pen-
nell, Howard Pyle and George Walter Dawson.

Abbey, who spejit the last years of his life doing murals for the
State Capitol at Harrisburg, attracted international attention in 1882
through his illustrations for Goldsmith s She Stoops to Conquer.
Violet Oakley, who began her professional career with illustrations
for books and magazines, is noted for her murals and for her por
traits and designs for stained glass. Maxfield Parrish, whose work is
a familiar decoration in countless homes, is noted for his delicacy of
line combined with individuality of color effects. Pennell and Pyle
were writers as well as illustrators. The former achieved distinction
as etcher and lithographer, the latter for his drawings of American
Colonial life. Dawson has attracted much attention by his landscape
and botanical w r ater colors.

With the onset of the movements ushered in by the New York
Armory show of independent artists in 1913, several factors combined
to decrease Philadelphia s importance as an art center. The academy,
which had driven out Eakins and which had earlier set aside sepa
rate visiting days for ladies when the nude statues on view were
swathed from head to foot in all-concealing draperies, refused to
recognize post-impressionism except in pained surprise. The insti
tution accordingly came to be looked upon with more and more
impatience.

On the other hand, the work which this institution, the Pennsyl
vania Academy of Fine Arts, has accomplished is by no means to be
underestimated. Not only has it performed well its task of teaching
art students the technical essentials of their craft those things
which can be taught ; but it has also furthered artistic endeavor by
giving European scholarships, and is, moreover, the home of a num
ber of valuable painting and print collections, such as the Henry C.
Gibson and Edward H. Coates collections.

For more than 40 years Hugh Breckenridge (1870-1937) exerted
tremendous influence upon the pupils who studied under him at this

251

Rodin s "The Kiss"
"The warm breath of life in cold marble"

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institution. Some of the most widely recognized artists of modern
American art studied under this instructor, who was one of the first
American artists to introduce the methods of the modern French
school. Included in the list of artists who have been trained at the
academy are such reputable figures as Robert Henri, George Luks,
John Sloan, and Edward W. Redfield. Redfield s landscapes and snow
scenes are found in important collections throughout the country.

However, with the rise of New York City as an art market, the
more enterprising inhabitants of Philadelphia s Bohemia deserted
Camac Street and moved on to Greenwich Village. Other painters for
sook Philadelphia to develop the landscape possibilities of New
Hope, Pennsylvania, and of Arden, Delaware.

A number of Philadelphia painters and sculptors, however, have
continued to work in an older tradition, and have found the placid
cultural atmosphere of the city congenial. Daniel Garber teaches at
the Academy of the Fine Arts, and paints decorative canvases of the
scenes around New Hope ; largely American trained, he owes much,
however, to the French Impressionists. Albert Rosenthal, painter and
etcher, who studied under his father Max Rosenthal, noted litho
grapher, has made copies of historic portraits for the city s collection
in Independence Hall and for the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Some of the country s most distinguished men have sat for por
traits by Lazar Raditz, Robert Susan, and Cesare Ricciardi, whose
work is well represented at the Graphic Sketch Club. Robert W.
Vonnoh, Birge Harrison, his brother Thomas Alexander Harrison,
W. Elmer Schofield, Maurice Molarsky, and the late Adolphe Borie
are others whose works are included in important collections. Birge
Harrison and Schofield in particular have won considerable reputa
tion as landscapists. Like Redfield, both have exhibited widely, and
are holders of numerous distinguished prize awards.

Philadelphia s sculptors, generally, have carried on well. The
modern athlete not unnaturally has inspired much of the work of
Dr. R. Tail McKenzie, who in addition to being a sculptor is re
search professor of physical education at the University of Pennsyl
vania. Two of his compositions are on the University campus : a
heroic statue of the youthful Franklin, and a figure, likewise heroic
in size, of Rev. George Whitefield. Among his other works are the
Dr. White Memorial, in Rittenhouse Square, which has been praised
for the strength and originality of its composition ; and the Alma
Mater figure at Girard College.

Albert Laessle and Samuel Murray have also distinguished them
selves in sculpture. Laessle, who teaches at the Academy of the Fine
Arts, executed the Pennypacker Memorial. His Billy in Rittenhouse
Square and his Penguins in Fairmount Park are examples of his
humor and skill in the treatment of animal subjects.

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Murray is represented by statues of Commodore Barry and Joseph
Leidy on the Parkway. The Prophets, over the entrance to the With-
erspoon Building, is another of his creations.

In connection with sculpture, the presence in the city of the Rodin
Museum is evidence of Philadelphia s artistic consciousness and taste.
It is one of the few great Rodin Museums in the world, the original
being in Paris. On the Parkway and in Fairmount Park are such
works as the equestrian statue of Washington by Rudolph Siemering,
Fremiet s Jeanne $ Arc, Frederic Remington s Cowboy, The Pilgrim,
by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Duck Girl by Paul Manship, and sculp
tures by Daniel Chester French, Einar Jonsson, Charles Crafty, Bea
trice Fenton, and others. In addition, there are the Paul Bartlett
statues of Robert Morris and McClellan; Karl Bitter s statue of Dr.
William Pepper; and, in Rittenhouse Square, a copy of what is pos
sibly Barye s best work, The Lion and the Serpent.

New tendencies and interests current in American art are reflected
locally in Julius Bloch s proletarian themes, Benton Spruance s scenes
of the city, Earl Horter s etchings, Franklin C. Watkins striking
canvases, and the sculptures of Boris Blai and Wallace Kelly.

Outstanding artists in their respective fields are Nicola D Ascenzo,
noted for his stained glass work and murals, and Samuel Yellin,
master metal craftsman. Yellin received the Bok Award in 1925 for
his distinguished work in decorative iron.

Straws in the wind seem to indicate that a more vigorous art atmos
phere is emerging in Philadelphia. A small but flourishing group of
art clubs is fostering local talent by affording to members facilities
for exhibition. Opportunity is .being given students to observe the
fresh currents in contemporary art through exhibits staged by several
enterprising modern galleries.

It is significant that Philadelphia s great museum on the Parkway
is supplementing its rich historical treasures, such as the Elkins and
the John G. Johnson collections, with frequently varied shows which
present a cross section of the latest modes in painting and sculpture.
The Pennsylvania Museum of Art, as this institution is now known,
was founded in 1876. It has a total collection of nearly 60,000 paint
ings, sculptures and art objects. Operated in connection with the
museum is the School of Industrial Art, occupying a spacious location
at Broad and Pine Streets. And at Merion, just outside of Philadel
phia, is the Albert Barnes private collection of modern paintings, the
finest in the country, in connection with which courses of art in
struction are regularly given.

Memorial Hall in Fairmount Park houses the extensive Wilstach
collection of paintings, which contains fine specimens of the various
schools and periods. Independence Hall, the Historical Society of

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Pennsylvania, and the Union League contain valuable collections of
portraits by early American masters.

In the field of art instruction Philadelphia has the long-established
school of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts ; the Moore
Institute of Art, Science, and Industry ; the School of Fine Arts at the
University of Pennsylvania; and the Stella Elkins Tyler School of
Fine Arts at Temple University. The Graphic Sketch Club s evening
classes, under the patronage of Samuel Fleisher, provide free compe
tent training in art for those who are employed during the day, and
afford an outlet for the creative energy of numerous others to whom
art is only an avocation. The interesting recent development, the
Cultural Olympics, organized for school children in Philadelphia and
suburbs, seeks to center upon the arts something of the enthusiasm
that is bestowed upon athletics.

Artists who find difficulty in disposing of their works may now have
recourse to the annual spring "Clothes Line Show" in Rittenhouse
Square, where paintings, drawings, etchings, and water colors are
strung between the trees, while attending painters in their bright-
hued smocks provide a touch of Parisian atmosphere. This unusual
exhibit, held in May, is attended by many visitors, the prices paid for
pictures ranging from $1 to $15.

Perhaps the most vital recent agency in developing popular es
thetic appreciation has been the WPA Federal Art Project in Phila
delphia. In utilizing the ability of unemployed painters and sculptors
to produce mural and easel paintings for schools, recreation centers,
and other public buildings, the WPA has provided sustenance, pre
served morale, and conserved valuable skill. Hardly less significant,
it has also encouraged a lively curiosity concerning the fine arts among
thousand to whom this field has hitherto meant little or nothing.

Mosaic in lobby of Curtis Publishing Company Building
"The Dream Garden" after Maxfield Parrish

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ARCHITECTURE

FOUR towers tell the story of Philadelphia. As architecturally
different from one another as the ages which fashioned them,
they and their contemporary structures indicate the local physical
conditions, the economic and cultural progress of their time, and the
changes in the art and science of building design. The first tower,
that of the State House or Independence Hall, almost an exact restora
tion of the original tower which was built in 1750, is of brick
with a wooden belfry. Fashioned after the Georgian style of
England but adapted to the needs of the early Colony, it reflects the
city s early growth and its part in the struggle for independence. The
tower of the old Merchants or Stock Exchange Building, completed
in 1834, a stone lantern in the style of a Greek temple, tells of the
days of the new Republic. The third tower, that of City Hall, 1894,
of massive masonry, solid and tall, portrays the city s growth to a
metropolis of world importance. The Philadelphia Saving Fund
Society building, completed in 1932, is a tower of steel, concrete,
chromium and glass modern materials for a modern age. It tells
of today an age of search, of challenge, of the testing of new ideas.
Independence Hall was erected embodying architectural features
contributed by Andrew Hamilton, a famous lawyer and holder of
various offices in the Province. Dominated by its handsome bell
tower, a masterpiece of Colonial architecture and craftsmanship, it
is a symbol of early Philadelphia. Unlike the situation in other early
American Colonies, the settlers of Philadelphia did not experience a
great struggle against hardships. Relations with the Indians were
amicable, and commerce flourished. True, some of the colonists spent
the first winter in caves on the banks of the Delaware River, but as
clay was locally abundant and brick had been favored for city
residences in the homeland, houses were built of brick almost from
the beginning. It is to this material that Independence Hall owes
much of its charm.

From the earliest days, men of means, including many personal
friends of William Penn, as well as skilled workers and craftsmen,
came here to live. Capital of one of the last of the major Colonies
to be settled, Philadelphia grew rapidly, soon taking its place as a
leading city of the New World, both in wealth and culture. This late
start is amply expressed in its architecture. Whereas the buildings

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of the older Colonies reflected an early English Renaissance style
some of it going hack to the Tudor period the State House tower
and most of Philadelphia s building designs were inspired by the later
Georgian style.

However, early Philadelphia felt architectural influences other than
the English Georgian. There still remain a few structures having their
roots in the early Swedish settlement of the mid-seventeenth century.
These, the relics of a colony settled in lower Philadelphia before the
coming of William Penn, are Bellaire, or the Singley house; the Can-
nonball, or Bleakly house; and the Schetzline, or Swedish Glebe
house. Old Swedes Church, or Gloria Dei, built about 1700 on Swan-
son Street south of Christian Street, has only a slight Swedish flavor,
evident in the rake of its eaves and the simplicity of its tower. The
chief contribution of the Swedes to Philadelphia s architecture was
log construction. It was natural that they should build of logs, as
their native country used this type of construction extensively, where
as England, with limited forests, used wood sparingly. The Dutch
supremacy on the lower Delaware, which superseded that of the
Swedes, was but short-lived, and today there is no remaining^ archi
tectural evidence of their influence, unless we accept the Dutch stoep
and double door.

Just as the influence of the Swedes upon the life of the colony was
overshadowed by that of the English, so were Swedish architectural
influences soon eclipsed by the Georgian. While the State House
tower is indicative of the important part England played in the shap
ing of the early colony, the Georgian style of architecture was adapted
to suit local conditions. Its design, however, is rooted in the Italian
Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the superb Pal-
ladian window in the tower being traceable to the Renaissance build
ings of Palladio in Vicenza. The Renaissance style, spreading over
Europe like a slow wave, reached England about two centuries later,
where its highest development was called Georgian. England altered
the Italian Renaissance style to suit its needs, and it is the Georgian
style modified in the Thirteen Colonies which popularly is called
Colonial architecture. Stone, much in favor in England, was here
generally supplanted by brick, with white-painted wood, soapstone,
and marble for decorative trim, especially for buildings within the
city.

Colonials who gazed upon Philadelphia from the belfry of the
State House beheld a neat, compact, and orderly scene. The city,
stretching north and south along the Delaware and westward for
about a mile, presented a pattern of red brick pierced by the white
spires and cupolas of Christ Church, Old Swedes Church, St. Peter s
Church, and the Pennsylvania Hospital.

Nearby a diagonal highway extended toward Germantown. Here

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Francis Daniel Pastorius and his German colonists had built their
homes, structures which retain Germanic traits such as the German-
town hood or pent roof, which extended from the face of the dwell
ing to protect the first story from sun and rain.

Along the streets of Philadelphia, surrounded by gardens and fine
shade trees, were neat shops and dwellings, of red brick with white
trim, often of wood painted white. The street pattern designed by
William Penn consisted of large rectangular blocks cut through by
alleys. Only a small section of the Penn plan had been developed.
The heart of the "towne" extended from the busy port on the Dela
ware but a short distance along High Street, now called Market Street.
Here stood Philadelphia s quaint first buildings, mostly of brick, but
occasionally frame, stone or log construction.

At Second Street, in the center of High stood the Town Hall, of
brick and wood, with small dormer windows in the steep roof. Just
in front was a small prison. Behind were the market stalls. In
those early days when William Penn, James Logan, Edward Shippen
and, soon after, young Benjamin Franklin, frequented the neighbor
hood, there stood here all the important buildings. Besides the Town
Hall, there were the old London Coffee House, at Front and Market
Streets; the Masters Mansion, built in 1704, also at Front and Market
Streets; the Friends Meeting House, at Second and Market Streets;
and the Royal Standard Tavern close by. Such was the picture of
Philadelphia as a new merchant town.

The State House was started in 1731 and first occupied in October
1735. Its fine tower was built in 1750 ; the bell, now known as the
Liberty Bell, hung in 1753 ; and the upper part rebuilt by William
Strickland in 1828. Built of bricks of clay from the nearby riverbanks,
wood from Penn s forests, and marble from nearby quarries, the
structure portrays the spirit of the days during which the idea of
independence was growing. The State House has changed only in
name. Today, Independence Hall and its tower still reflect the dignity,
wealth, and cultural life of the early community.

Several local factors influenced Philadelphia s early building. The
abundance of forests and the arrival of competent carpenters with
the first group of settlers made for elegant wood craftsmanship with
its fine detail. The severity of Quakerism, with its abhorrence of friv
olous embellishments, was an influence for simplicity and vigor.
Even the homes of the well-to-do showed a fine sense of fitness and
restraint. As the American historians Charles and Mary Beard point
out:

There were riches in Colonial America, but few fortunes were great
enough to allow that lavish display which separates the arts from
the business of working and living. For such reasons as these the
noblest examples of Colonial architecture revealed the power of re-

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straint and simple beauty, commanding the admiration of succeed
ing generations and attracting servile copyists long after the con
ditions which nourished the models had passed away forever.

The towers of the Colonial public buildings and churches, such
as Independence Hall and Christ Church (built between 1727-47 ; Dr.
John Kearsley, architect), are successful adaptations in brick and
wood of their predecessors the stone towers of Sir Christopher
Wren, James Gibbs and Nicholas Hawksmoore in England. The more
severe economic conditions in the Colonies made advisable a reduced
scale in their buildings and a strengthening of the horizontal lines.
The broad lines of the Morris house, at 225 South Eighth Street,
erected in 1786 by John Reynolds, and the north facade of the State
House are outstanding examples.

Modern Philadelphia contains fine examples of Georgian Colonial
architecture other than those in the shadow of the Independence
Hall tower. Germantown, Frankford, and Kingsessing, originally sepa
rate towns, are sections of present-day Philadelphia, where fine early
domestic architecture may be seen. The Stenton and Chew houses are
notable examples. Following the English custom of wealthy men hav
ing country homes, Philadelphia s men of means built mansions along
the beautiful Schuylkill River. Of these, Mount Pleasant, Lemon Hill,
Woodford, Woodlands, Solitude, and others are still standing. The
houses were erected as completed structures, and the resultant shape
was simple and rather boxlike. Even the poorer country homes in
and near Philadelphia were built in this form. Indeed, when an
owner prospered and made additions to his house, each unit retained
the boxlike pattern, and the final result was a succession of increas
ingly larger but similar sections. The Livezey house in upper Wissa-
hickon Valley is an excellent illustration.

Mount Pleasant, one of the most pretentious country homes of the
period, was begun in 1761 by John MacPherson, a sea captain from
Scotland, who amassed a fortune in the practice of privateering.
He lived in manorial splendor, entertaining the most eminent per
sonages of the day with munificent hospitality. The central feature
of a group of surrounding, dependent buildings, Mount Pleasant is
situated in Fairmount Park, on the east bank of the Schuylkill
River, a slight distance north of the Girard Avenue Bridge. The
exterior of this two-and-a-half-story Georgian mansion is of massive
rubblestone masonry covered with reddish buff rough-cast plaster,
above a high foundation of hewn stone. The principal feature of the
river facade is a slightly projecting central portion with quoined cor
ners, corniced pediment above the Palladian window of the second
story, and a superb pedimented doorway in harmony with the pedi-
mented motive above. The interior wood finish is very fine ; grace
fully tooled cornices, and pilasters, and heavy pedimented door-

259

Four Architectural Milestones of
Philadelphia s Progress

Old Stock Exchange

Independence Hall

li*

Vivid Living Symbols of the

Changing Eras Which Gave

Them Being

City Hall

:-.

Philadelphia Saving Fund
Society Building

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

heads are of excellent design. Two small outbuildings, and two barns
complete the group, making the house the central feature of a pic
turesque group of buildings possessing the manorial effect of the old
Virginia mansions along the James River.

Pennsylvania, so named because of its abundance of forests, con
taining principally pine, oak, hickory, and chestnut trees, built its
rural structures of stone and brick, whereas New England, having
large areas strewn with stone left behind by the great glaciers, built
almost exclusively of white pine. The reasons for these apparently
inconsistent courses were twofold. The glacial deposits of the north
were mostly a granitelike stone too difficult to be handled easily.
Furthermore, lime for cement was very scarce in the New England
Colonies. White pine was not only plentiful, but it weathered well
and was readily adaptable to building purposes.

In Pennsylvania, particularly near Philadelphia, there was, and still
is, an abundance of excellent field stone a gneiss-mica schist, usual
ly very durable. This stone weathers well, is easy to cut, and although
predominantly gray, has a variety of hues. It is quarried along a line
running, roughly, northeast from Media to Trenton. The Philadelphia
area is plentifully supplied with lime. There was also a local supply
of fairly good light gray marble which was used for trim. Besides the
abundance of lime and building stone, the stone tradition for the
better-class English home was strong with the early colonists.

If the quaint old houses of Elfreth s Alley the eastern end of
Cherry Street may serve as a criterion, the workers dwellings,
while smaller and less pretentious, were very much like the city
homes of the well-to-do. For both rich and poor, fireplaces served
as the only means of providing heat; outside pumps supplied water.
In these modest dwellings, but two rooms deep, every room received
ample daylight and ventilation an advantage to which modern
housing projects are now returning. It was well into the nineteenth
century before speculative builders began their rows of long narrow
houses whose gloomy inner rooms were poorly served by narrow
courts or skylights.

A discussion of Colonial architecture must include mention of the
Carpenters Company and historic Carpenters Hall, its headquarters.
Begun 20 years after the State House tower, but not completed until
1792, its design is somewhat more sophisticated. It was in 1724, how
ever, less than a half century after the coming of William Penn, that
the master carpenters of Philadelphia formed the Carpenters Com
pany, a guild or society somewhat like the Worshipful Company of
Carpenters in London. The Philadelphia company, extant today, is
important for the influence it exerted upon fine architecture and
workmanship not in Philadelphia alone but throughout the Colo-

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nies. James Porteus, an early member, established the nucleus for
a valuable builders library. Professional architects did not exist in
Philadelphia in those days; gentlemen architects men whose cul
tural attainments included some knowledge of architecture collab
orated with the master builders in designing their structures.

Robert Smith (1722-1777), Philadelphia s foremost builder- archi
tect of Colonial times, was born in Scotland and came to this city
at an early age. His first recorded projects were Nassau Hall and the
president s house at Princeton University. In Philadelphia, his St.
Peter s Church, completed in 1761, still stands little changed
except for the addition of the spire. It is noted for its fenestra-
tion and the beauty of its interior appointments. Smith submitted
designs for Carpenters Hall and later headed its building committee.
About 1771 he made extensive repairs on the spire of old Christ
Church. Old Pine Street Presbyterian Church, now virtually rebuilt,
and Old Zion Lutheran Church were designed by him, as was the
Walnut Street Prison. (The original Zion Lutheran Church and Wal
nut Street Prison are no longer standing.)

The Colonial Georgian style continued for a period after the Revo
lution, when the forces that engendered this style had ceased to
exert their influence. Many fine dwellings, such as the Sellers-Hoff
man house in West Philadelphia; the Upsala, Loudoun, and Wister
houses in Germantown ; and the Morris and Wharton houses in
central Philadelphia were built soon after the Revolutionary War,
evidencing the prosperity of that period.

Another example of post-Revolutionary Georgian architecture is
the group of buildings at Fort Mifflin, projected by the British shortly
before the Revolution. These buildings rank with Independence Hall
and the Pennsylvania Hospital in interest and charm of grouping.
The fort, at the southwestern extremity of Philadelphia, just above
Hog Island, was laid out in 1771 by Capt. John Montressor, an en
gineer. Work was finally started in 1773 but proceeded slowly. Un
finished at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. it was hastily
completed in 1777 by the Committee of Safety. In 1793 Maj. Pierre
Charles L Enfant, who later laid out the city of Washington, planned
the fine buildings within its moat and walls and the repairs on the fort.
Progress was slow, but in 1798 the fortifications were finally rebuilt
in stone under the direction of the French military engineer, Col.
Louis de Toussard, along the plans prepared by L Enfant. In 1904
the fort was dismantled and allowed to fall into decay, but in 1915 it
was declared a national monument, and finally, in 1930, it was re
stored according to the original plans of L Enfant.

During the early nineteenth century the Georgian Colonial style
gradually declined. But even while the cannon of the Revolution were
resounding around Philadelphia, the seeds of a new architectural

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style were being sown. The new nation, strongly in sympathy with
the Greek War for Independence, 1821-29, developed a strong in
terest in the civilization of ancient Greece. Many towns were given
Greek names, and Greek structures sprang up all over the country.
As Howard Major, in The Domestic Architecture of the Early
American Republic; The Greek Revival, says:

After the separation from England, America naturally turned more
to the Continent than heretofore and particularly to the ancient re
publics of Greece and Rome for inspiration in architecture as in
government, and so became the inheritor of their free institutions and
traditions and more eagerly assimilated the results of archaeological
research.

The so-called Greek Revival was a spontaneous return to Classic
influence throughout the Western World. The subsequent widespread
interest in classicism had its greatest influence in America. Thomas
Jefferson, leader of the new democracy and a "gentleman architect"
of no small ability, was a dominant influence in the development of
the Classic Revival, although his designs were of Roman rather than
Greek inspiration. He confined his efforts largely to his native State
of Virginia ; the buildings for the University of Virginia, the State
Capitol at Richmond, and his home, "Monticello," offer ample
evidence of his skill.

The Greek Revival did not assert itself until after 1800 and did
not cease its manifestations until just before the Civil War. The old
Merchants or Stock Exchange Building, as it is now known, at Third
and Walnut Streets, crowned by the second of the four towers a cir
cular templelike superstructure of six columns is symbolic of this
period the era of national emergence. The semicircular facade of
the building itself, with its tall, fluted Corinthian columns, is truly im
posing. (William Strickland was the designer.) Today, unfortunately,
market sheds crowd its base. The opening of this building was a great
event, and at the time of its dedication in 1834 parties were given
continuously for a week.

Unlike the red brick of Colonial Independence Hall, the old Stock
Exchange is constructed of marble. Marble and stone were thought
more appropriate for the new monumental structures. However,
brick continued in use for houses, with marble porches and details
of classic design. Houses, churches, and public buildings of this age
took on the form, or at least the details, of Greek temples. Four, six,
or eight columns, usually Doric or Ionic, formed the portico; these,
topped with an entablature and wide pediment, composed the usual
Greek Revival facade. In one respect, the Greek architecture of the
early Republic is not so divorced from that of the Georgian period:
both styles are classic, but the Revival goes directly back to Greece
for inspiration.

Often the exterior result was remarkably fine, as in Thomas U.

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ARCHITECTURE

Walter s Girard College (1833-1848) with its huge, peripteral Corin
thian colonnade; the old Custom House (1819-1824), designed by
Latrobe and completed by Strickland, with its heavy north and south
facades in the Greek Doric style; and the First Bank of the United
States (1797), designed by Samuel Blodget, the oldest bank building
in America and said to have the first marble facade in this country.
Numerous churches with typical colonnaded facades, such as that of
the First Presbyterian Church (1820), John Haviland, architect, were
erected. Indeed, Philadelphia has many of the oldest public and ec
clesiastical buildings of Greek design in the country.

In domestic architecture, it was to country living that this style
most readily lent itself. In Philadelphia the Greek influence on houses
was superficial, being confined mostly to exterior details of marble
and interior details of wood. With the rapid growth of the city, the
row house came into favor, the better rows having such names as
Carlton, Franklin, Washington, and Rittenhouse. On the south side
of Spruce Street, between Ninth and Tenth Streets, is a row of red
brick dwellings, each two having a common marble portico of three
Greek Ionic columns. No. 715 Spruce Street, built about 1820, has
an entrance in the style of the Greek Revival period, and the Phila
delphia Contributionship, at 214 South Fourth Street, offers another
interesting example domestic in spirit but built for commercial
purposes.

An interesting characteristic of the Greek Revival period is the
change in construction of pitched roofs. Whereas in Colonial times
the roof overhung the end walls to form the eaves, later the walls
rose higher than the roof to form a parapet, the chimneys being built
as part of the wall. This feature may be seen in the old Custom
House, old Wills Eye Hospital (1832), the Aquarium (1815), and
in other public buildings and dwellings.

Hundreds of commercial buildings supplanted the Colonial struc
tures in the neighborhood of the Stock Exchange. These simple busi
ness structures, usually three, four, or five stories high, were char
acterized by sturdy, square, classic piers of stone on the first floor,
with the upper stories of traditional plain red brick and little or no
adornment. An exception is the 138 South Front Street structure,
the Egyptian design of the first story being due to the influence of
Thomas IT. Walter s design for the debtors gaol, now a part of
Moyamensing Prison. During this period Nicholas Biddle was waging
an unsuccessful fight with Andrew Jackson for the survival of his
Second United States Bank. Stephen Girard was sending ships from
the nearby docks to the world s corners. The city was a hive of in
dustry and commerce. These many similar structures, esthetically
unassuming, befitted the commercially expanding Philadelphia.

The Stock Exchange tower marks the period in which America

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began developing its own architects professionally trained men.
The important architects of the Greek Revival and the years im
mediately thereafter were Benjamin Henry Latrobe, William Strick
land, Robert Mills, John Haviland, and Thomas U. Walter. Of the
work of Latrobe and Mills, little remains in Philadelphia. Latrobe,
born in England in 1764, arrived in Philadelphia in 1798. Soon after
his arrival, he designed the Bank of Pennsylvania, which stood on
Second Street just above Walnut. This building, inspired by the
Temple of the Muses near the Ilissus, outside Athens, is considered,
generally, the first structure of Greek design in America. Another
important work of Latrobe during his six years in Philadelphia was
the domed Waterworks Building (1799-1801) on the present site of
City Hall. One of the architects of the Capitol at Washington and
designer of the Baltimore cathedral, Latrobe was also an engineer.

Latrobe is credited with introducing the Gothic style to America,
a tendency that asserted itself some years later and then degenerated
in the Victorian era. His Bank of Philadelphia, executed under the
supervision of his pupil, Robert Mills, in 1807, was a Gothic structure
of brick and marble. It stood on the southwest corner of Fourth and
Chestnut Streets, with a wide, high entrance arch on Fourth Street.

The previously mentioned Custom House, on Chestnut Street be
tween Fourth and Fifth Streets, built for the Bank of the United
States and so used until 1844, while generally accredited to Strick
land, was designed by Latrobe. Although Strickland supervised the
construction of this building, Latrobe prepared the plans. He and
Mills were among the competitors who submitted designs, which had
to conform to the Government s requirements. Mills submitted a
design fronted by six Greek Doric columns ; Latrobe went further
and proposed an imitation of the octastyle front of the Parthenon.
His plan seemed to meet with the approval of the directors, but due
to financial difficulties at the time, work was delayed. In the mean
time, Latrobe left for New Orleans, and the undertaking was resumed
under the direction of Strickland. Although the principal room is
a departure from Latrobe s plan, the rest of the design follows his
original drawings. Latrobe died in New Orleans in 1820 while super
vising the construction there of the waterworks.

While Latrobe lived in Philadelphia he had as his pupils Strick
land and Mills. Mills (1781-1855), a native of Charleston, S. C.,
designed the connecting wings of the State House group in Philadel
phia in 1813. He was appointed architect of public buildings in
Washington in 1836, supervised the erection of several major build
ings, and was the architect for the Washington Monuments in Wash
ington and Baltimore.

William Strickland (1787-1854), born in Philadelphia, recognized
as a leading architect, was also an engineer, landscape painter, author,

ARCHITECTURE

and engraver. His first building, the Gothic Masonic Hall the
"Pride of Philadelphia" dedicated in 1811, showed a lack of under
standing of Gothic as a system of construction. This structure was
outstanding as an example of the Gothic Revival which, while less
extensive, was virtually contemporaneous with the Classic period.
In 1819 the building was destroyed by fire. An interesting print, a
copy of which may be seen at the Philadelphia Library Company,
on Locust Street west of Thirteenth, shows the structure in flames.
The temple had only a veneer of Gothic details: crenelation, small
turrets, and lancet windows. The high and square wooden tower,
with its cornices and spire, was more Georgian than Gothic. There is
still standing on the road between Reading and Pottsville a quaint
little red and white church that presents an excellent example of
this nai ve fusing of the Colonial and Gothic modes. Another example
less far afield is St. Mary s Church (erected 1763, enlarged 1810, re
modeled 1886), on South Fourth Street in Philadelphia.

Strickland s many works included the first Custom House (1818),
situated on Second Street below Dock, a simple, three-story brick and
marble building (now demolished) ; the United States Mint (1833),
also demolished; Merchants or Stock Exchange Building; United
States Naval Asylum (1827-1848); Arch Street Theatre (1822), de
molished in 1936; Blockley Almshouse (1834) ; and several churches.
In 1828 he undertook major restorations of the State House. His
final and most important work was outside Philadelphia the Ten
nessee State House at Nashville, where he lies buried. Its tower, or
lantern, is similar to that of the old Philadelphia Stock Exchange.

John Haviland. born in England in 1792, is noted chiefly for his
prisons in Philadelphia, the Eastern State Penitentiary (1829).
His first important work, however, was the First Presbyterian Church
(1820), on South Washington Square, designed in the Greek manner.
He was also the architect responsible for the design of the old
Franklin Institute, erected in 1826 on Seventh Street south of Market,
and the much altered Walnut Street Theatre (1809), northeast corner
of Walnut and Ninth Streets. Upon his death in 1852, he was buried
in a crypt in St. George s Greek Catholic Church (1822), on Eighth
Street above Spruce, also his design.

Thomas Ustick Walter (1804-1887), a native of Philadelphia,
received his early knowledge of building from his father, mason
contractor under Strickland for Latrobe s Bank of the United States.
The son studied architecture at the Franklin Institute under Strick
land, with whom he was employed for about two years. His major
work one of the noblest examples of the Greek Revival is his
Girard College building, begun in 1833, which utilizes the Corinthian
order. Others are Moyamensing Prison (1831) , old Wills Eye Hospital
(1832), Preston Retreat (1837), and the Nicholas Biddle mansion,

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in Andalusia, Bucks County, erected in 1794 and remodeled by
Walter in 1835. As United States Architect succeeding Robert Mills,
he designed the present dome and the extension of the wings of the
Capitol at Washington. He was professor of architecture at Franklin
Institute and later a lecturer at Columbia University. Walter prepared
many of the detail designs for the present City Hall and until his
death worked on them as assistant to John McArthur, the architect
of City Hall.

Toward the end of the 1830 s there was a general lull in building,
and by 1850 a reaction had set in from the chaste influence of the
Greek Revival. As the Civil War approached, the Greek flame had
entirely burned out, and from this point on taste in architecture
declined considerably.

Influencing factors in the third architectural period were national
in scope. The country was rapidly expanding, frontiers were being
pushed forward, and commerce and industry had developed to the
point where huge fortunes were being made. This was the age of
industrial expansion an age which wrought havoc with the arts.
Its architectural manifestations extend roughly from the end of the
Greek Revival period to about the close of the nineteenth century.

The architectural profession was not equipped to express the
problem of an expanding commerce, nor were the industrial captains
particularly concerned with esthetic values. The spirit of the age
was not one to evolve a fine architectural expression. It may well
be said that the low estate to which building design fell was entirely
in keeping with architecture s function of expressing the spirit of
the age. As in other cities, land and building speculators added to
the confusion of the rapidly growing metropolis. The lust for wealth
and the resultant neglect of human values brought squalid, unsanitary
living conditions for those who toiled. Rows of drab dwellings sprang
up. With the development of machinery there came a rush of "jig
saw" embellishments completely lacking in taste and restraint. Build
ings that pretended to architectural ostentation aped the current
fashions of Europe.

The somber picture of Philadelphia s architectural "Dark Age"
has, however, a few bright spots. The middle of the century saw the
development of interest in the Gothic. A spirit of romanticism,
already evident in England, which was exhibiting a renewed interest
in Gothic architecture, assumed here various forms, some of which
were admirable, others very poor. Two fine churches of this period
still exist in Philadelphia : the Church of St. James the Less (1846),
at Falls of Schuylkill, a fine reproduction of St. Michael s Church, at
Long Staunton, England a small thirteenth century English village
church and St. Mark s Church (1847) on Locust Street west of
Sixteenth, both by John Notman, St. Clement s Church (1859) at

268

fa m

Ill

Chew House,
Germantown

"Where the Con
tinentals lost
their lives, and
Major Andre his
heart"

Doorway of Mt.
Pleasant (Mt.
Pleasant Man
sion)

"A traitor s wed-
ding gift

PHILADELPHIA Gkrrotf

Twentieth and Cherry Streets, likewise hy Notman (1810-1865). and
the Academy of Music (1857), Broad and Locust Streets, designed
by Napoleon LeBrun, are also among the better structures erected
during this period.

LeBrun (1821-1901), of the firm of LeBrun & Runge, was a pupil
of Thomas U. Walter. He designed, in addition to the Academy of
Music, such Philadelphia churches as the Cathedral of SS. Peter
and Paul (1846), on Eighteenth Street north of the Parkway, and
St. Augustine s Church (1847), Fourth Street below Vine.

For the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, Memorial Hall, of Renais
sance design ; nearby Horticultural Hall, built of glass and steel
with Moorish embellishments ; and many Victorian buildings were
erected. These presented an assortment of building styles, exhibiting
the diversified eclecticism of the age.

The Victorian era introduced buildings of brown and green stone,
square turreted, with mansard roofs of slate. Their vertical lines con
trast sharply with the horizontal lines of Colonial times. The mansard
roof, actually a top story with slightly sloping walls, was introduced
from France. This was a period of high ceilings, tall, narrow windows,
and poor taste in detail. Structures of this type include the Union
League building (1865), College Hall (1871) of the University of
Pennsylvania, and the many gaunt, turreted mansions in and around
the city. Dark woodwork, overcarved and overstuffed furniture, long,
gilt mirrors, and gloomy hangings gave to. the interiors of the homes
an effect at once opulent and dismal.

The French Renaissance style, notable for its many columns and
profuse ornamentation, was used in Philadelphia construction for
several large buildings. City Hall (1871-1901) ; the old Post Office
building (1873-1884), on Ninth Street from Chestnut to Market ; and
the Victory Building (1873), Tenth and Chestnut Streets, are ex
amples of this style.

Buildings combining designs of many periods were erected, with
startling results. They were usually of heavy masonry, although the
red brick tradition of Philadelphia continued to assert itself. Besides
the heavy Victorian Gothic and the French Renaissance, there were
Romanesque interpretations and suggestions of Moorish mosques and
Venetian palaces, garnished with a profusion of ornate details of cast
iron and wood. Frequently, buildings expressed no style or function
whatsoever, or else they exhibited a strange mixture of several styles.
Broad Street Theatre (1876), of Moorish effect, and the many
buildings of the old banking district, particularly Chestnut Street
between Third and Fourth Streets (a museum of architectural oddi
ties) are typical. The extravagant buildings designed by Furness &
Evans are highly individualistic structures touched with Gothic.
Broad Street Station (1880-1894), the Academy of the Fine Arts

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ARCHITECTURE

(1876), and the library of the University of Pennsylvania (1891) are
their better known works.

Considered one of the great architects of his age, Henry Hobson
Richardson (1838-1886) designed truly fine buildings in the Roman
esque style. While none of his structures were erected in Philadel
phia, his followers built here the Central High School (1902), on
Broad Street at Green; the Market Square Presbyterian Church
(1886), in Germantown; and other structures. None of these is com
parable, however, to the work of Richardson.

City Hall tower, completed in 1894, marks the close of the city s
third architectural period an era fraught with national conflicts
and marked by rapid industrial development. Rising 547 feet, it was
at the time of its completion the tallest tower in the country with the
exception of the Washington Monument (Washington, D. C.), which
is about eight feet taller,

It is surmounted by a huge, bronze statue of William Penn con
templating from on high the cold gray of his once quaint and
charming red brick "towne." The tower itself is an epitaph to the
age of masonry. Even while it was being erected, advances in the
technique of steel and concrete construction were pointing the way
to a new architecture.

The modern period of American architecture dates historically
from the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893. The great "White
City," as the fair was called, gave impetus to a revival of the broad,
classic facade and to "grand" concepts of planning. Louis Sullivan s
individualistic Transportation Building, however, was the rebel of the
fair. It pointed away from classic eclecticism toward a fresh interpre
tation of design. Two schools of architecture received impetus from
the Chicago fair : the traditionalists, who adapt to present-day needs
the designs of an older civilization, and the modernists, who seek
a new expression for the materials and techniques of today.

Rising above the central city skyline, the Philadelphia Saving
Fund Society building its huge, neon letters "PSFS" visible for
miles around casts its shadow over the classic Wanamaker Store.
Last of the four towers which express the city s architectural ages,
it is truly a challenge to Philadelphia s traditionalism. Designed by
Howe & Lescaze and completed in 1932, it is one of America s out
standing examples of the so-called International style a style whose
exterior architecture frankly expresses its construction and use. As
an intellectual concept it represents the courage of the modern age.

Another example of functional architecture is the Carl Mackley
housing group in Frankford (1934), designed for the Philadelphia
hosiery workers by Kastner & Stonorov and William Pope Barney.
The four long units, planned as a complete residential community,
are extremely simple in detail. The steel and glass foundries of the

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Philadelphia Navy Yard are still further examples of functional
design.

Nationally known architects other than Philadelphians have
erected buildings here. Foremost among those of the traditional
school was the New York firm of McKim, Mead & White. In Phila
delphia, this firm designed the hank and office building of the Girard
Trust Company (1908) and the clubhouse of the Germantown Cricket
Club (1891) . These and the John Wanamaker Store (1910) , designed
by Daniel H. Burnham, of Chicago, architect of the Union Station in
Washington, are representative of the best buildings erected in Phila
delphia at the turn of the century.

The Provident Mutual Life Insurance Company building (1928),
by Cram & Ferguson, of Boston, and the new Pennsylvania Station
(1933), by Burnham s successors Graham, Anderson, Probst &
White follow in this tradition. The Parkway, with its fountains
and monumental edifices, most notable of which is the Pennsylvania
Art Museum (started in 1918 and officially opened in March 1928),
by Philadelphia s Zantzinger & Borie and Horace Trumbauer, is a
direct outgrowth of the broad planning of the Chicago World s Fair.

Today there is a tendency in buildings of classic inspiration toward
simplification of details, particularly in the elimination of heavy,
overhanging cornices which, as in the case of the Manufacturers Club
(1914), at Broad and Walnut Streets, tend to cut off daylight from
the too narrow streets. The Federal Reserve building (1935) , designed
by Paul Philippe Cret ; the Central Penn National Bank (1928), at
Fifteenth and Sansom Streets, by Davis, Dunlap & Barney ; Girard
College Chapel (1933) by Thomas & Martin ; and the new Post Office
(1935), by the firms of Rankin & Kellog, and Tilden, Register &
Pepper, are fine classic structures notable for their exterior simplicity.

Among the city s finest modern buildings, but following neither
the "imperial" design nor the functional style of the Philadelphia
Saving Fund Society building, are the University of Pennsylvania
dormitories (1895) of English Jacobean architecture by Cope &
Stewardson ; the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, started in
1896 a beautiful, low, broad building in the Romanesque style of San
Stefano at Bologna designed by Charles Z. Klauder, Stewardson &
Page, and Wilson Eyre & Mcllvaine ; the Church of St. Andrew
(1936), a Gothic design by Zantzinger, Borie & Medary ; the Church
of the Holy Child (1930) , in Romanesque design, by George I. Lovatt ;
and Rodeph Shalom Synagogue (1928), of Moorish architecture, de
signed by Simon & Simon.

Lewis Mumford, referring in his Sticks and Stones to America s
grand classic facades, says:

Our imperial architecture is an architecture of compensation; it
provides grandiloquent stones for people who have been deprived of

272

ARCHITECTURE

bread and sunlight and all that keeps man from becoming vile. Be
hind the monumental faces of our metropolises trudges a landless pro
letariat, doomed to the servile routine of the factory system.
This statement is in accord with architecture s reflection of con
temporary society and is applicable to Philadelphia. We still live
in an age where the extremes of wealth and poverty are reflected in
grandiose architecture on the one hand and slums on the other.

The blighted areas of Philadelphia, the worst of which extend north
and south of the central city zone and west from the Delaware River,
consist mainly of small, overcrowded, and insanitary "bandbox"
houses, many on the verge of collapse. Indeed, several dwellings have
fallen down in recent years, indicating the acuteness of the hous-

Home of Robert Morris
"Whose strong box financed the Revolution

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

ing problem in Philadelphia. The worst conditions exist in the sections
where the Negro population of the city is housed. The thousands
of depressing rows of attached houses for which Philadelphia is
notorious are largely the work of unenlightened land subdividers and
speculative builders. Built in long, narrow plots, only the front and
back rooms receive ample daylight and ventilation, the middle rooms
being served by air shafts or skylights. While the Carl Mackley
Houses and other projects erected by the Public Works Administra
tion point the way to what can be done, the housing solution awaits
local initiative.

It has been said that "The most beautiful part of Philadelphia is
outside of Philadelphia." The city s suburbs have a charm of archi
tecture that is mellowed by tradition. While the forces of the Greek
Revival, Middle, and Modern periods have left their imprint upon
suburban structures, as upon those of the metropolis, the strain of
early simplicity and charm has never been broken. There are several
factors which account for the existence of an indigenous architecture
in the Philadelphia area : strength of tradition ; the abundance of ex
cellent local field stone which is used for homes, churches, public
buildings, barns, and mills ; the fact that early buildings were so
firmly constructed as to continue to assert themselves through the
succeeding generations, and possibly the fact that the men of wealth
who own the great estates around Philadelphia have a true appreci
ation of the fitness of the early stone houses for country living.

The low lines of these homes, suggesting comfort, utility, and dur
ability, combine with the local material of which they are built to
portray graciousness of living. Contrasts of gray stone and white-
painted wood, of fine touches of detail against simple surfaces, the
use of whitewash over stone, and the accent of horizontal lines are
the major characteristics of the suburban house, both large and small.
Simple doorways, low roofs from which rows of small dormer windows
and heavy stone chimneys project, fine interior paneling, low fire
places, and beautiful stairways are of refined and traditional taste,
indicating a deeply rooted conservatism.

At almost any point where the main pikes leading toward Phila
delphia dip to cross the many creeks, the simply built stone houses
of the worker, and sometimes the mills of former days may be seen.
The interesting little town of Glen Riddle, in Delaware County three
miles southwest of Media, still retains the atmosphere and charm of
an early mill village.

There are other interesting old towns in the four counties sur
rounding Philadelphia which have preserved much of their atmos
phere : King of Prussia, near Valley Forge ; Newtown, Buckingham
Valley, Spring Valley, and Doylestown, in the rich farm country of
Bucks County ; and West Chester, with its old, red brick dwellings.

274

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Federal Reserve
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ARCHITECTURE

Among the fine old structures are many stone barns and houses,
particularly in Bucks County and the Whiteinarsh Valley : Washing
ton s Headquarters at Valley Forge (1742-1752); the charming old
Pennsylvania German church at Trappe (1743) ; St. David s Epis
copal Church (17151 at Radnor, influenced by an earlier architecture
than the Georgian : and the Town Hall at Chester, built in 1724 and
restored in 1920. Notable in the period of the Greek Revival is the
Biddle home. "Andalusia." built in 1794 and rebuilt in 1835. in Bucks
County, and the Wetherill house. "Locust Grove." near Protectory
Station, built by James Vaux in 1776 and rebuilt in 1845 by Dr.
William Wetherill.

In the present period suburban Philadelphia has witnessed the
erection of many fine structures for Swarthmore. Bryn Mawr. Haver-
ford, and other nearby college?. Fine churches, too. have been con
structed. Outstanding among these is the imposing two-towered
Church of the New Jerusalem at Bryn Athyn : the older Gothic section
was designed by Cram & Ferguson and completed in 1919. and the
later, but still iiicompleted. Romanesque additions are Raymond
Pitcairn s work. Others are Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Churh (1928).
by Walter T. Karcher and Livingston Smith : the Gothic Valley
Forge Chapel (1903-1932). by Zantzinger. Borie & Medary : and
Brazer. Frohman & Robb s classic First Presbyterian Church (1921)
at Chester. The new Delaware County Courthouse (1932). the work
of Clarence Brazer, is a classic marble structure.

As the architectural profession matured, organizations were formed
to broaden its influence. In 1869 the Philadelphia Chapter of the
American Institute of Architects was founded, and the T Square Club
in 1883. Both of these institutions have been a major cultural force
in the architectural development of the city. In 1890 under Theophilus
P. Chandler the University of Pennsylvania organized a department
of architecture. It is now one of the leading architectural schools in
America.

A picture of architecture in Philadelphia would be incomplete
without mention of the influence of Paul Philippe Cret. Born (1876)
and educated in France, he came to Philadelphia in 1903 to teach
at the Lniversity of Pennsylvania. His knowledge of design and his
ability to convey his ideas to his students brought to Pennsylvania
its reputation as one of the foremost schools of architecture in the
country. He collaborated with Jacques Greber of Paris on the design
of the Philadelphia Parkway and helped to plan the city s parks and
to design numerous bridges and buildings. The architecture of the
Philadelphia-Camden bridge 1 1926 . Ralph Modjeski. engineer, was
designed by Cret. In 1931 he received the "Philadelphia Award."
Favoring although not confining himself to classic interpretations, he
has brought freshness of design to defy the critics of classicism, as

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seen in his Rodin Museum and Federal Reserve Bank in Philadelphia
and his many other important structures in this country and abroad.

Philadelphia is a vast and spreading city from whose central sky
scraper region extend areas of drab homes and factories, interspersed
with the spires of the many hundreds of churches. Numerous green
parks and tree-shaded streets lend softness to this harsh pattern.
Fairmount Park, covering 3,845 acres, is the largest park within any
American municipality. The city s two rivers and several creeks are
spanned by scores of fine bridges, and beyond the periphery of
the city are the beautiful suburban homes of traditional Colonial stone
architecture for which this region is justly noted. This is Phila
delphia today.

In buildings of poor as well as of good design are traced the phases
of Philadelphia s life : the peaceful colony under Quaker dominance;
the proud new Nation whose finest city was Philadelphia ; the age of
expansion ; and the present period all have left their imprint upon
the city s face. That much of the city is ugly cannot be denied.
No architect is to be exonerated for erecting monstrosities, but society
itself must bear the blame for an era of ugly edifices. The best of
Philadelphia s structures were erected in its youth ; the present
shows signs indeed definite proof of an awakening.

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OLD PLANS AND NEW

PHILADELPHIA is one of the few large cities of the world that
was systematically planned before it was born. Today its central
section retains the geometrical arrangement of straight streets
laid out by Thomas Holme in 1682.

Holme, who had served in Cromwell s army, later became a Quaker
and was chosen by Penn as his surveyor-general. He arrived in the
Province four months before the founder. On the site selected by
Penn s commissioners early in 1682, Holme immediately began to
lay out the town on broad and adequate lines, guided by the plan
Penn had submitted to him. After clearing enough land for his pur
pose, he divided it into rectangular blocks extending west from the
Delaware River and north from Cedar (now South) Street to Valley
Street (now Vine).

The plan fixed Cedar Street as the southern and Valley Street as
the northern boundary of the town ; High Street (now Market) ran
from river to river, with Broad Street bisecting it. Now between
Thirteenth and Fifteenth Streets, Broad Street originally was situated
more nearly at Twelfth Street, having been relocated in 1733. Penn
named most of the east- west thoroughfares after trees Pine, Locust,
Walnut, Chestnut, and Sassafras ; most of the north-south streets
were numbered.

At several points in the plan on lower High Street, on Second
Street south of Pine and at other points as new streets were laid out
as the city grew the roadways were widened to provide space for
open market places. The market at Second and Pine Streets, with its
quaint "headhouse," still stands. Wide and winding Dock Creek,
flowing from Third Street into the Delaware River, and breaking the
rectangular regularity of the town, was spanned in early days by a
drawbridge. Later the creek bed was filled in, and Dock Creek be
came Dock Street.

The Penn plan is probably based upon that of ancient Babylon,
with its system of rectangular blocks. From the outset the character
istics of a great city were apparent. The two main streets, intersect
ing each other at the town s heart, formed a gigantic cross that
divided Philadelphia into four quarters. Where the two streets came
together, a 10-acre plot was reserved for Center Square, also relocated
in 1733 and now the site of City Hall. Here, from 1799 to 1829, stood
the old Philadelphia Water Works, surrounded by a fine park, with its

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interesting pump house designed in the Greek Revival style by Henry
Latrobe. (A painting of it by John Kremmell, as it appeared in 1812,
is in the Academy of Fine Arts.) Old wooden pipes from this water
system have been unearthed in the course of excavation work for the
Philadelphia subway system.

Four parks, of about eight acres each, were included in the plan,
one in the center of each quarter of the city. These are Franklin
Square, at the approach to the Delaware River Bridge ; Washington
Square and Rittenhouse Square, the latter relandscaped in 1913 by
Paul Philippe Cret ; and beautiful Logan Circle, on the Parkway. As
a precaution against such a conflagration as had almost destroyed
London in 1666, Penn s plan also provided for large city blocks, so
that houses, although built in even rows, would have ample space
at the back and sides.

Bordering the northern edge of Penn s new city were large tracts
of land known as the "Liberties." These areas were reserved for the
use of the people who settled in Philadelphia. Surrounding Phila
delphia and the "Liberties" were the grants of land sold to individuals
and to land companies, such as the large estates along the Schuylkill
River and the grants of German town, Passyunk, Blockley, Kingsess-
ing, and Frankford. The grants sold to companies developed into
communities. These and other neighboring towns, such as Southwark
and Moyamensing, numbering 24 altogether, were gradually incor
porated into Philadelphia until the city s boundaries became coter
minous with those of Philadelphia County-

These former towns still maintain in some degree their original
identity, even though the gridiron system of intersecting streets has
been extended like a huge network over virtually the entire city.
In the light of present planning knowledge, it would have been well
to preserve these early communities by maintaining parks or "green
belts" between them, thereby breaking up the monotony of Phila
delphia s pattern and providing parks and open spaces accessible
to all.

Several such dividing parks do exist. Cobbs Creek Park, along the
western boundary of Philadelphia, and Tacony and Pennypack Parks,
in the northeastern part of the city, are each several miles long.
Fairmount Park divides West Philadelphia from North Philadelphia
and Germantown, and the Wissahickon separates Roxborough from
Germantown.

Philadelphia planning owes much to the far-sighted Stephen
Girard, whose will, dated February 16, 1830, set aside $500,000 for
the following purposes :

1. To lay out, regulate, curb, light and pave a passage or street, on
the east part of the city of Philadelphia, fronting the river Delaware,
not less than twenty-one feet wide, and to be called Delaware Avenue,

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extending from South or Cedar Street, all along the east part of Water
Street squares, and the west side of the logs, which form the heads of
the docks or thereabouts ... to completely clean and keep clean all
the docks within the limits of the city, fronting on the Delaware: and
to pull down all platforms carried out from the east part of the city over
the river Delaware on piles or pillars.

2. To pull down and remove all wooden buildings . . . that are
erected within the limits of the city of Philadelphia and also to pro
hibit the erection of any such buildings within the said city s limits at
any future time.

3. To regulate, widen, pave and curb Water Street, and to distribute
the Schuylkill water [system] therein.

A further provision of $300,000 to the Commonwealth of Pennsyl
vania "for the purposes of internal improvement by canal naviga
tion," to become effective only after the passage of legislation en
abling the city of Philadelphia to proceed with the Delaware River
front improvements, is evidence of Girard s shrewdness. Penn s plan
provided for a grand boulevard along the Delaware River, but it was
not until Girard s will set aside a fund for developing Delaware
Avenue that this plan began to take shape.

As Philadelphia grew beyond the limits of Penn s plan, diagonal
roads such as Gray s Ferry Road, Moyamensing, Woodland, Baltimore,
Lancaster, Ridge, and Germantown Avenues, Roosevelt Boulevard
and, finally, the Parkway, were included within the system of rec
tangles. These are the main highways leading from the city, and,
since they converge toward the center of Philadelphia, they provide
ready ingress and egress. They do, however, make for ever-increasing
congestion as they approach the central city. The recently completed
ring road or bypass, as it is popularly called, connecting these high
ways at the points where they pass out of Philadelphia, has eased
this congestion.

The Parkway serves not only as one of the most important high
ways leading into the heart of the town, but also as a magnificent
setting for many of the city s monumental buildings. The Fairmount
Park Art Association commissioned Paul P. Cret, Horace Trum-
bauer, and C. C. Zantzinger to prepare its plan. Some years later
Jacques Greber of Paris enlarged upon this plan, and its realization
was effected by Mayor John E. Reyburn.

The Parkway starts at City Hall and continues to the Art Museum
on the hill above the Schuylkill, where once stood the reservoir
for Philadelphia. About midway is Logan Circle. Since little control
has been exercised over the shapes and sizes of buildings along the
Parkway, there is little harmony of style in the structures that line it.

Location of the buildings, likewise, has become indiscriminate.
Franklin Institute, the Board of Education s administrative building,

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and the comparatively small Boy Scout building stand in a row which
runs off at a tangent to the Parkway. Across the Parkway and parallel
to it is the beautiful Rodin Museum. Skyscrapers crowding its south
eastern extremity destroy the effectiveness of the boulevard s majestic
sweep. While the Parkway does expedite the flow of traffic, it also
creates three-street intersections an unfortunate circumstance
caused by superimposing a diagonal street upon a system of rectangles.
Although convenient for the center of the city, except that most
of the streets are now too narrow, the prevailing gridiron pattern
has not been entirely satisfactory for the outlying sections. Continuous
straight streets are not only monotonous ; they are needlessly waste
ful, expensive, and dangerous. City planners agree that the concentra
tion of the main flow of traffic in a few very wide streets would be
better.

The blocks which Holme laid out would be somewhat too large
for present-day use. They have been divided by narrow streets and
byways which, in the more congested parts of the town, have for the
most part become noisy and dirty service alleys. Some, however, have
developed into quaint and beautiful little thoroughfares. Among these
are the quiet tree-lined Clinton Street between Ninth and Eleventh
Streets ; sections of Delancey, Panama, and Camac Streets ; Elfreth s
Alley and other small streets near the city s center. In North, South,
and West Philadelphia these smaller thoroughfares serve merely
as an added convenience to the real estate subdividers, who have given
to the city its long, monotonous rows of houses.

City planning is more than the laying out of streets. The relation
of industrial to residential areas ; the location of public buildings,
bridges, and tunnels ; the proper design of parks and recreational
areas ; the flow of traffic by road, rail, air, and water ; housing and
the migration of population all these are phases of city planning.
The Philadelphia City Planning Commission is engaged in studying
these problems, giving to the city much valuable guidance and advice.

Among the improvements contemplated are removal of the
"Chinese Wall" of the Pennsylvania Railroad along Market Street
from Fifteenth Street to the Schuylkill River ; beautification of the
Schuylkill below the Fairmount dam, with broad drives along both
shores ; continuation of the Locust Street subway through southwest
Philadelphia ; removal of the Market Street Elevated railway, a tun
nel having already been constructed beneath the Schuylkill River and
as far west as Thirty-second Street; construction of a subway to serve
Germantown, and extension of the South Broad Street subway. An
alternate plan for extension of Philadelphia s high-speed railway
system provides for connections with the suburban svstems of the
Pennsylvania, the Reading, and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroads.

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A "ring" subway connecting South, West, North Philadelphia and
the Northeast, cutting across existing and proposed lines might be
suggested. This would relieve congestion at the center of the city,
where all high-speed lines now converge. It would give better access
to the University of Pennsylvania, to the University and Commercial
Museums, Convention Hall, the Arena, and to points in Fairmount
Park.

Another contemplated improvement is the eventual elimination
of slums, especially those south of Pine Street and east of Broad.
Plans made by the Tri-State Regional Planning Board, covering sec
tions of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey, have also been of
value in planning for the future. The Philadelphia Housing Associa
tion, a research body founded in 1909, submits valuable findings
which point the way to better housing conditions.

While the Parkway, Fairmount Park, and many outlying sections
of Philadelphia are truly beautiful, and many of the central streets
are very fine, little can be done about the present cramped condition
of the street system. The expense involved in making radical changes
would be prohibitive. In a few cases, as at City Hall Annex and
the Commercial Trust Company building at Fifteenth and Market
Streets, sidewalk arcades have permitted the widening of streets.

The lower Schuylkill River and the city s 20 miles of Delaware
River frontage are a disgrace. The two rivers, once beautiful streams
but now little more than open sewers, can be cleaned up. Slums can be
cleared, better housing can be provided as cheaply or even more
cheaply than at present, and factories and "nuisance buildings" can
be zoned out of residential neighborhoods. Possibilities for improve
ment of the city are almost illimitable. It can be made a safer and
more healthful city, so that commerce may be widely benefited and
the citizens themselves may enjoy more beauty and comfort.

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SCIENCE

The Pioneers

THE building of homes in the virgin wilderness occupied much
of the attention of American colonists until the beginning of
the eighteenth century. Then a few individuals turned to more
intellectual pursuits to problems of science and philosophy. As
early as 1690 William Rittenhouse (1644-1708), great-grandfather of
the illustrious David Rittenhouse, built America s first paper mill on
the banks of the Wissahickon, near Germantown, and within a few
score of years such figures as James Logan, David Rittenhouse, John
Bartram, and Benjamin Franklin were to achieve distinction in va
rious branches of science ; they were to help establish Philadelphia
as one of the chief centers of learning and culture in the American
Colonies.

Although James Logan was noted as a man of public affairs, serving
as Governor of the Province of Pennsylvania for nearly two years,
he was also the first American investigator of physiological botany.
Born in Ireland in 1674, Logan became a member of the Society of
Friends, and in 1699 in the capacity of secretary he accompanied
William Penn to America. A man of broad culture, his translation
of Cicero s De Senectute was published by Benjamin Franklin in
1744. The results of his botanical studies were made public at Leyden,
Germany, in an essay entitled Experimenta et Melitemato de Plan-
tarum Generatione (1739) . This essay, which dealt with the fructifica
tion of Indian corn, constituted a valuable contribution to the science
of botany.

More prominent in the annals of botany is the name of John Bart
ram. Although he followed Kelpius in the science, Bartram is gen
erally considered the first great American botanist. That his fame
overshadows that of his contemporaries, may be due to the fact that
he left a lasting memorial to his name in Bartram s Gardens in West
Philadelphia.

Bartram s people came from England in 1682 and thus were
identified with the early settlement of Philadelphia. He himself was
born in 1699 on a homestead in Chester County, and from boyhood
manifested a keen interest in botany and tree surgery. In September

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1728 he purchased a small tract of land on the west side of the
Schuylkill River, on the road to Darby, where he built a stone house
and laid out his gardens.

In the autumn of each year he traveled widely throughout North
America, carrying on research and field work in the wilderness, and
bringing back enormous collections of rare and valuable plants. Some
he kept for his own gardens, others he gave to his friends.

Upon his death, in 1777, his work was taken over by his son, Wil
liam, who had inherited many of his father s tastes.

Preeminent among American pioneers in astronomy was David
Rittenhouse (1732-96). Setting up as a clockmaker in Norristown,
young Rittenhouse diligently studied the sciences, with particular
attention to astronomy. He discovered independently the method of
fluxions or the rate of conduction of energy by radiation ; and in his
ignorance of what Leibnitz and Newton had done in this field, he
believed himself to be the original discoverer. In 1763 he was ap
pointed to determine the position of the Pennsylvania-Maryland
border. This task, arduous and involving numerous intricate calcula
tions, was performed mainly with instruments made by Rittenhouse ;
and later his findings were accepted substantially by Mason and
Dixon. His construction of an orrery and his brilliant part in the
observation of the transit of Venus, in 1769, greatly enhanced his
reputation at home and abroad. The observations were important, in
that they supplied a basis for computing the earth s distance from
the sun. He observed the transit of Mercury in the same year. Many
other contributions to astronomy followed.

Rittenhouse was prominent also as a man of public affairs, serving
as a member of the General Assembly and of the first State Constitu
tional Convention in 1776. He was the first State Treasurer (1777-
89), first director of the United States Mint (1792-5), and professor
of astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania (1779-82). He be
came secretary of the American Philosophical Society in 1771, a
vice-president of that body in 1786, and on January 7, 1791, was
elected its president, continuing in that capacity through consecutive
re-elections until his death. He contributed many papers to the
American Philosophical Society on astronomy, optics, magnetism,
and other subjects, and in 1795 was selected as a foreign member
of the Royal Society of London.

One of the outstanding figures of Colonial times was Benjamin
Franklin (1706-90), who achieved eminence as a scientist, statesman,
author, publisher, inventor, and linguist. It was as a pioneer in the
field of electricity that Franklin accomplished his work most use
ful to science. When not occupied with his business and public affairs,
he carried on extensive experiments and research in electricity. He
published the results of these experiments in 1749 in an essay entitled

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Observations and Suppositions Towards Forming a New Hypothesis
for Explaining the Several Phenomena of Thunder-Gusts.

In 1751 he published a paper on Experiments and Observations on
Electricity, Made at Philadelphia in America. This treatise created
a sensation in Europe, and was praised by the Comte de Buffon and
by Sir William Watson of the Royal Society. In the face of much
incredulity, Franklin s work demonstrated conclusively that lightning
and electricity were manifestations of the same force. Not long after
the appearance of his paper, Franklin conducted the famous kite
experiment, which confirmed his hypothesis. Meanwhile, the Royal
Society, which had previously ridiculed his theory, elected him a
member. In the following year, the society honored him with the
Copley medal.

At Franklin s suggestion the American Philosophical Society was
formed in 1743. In 1769 he became president of the organization,
holding this post until his death. He continued to occupy himself
with scientific problems, invented a new stove, perfected Philadel
phia s street-lighting system, and was a potent influence in the found
ing of the noted Union Fire Company. His scientific writings included
63 papers on electricity and many others on varied subjects. Franklin
was so universally esteemed that honors were accorded him in Europe
as well as at home. He was made a foreign associate of the French
Academy of Sciences in 1772, and was elected a member of the
Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences in 1784.

Other Philadelphia pioneers in science were John Fitch, among the
early experimenters with steamboats ; Thomas Say, entomologist,
one of the founders of the Academy of Natural Sciences ; James Pol
lard Espy, father of meteorology ; Dr. Robert Hare, chemist ; Alex
ander Wilson, ornithologist ; Charles Willson Peale, naturalist and
founder of one of the first museums in America ; Thomas Nuttall,
botanist ; Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton, naturalist ; Gerard Troost,
mineralogist and one of the founders of the Academy of Natural
Sciences ; Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, naturalist ; and Joseph
Priestley, who had discovered oxygen while still living in England.

Industrial Science

VW/TTH the opening of the nineteenth century, Philadelphia gave
impetus to the expansion of industry through numerous inven
tions in the field of applied science. Manufacturing had grown rapidly
in proportion to the development of new machines and new technique.
Oliver Evans (1755-1819), inventor of what may be regarded as
the first automobile, a steam-driven amphibian dredging machine,
had begun the manufacture of steam engines. He had also taken out
patents for cotton and wool carding machines.

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SCIENCE:

Patents for grain-threshing machines were granted to Samuel
Mullikens, of Philadelphia, as early as 1791. Dr. Robert Hare in
vented the first electric furnace in 1816 ; and in the same year Dr.
Charles Kugler exhibited his new gas lamp. In 1824 William Horst-
mann adapted the Jacquard loom for American industry ; and in 1832
the first successful American locomotive, "Old Ironsides," was built
by Matthias Baldwin.

Foremost among Philadelphia inventors and scientists of the last
50 years were Dr. Elihu Thomson, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Cole-
man Sellers, Herman Haupt.

Born in 1853 at Manchester, England, Elihu Thomson at the age
of five came with his parents to Philadelphia. Here he later taught
in the high schools. Dr. Thomson, a pioneer in electrical science, is
credited with the invention of the resistance method of electric weld
ing and the three-phase armature winding of dynamos, besides mak
ing important discoveries in the field of electrical production and
distribution. In the winter of 1876-77 he constructed the first electric
dynamo made in Philadelphia at the Franklin Institute while a
lecturer at old Central High School, Broad and Green Streets. Twelve
years later he received the Grand Prix in Paris for his inventions. He
died March 13, 1937, at his home in Swampscott, Mass.

Probably one of the most significant figures in the history of in
dustrial science and invention of modern times was Frederick Wins-
low Taylor (1856-1915), the father of scientific management in in
dustry and business. Taylor s name is synonymous with modern
methods of mass production. When the Soviet Government recently
inaugurated the Stakhanovite movement for greater efficiency in in
dustrial production and business management, it was merely apply
ing the principles formulated by Taylor in the latter part of the
nineteenth century and used since then in all large-scale industries
and business organizations in America and abroad.

Born in Germantown, Taylor was educated at Phillips Exeter
Academy, Harvard University, and Stevens Institute of Technology.
He received his M. E. from Stevens in 1883 and received his degree of
Doctor of Science at the University of Pennsylvania in 1906. Enter
ing the employ of the Midvale Steel Company in Philadelphia, he
held jobs ranging from laborer to chief engineer. In 1889 he began
his work of organizing on a basis of efficiency the management of
various kinds of manufacturing establishments, among them the
Midvale Steel Company, Cramp s Shipbuilding Company, and the
Bethlehem Steel Company. Using the exact methods of science, Tay
lor computed just how many operations were required to perform a
given job with a minimum of wasted time and motion. He invented
the Taylor-White process of treating modern high-speed tools, for
which he received a gold medal at the Paris Exposition of 1900 and

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the Elliott-Cresson gold medal of the Franklin Institute. He obtained
patents on about 100 inventions. Taylor was president of the Ameri
can Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1905.

Coleman Sellers (1827-1907) is best known for his invention of the
first kinetoscope and photographic motion pictures. Sellers patented
his invention in 1861. Improvements made later by Thomas A. Edison
on Sellers invention opened the way for development of the motion-
picture industry. Dr. Sellers also invented a machine for rifling gun
barrels, an automatic stop for bolt cutters, and improvements in
presses for putting railway wheels on their axles.

Herman Haupt (1817-1905), an American engineer, was director
and chief engineer of the Pennsylvania Railroad from 1847 to 1861,
during which time he superintended the construction of the Hoosac
Tunnel, almost five miles long, under the Hoosac Mountains at Hoosac,
Mass. During the Civil War he was superintendent of military rail
roads for the Federal Government, and afterwards became general
manager of the Northern Pacific Railroad. He was the inventor of a
drilling machine and of a method for the transportation of oil from
the well.

Prominent among contemporary Philadelphia inventors was Fred
erick Eugene Ives, experimenter in television, who has made impor
tant contributions in this new field. On April 7, 1927, Ives conducted
the first practical demonstration of television, by transmitting the
image of President Hoover from Washington to New York over facili
ties provided by the American Telephone & Telegraph Company. He
died May 28, 1937, in Philadelphia.

Scientific Institutions

T^OREMOST among local scientific societies, and first of its kind
in America, is the American Philosophical Society, which has
occupied its present home in Independence Square since 1789. The
Society was founded in Philadelphia in 1743, with Thomas Hopkin-
son as president. An outgrowth of Franklin s Junto, the society might
well claim 1727 as its natal year. The original Junto was reorganized
in 1766 as "The American Society Held at Philadelphia for Promot
ing Useful Knowledge." In 1769 this society was merged with the
earlier American Philosophical Society.

Franklin, who served as president until his death, was succeeded
by David Rittenhouse. Other incumbents were Thomas Jefferson, Dr.
Caspar Wistar, Peter Du Ponceau, Dr. Nathaniel Chapman, Dr.
Franklin Bache, Frederick Fraley, Alexander Dallas Bache, Gen.
Isaac Wistar, Dr. Edgar F. Smith, Dr. Robert Patterson, Chief Justice
Tilghman, Judge John K. Kane, Robert M. Patterson, Dr. George B.
Wood, Dr. W. W. Keen, Prof. William B. Scott, Charles D. Walcott,

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Dr. Henry Norris Russell, Roland S. Morris, and Dr. Francis X. Der-
cuni. The society s library is rich in Frankliniana and early scientific
lore, as well as in other historical and scientific treasures. The pro
ceedings of its meetings are published.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, with the American
Philosophical Society enjoying a position of eminence throughout
the world, and Philadelphia recognized as the seat of scientific culture
in America, there could be found only a scant handful of men who
thought that the field of natural science offered any opportunity for
intellectual endeavor.

The Botanical Society, founded in 1806, was doomed to a brief and,
but for one exception, an unproductive existence. The exception was
the publication of a work by Benjamin Smith Barton entitled Dis
course on Some Principal Desiderata in Natural History.

The Academy of Natural Sciences, conceived during informal dis
cussions among such ardent naturalists as John Speakman and Dr.
Jacob Gilliams as early as 1809, was fully organized under its present
name in 1812. In addition to Speakman, Dr. Joseph Leidy and Gil
liams, to whom is due much of the credit for the forming of the or
ganization, Nicholas B. Parmentier, John Shiiin, Jr., Dr. Gerard
Troost, Dr. Camillus MacMahon Mann, and Thomas Say were co-
founders of the institution, which was to become one of the most
active influences in the world of natural science.

Members of the academy have acquitted themselves with honor and
gallantry in many far-flung expeditions ever since the time when
Thomas Say accompanied Long to the Rockies in 1819-20. Two mem
bers participated in Wilkes Antarctic expedition of 1838, and the
academy outfitted the Arctic expeditions of Dr. Elisha Kent Kane in
1853 and Dr. Isaac Hayes in 1860. Most outstanding of the many
explorations sponsored by the academy, however, was that of Rear
Admiral Robert E. Peary to the North Pole.

The academy s collections are counted among the finest in the
world. The conchological collection, started by Thomas Say, numbers
more than a million specimens. Botanical research has resulted in
the accumulation of another million specimens in that field. Its col
lections of birds, minerals, and European neolithic fossils are world-
renowned.

Franklin Institute, founded in 1824 at a meeting of citizens in
Congress Hall, is the oldest organization in the United States de
voted to the promotion of applied sciences and mechanical arts.
Prominent in and primarily responsible for the founding of the in
stitution were Samuel Vaughan Merrick, later head of the South-
wark Iron Works, and Dr. William Hypolitus Keating, son of a
French baron and prominently associated with the University of
Pennsylvania.

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In 1825 the cornerstone of the institute building, which was on the
east side of Seventh Street helow Market, was laid, and in 1826 the
structure was completed. Classes were started immediately after
the founding, William Strickland teaching architecture and Dr.
Keating, chemistry. The classes were continued until 1924. The insti
tute was the precursor of the first city high school.

For many years the institute held exhibits of American manu
factures. It still conducts considerable scientific research through its
various committees and through the Bartol Research Foundation at
Swarthmore, founded in 1921 by Henry W. Bartol, life member of
the institute.

The new home of the institute on the Parkway was completed in
1933. Dedicated as a memorial to Benjamin Franklin, this building
contains the offices, library, and auditorium of the institute, as well
as a scientific and technological museum. It also houses the Fels
Planetarium. The museum has many exhibits and collections show
ing development in the various fields of applied science.

In the field of archeological exploration and preservation the
University of Pennsylvania Museum is predominant. Founded as the
Archaeological Association in 1888, it was given its present name
in 1892. Among the best known of this museum s ventures was the
so-called Babylonian Expedition of 1888. Failing to make arrange
ments in London to prevent illicit excavations in Babylonia and
Assyria, the committee in charge of this expedition determined to
use its efforts to divert antiquities to the United States. After much
haggling, the collection of Joseph Shemtob was purchased for much
less than it would have cost to obtain a similar one by excavation.
The collection, now housed in the museum, together with another
purchased by Dr. Harper, consisted of several hundred pieces, and
constituted what was then the greatest gathering of Babylonian and
Assyrian relics in the United States.

In 1895 the museum sponsored an exhaustive ethnological survey
of Borneo conducted by William H. Furness, 3d, and H. M. Miller.
Its recent activities have included the search for evidences of early
man in the southwestern United States ; a study of the old Mayan
empire at Piedras Negras, Guatemala ; explorations in Tell Billa
and Tepe Gawra in Mesopotamia, Ravy in Persia, and Cyprus.

Lectures, classroom instruction, visual education by means of
museum specimens, and a complete reference library are provided
by the Wagner Free Institute of Science, at Seventeenth Street and
Montgomery Avenue. The institute conducts free lecture courses, sup
plemented by class work in engineering, organic and inorganic
chemistry, botany, zoology, physics, and geology. Certificates are
awarded to students who complete a four-year course in any of these

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Natural Habitat Exhibits in the Academy of Natural Sciences
The Aerie

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subjects. The institute has a museum of 25,000 specimens in min
eralogy, palaeontology, petrology, corals, birds, and mammals.

The American Entomological Society was founded in 1859 to in
vestigate the habits of insects. It publishes the monthly Entomological
News.

The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, oldest in the country, was
organized November 24, 1827, with Horace Binney as first president.
The latter has been active in promoting and encouraging the study
of flowers, vegetables, fruits, plants, and trees. Its 3,600-volume li
brary and its offices are at No. 1600 Arch Street. Supported mainly
by the endowment of a former president, William L. Schaffer, the
society has a nominal dues-paying membership of 3,700. It aids
greatly in the forming of garden clubs.

The Penrose Research Laboratories, as a subsidiary of the Zoolog
ical Gardens, conduct studies in comparative pathology and nu
tritive values. The laboratories were established in 1901.

The Morris Arboretum and the Botanic Garden, both maintained
by the University of Pennsylvania, are engaged in plant study. The
arboretum, bequeathed to the university by the late Miss Lydia
Thompson Morris, occupies a 170-acre estate in Chestnut Hill, and
is one of the beauty spots in the United States. Lying between Hamil
ton Walk and the grounds of the Philadelphia Hospital is the Botanic
Garden, comprising nearly four acres of trees and flowers. Six green
houses shelter a collection of orchids, palms, aroids, ferns, and suc
culents, which have proved of value in the teaching and research
work of the University of Pennsylvania s botany department.

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Fitch s Steamboat "Perseverance"
The progenitor of the S. S. Queen Mary

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~M JiT EDICAL practice in Perm s city had its beginning with Jan

I W I Peterson, Swedish barber-surgeon, who administered to the

ills of the early Dutch and Swedish settlers long before the

city was laid out. John Goodson, a chirurgeon to the Society of Free

Traders, came from London to Chester (then Upland) early in

Pennsylvania history. He was practicing in Upland in 1682, and

moved to Philadelphia after the coming of William Penn.

Struggling in a fog of uncertainty and ignorance, Philadelphia s
earnest medical pioneers laid the foundation for future greatness in
the field of medicine. Hardy warriors, they fought valiantly against
the epidemics and plagues which swept the young city every few
years. Included in this advance guard were John Kearsley, Thomas
Graeme, Lloyd Zachary, John Morgan, William Shippen, Jr., Thomas
Bond, Benjamin Rush, Phineas Bond, Adam Kuhn, and Thomas
Cadwalader. Dr. Cadwalader was one of the early physicians to apply
modern scientific methods to an autopsy, and the first to employ
electricity in the treatment of disease, especially paralysis.

Among first practitioners were Thomas Wynne, Thomas Lloyd, and
Griffith Owen, all three of whom arrived from Wales in 1682 and
held the first consultation in Philadelphia shortly thereafter. Dr.
Owen performed the first professional operation amputation of a
gunner s arm shattered by a cannon ball fired as a salute on the oc
casion of William Penn s second coming to Philadelphia in 1699.

The earliest physicians provided the impetus to medical advance
ment which led to the establishment in 1732 of a hospital department
in the Philadelphia Almshouse. Twenty years later the Pennsylvania
Hospital was founded. Benjamin Franklin, man of marvelous ver
satility, aided in the fight for its establishment with his inimitable
flair for publicity.

During the city s formative years there was no institution offering
instruction in the medical arts and sciences until the founding of the
Medical School of the College of Philadelphia in 1765. The first
medical degree of Colonial days, Bachelor in Physic, was conferred
upon graduates of this school in 1768. The degree of Doctor of Medi
cine did not come into existence until 1789.

The first half of the nineteenth century witnessed a quickened in
terest and a practical growth in medical education facilities. In 1820

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Dr. Jason Lawrence founded the Philadelphia Anatomical Rooms,
later known as the Philadelphia School of Anatomy. Jefferson Medi
cal College was founded in 1825, Pennsylvania Medical College in
1840. The founding of these schools broke the ice of uncertainty sur
rounding the medical profession, and many more schools sprang up
throughout the city. Franklin Medical College and the Philadelphia
College of Medicine had their inception in 1846. By this time Phila
delphia had gained a reputation as the medical center of the United
States, and the city s renown in this field has continued to grow with
the years.

Advocates of the homeopathic doctrine aided in the founding of the
Homeopathic Medical College of Pennsylvania. Untiring efforts on the
part of supporters of women who clamored for admission to medical
schools resulted in the founding, in 1850, of the Female Medical Col
lege of Philadelphia, later known as the Women s Medical College
of Pennsylvania.

To meet the need of the growing demand for specialization, the
Philadelphia Polyclinic and College for Graduates in Medicine was
established in 1889. The school proved highly successful, and Temple
University followed with the opening of a department of medicine.
Medical science was at last leaving its swaddling clothes and abandon
ing its ancient superstitions to become more nearly a science.

The profession of dentistry arrived as an offspring of medicine.
The Philadelphia College of Dental Surgery was founded in 1852.
Upon recognizing the demand for study in this field, the Philadelphia
Dental College, now a part of Temple University, was founded. This
was in 1863, preceding by 15 years the opening of the University of
Pennsylvania s dental department.

Pharmacy had made but a timid appearance in Philadelphia be
fore the Revolution, and for some time afterward only a few apothe
caries were available. One of the first apothecaries in America was
David Leighton, whom Dr. John Morgan brought to Philadelphia
after the latters sojourn abroad. However, many years elapsed be
fore Philadelphia won distinction by founding the first American
institution of that science, the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy,
in 1821.

Colonial Medical Practice

A N INCIDENT in the life of Dr. William Shippen, Jr., shows to
-^*- what extent medical research in early Philadelphia was hamp
ered by the ignorance and superstition of both layman and physician.
When, in his search for knowledge to aid in alleviating suffering, he
dissected a human body in 1762, a storm of protest broke through
out the city. He was threatened with physical violence, and an at-

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tempt was made to destroy his home. Nevertheless, the intrepid phy
sician continued his efforts to probe the unknown. Dr. Shippen was in
advance of all his contemporaries in the study and knowledge of
obstetrics, and in 1762 he established the city s first private maternity
home.

A close associate and friend of his, Dr. John Morgan, has been
called the "founder of American medicine" as a result of extensive
research work. To Dr. Morgan goes the credit for effecting a division
between medicine and surgery, realizing, as he did, that each
specialty required its own type of practitioner. When he returned
from his studies abroad, he founded, in 1765, America s first school of
medicine. (Dr. Shippen was professor of surgery and anatomy in
this school, which later became part of the University of Pennsyl
vania.) Dr. Morgan made invaluable contributions to the study of the
origin and formation of pus, and his views on scientific surgery are
approved even today by medical men everywhere.

Early Philadelphians were the originators of many valuable meth
ods of treatment, especially in the field of surgery. Dr. Thomas Bond
created a flurry of speculation in medical circles in 1756 when he
performed the city s first recorded lithotomy (bladder operation) at
the Pennsylvania Hospital. It can well be imagined what pain was
suffered by the patient, without benefit of anesthesia ; but the
operation was successful, and medical science thus moved another
step forward. Dr. Bond also perfected a splint for fractures of the
lower end of the radius. He discovered the medicinal value of mer
cury, and was the first in the Colonies to advocate the use of hot
and cold baths in medical treatment.

Another prominent practitioner in early Philadelphia was Dr.
Philip Syng Physick, "the father of American surgery" and inventor
of a number of surgical appliances and instruments. Among his
creations were the urethrotome, the seton for ununified fractures,
ligatures for vessels, and the tonsillotome. Dr. Hugh L. Hodge in
vented a pessary and obstetrical forceps ; Dr. S. D. Gross a trans
fusion apparatus, foreign body extractor, bullet probe, artery forceps,
tourniquet, and splints. Dr. Gross conducted the first systematic
course of lectures on morbid anatomy given in the United States.

Dr. Benjamin Rush, also a Philadelphian, is conceded to have been
one of the greatest clinicians that this country has ever produced.
Besides being an acknowledged leader in the field of medicine, he
was an essayist, orator, philosopher, and statesman, and a highly
successful teacher.

The first medical textbook in America was published in 1811 by a
Philadelphian, Dr. Caspar Wistar, whose anatomical specimens form
the nucleus of the present Wistar Museum. William P. C. Barton,
nephew of Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton and successor to the latter

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Laboratory Sharp & Dohme, Inc.
Man versus disease

MEDICINE

as professor of botany at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote the
first American Materia Medica, Florae Philadelphicae Prodromus
(1815), containing a botanical, general, and medical history of the
medicinal plants indigenous to the United States.

Philadelphia has suffered its share of major epidemics. The first
recorded plague occurred in 1699, when yellow fever exacted a toll
of 220 lives. In the early days vaccination was little known and less
used, but an epidemic of smallpox in 1730 induced Philadelphia
medical men to experiment in the field of prevention. When another
epidemic broke out, six years later, there was vociferous objection
to vaccination, although by this time it had been successfully used in
England. However, the value of inoculation was demonstrated by
the fact that only one of 129 persons submitting to the treatment
succumbed to the malady. Another invasion of the dread disease in
1756 further tended to fortify the arguments of those in favor of
preventive measures. Finally, in 1773, an inoculation hospital was
opened in Philadelphia.

During the terrible yellow-fever scourge of 1793, of the Philadel
phia physicians who fought the epidemic heroically one stood out
conspicuously Dr. Benjamin Rush. Fighting blindly, he finally
evolved a treatment which, though in no sense a cure, nevertheless
did much to ease the suffering. Each day he treated an average of
125 persons stricken by the deadly "Yellow Jack." The epidemic
spread rapidly from Water and Front Streets to surrounding areas
and raged for six long weeks. Thousands fled the city. Those who
remained wandered through streets heavy with the acrid smoke of
burning wood and gunpowder, used in an effort to halt the scourge.
With the coming of cold weather the plague subsided, but only after
4,000 deaths had been recorded.

Later Efforts

A MONG those Philadelphians who helped make medical history
^-^ during the latter part of the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries were John K. Mitchell (1798-1858), first to describe neuro
tic spinal-joint diseases and their treatment ; Dr. George Bacon
Wood (1797-1879), and Dr. Franklin Bache (1792-1864), collabora
tors on the United States Dispensatory; Nathaniel Chapman (1780-
1853) and Matthew Carey (1760-1839), founders of the Philadelphia
Journal of the Medical and Physical Sciences, later called American
Journal of the Medical Sciences ; Dr. Samuel George Morton (1799-
1851), author of valuable papers on craniology, palaeontology, and
phthisisography ; William Wood Gerhard (1809-72), specialist in
pulmonary diseases ; and Elisha Kent Kane (1820-57), physician and
arctic explorer.

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Dr. Crawford Williamson Long (1815-78) was a pioneer in the use
of ether; Dr. Joseph Pancoast (1805-82), Dr. Joseph Leidy (1823-
1891), Dr. James Tyson (1841-1919), Dr. William Pepper (1843-98),
and Dr. Jacob M. DaCosta (1833-1900) contributed much to the steady
march of medical progress. Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell (1829-1914),
termed the "father of American neurology," was almost equally well
known as a novelist and poet.

Outstanding physicians of a later day include Dr. John B. Deaver
(1855-1931), a surgeon noted for his success in appendectomy; Dr.
George Edmund de Schweinitz, recognized as one of the country s
outstanding eye specialists ; Dr. Solomon Solis-Cohen, professor
emeritus of clinical medicine at Jefferson College, who delivered the
first systematic course of lectures on Therapeutic Measures Other than
Drugs in an American school ; and Dr. Chevalier Jackson, developer
of the world-famous bronchoscope and now occupying the chair of
bronchoscopy at Temple University. Dr. Jackson is also inventor of
the esophogoscope.

The crippling scourge of infantile paralysis is now somewhat less
dreaded as a result of the efforts of Dr. John A. Kolmer, head of the
Temple University medical staff. Dr. Kolmer experimented with
monkeys for three years before perfecting a treatment at the Re
search Institute of Cutaneous Medicine. His studies and persistent
work in immunization and vaccine therapy stand today as the most
important achievements toward prevention and cure of infantile
paralysis.

Dr. William B. Van Lennep (1853-1919), one of the founders of
the American College of Surgeons, was acknowledged by his contem
poraries as being among the greatest American teachers of surgery.
Another noted surgeon, Dr. William W. Keen (1837-1932), achieved
his greatest fame through his work in the treatment of war wounds.

Dr. Rufus B. Weaver (1841-1936), famous throughout the country,
performed one of the greatest anatomical feats the world has known.
Within a period of seven months he dissected and mounted a com
plete human cerebro-nervous system from the remains of Harriet
Cole, a colored scrub woman at Hahnemann Hospital. The students
to this day refer to it as Harriet. The white nerves are suspended on
the heads of protruding pins ; the eyes fixed to meet the gaze of the
many visitors. This work, the only one of its kind in the history of
medicine, is preserved in a fireproof vault in the Rufus B. Weaver
Museum of Hahnemann Medical College. Early in his career Dr.
Weaver astounded the medical profession by identifying, from their
buried remains, the bodies of 3,000 Confederate soldiers who had
been killed at Gettysburg.

Dr. Louis A. Duhring (1845-1913) was an outstanding skin spe
cialist. An ailing Philadelphian once traveled to Vienna for treat-

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ment by a noted Austrian dermatologist. The Vienna doctor told him
he had gone to much unnecessary trouble since Philadelphia had in
Dr. Duhring one of the world s best skin specialists.

Pediatrics has been greatly advanced through the efforts of two
notable Philadelphians, Dr. John P. Crozer Griffith and Dr. Charles
Sigmund Raue. Dr. Raue is chief of the department of pediatrics at
Hahnemann, and St. Luke s and Children s Hospitals. Dr. George W.
MacKenzie, highly revered by members of his profession, is noted
for his work as an ear, nose, and throat specialist. To Dr. MacKenzie,
who teaches not only students but also physicians, was awarded the
gold honor medal by the University of Vienna for his contributions
to medical science.

Dr. Francis Colgate Benson, Jr., a pioneer in the adaptation of
radium to medical purposes, organized this country s first separate
department for the use of radium in medicine and surgery.

The progress of health among the school children of Philadelphia
has been greatly furthered by the work of Dr. Walter S. Cornell,
head of the medical inspection department of the Philadelphia Board
of Education. His department s yearly reports serve as models for
public school systems throughout the Nation.

Although Negroes did not become active in the medical field until
late in the nineteenth century, members of the race have made many
valuable contributions to medical knowledge. The first accredited
doctor to appear upon the scene was Dr. Nathan F. Mossell, the
first Negro student to enter and graduate from the University of
Pennsylvania s medical school. Graduating from that institution in
1882, he began practicing that same year and is now (1937) rounding
out 55 continuous years of medical service to his people. The follow
ing year Dr. James Potter finished his medical course in the same
university and began a practice which lasted until his death in 1929.
During the last decade of the century Drs. A. E. White, Thomas J.
Stanford, George R. Hilton, and Wilbert D. Postels began their work.
Early in the new century (1906) Dr. Henry M. Minton, now (1937)
superintendent of Mercy Hospital, started his practice. He has given
a great deal of time towards the cure of tuberculosis, and is dispens
ing physician to the Henry Phipps Institute, an agency for the pre
vention and treatment of this disease. Among well-known, present-day
doctors are Drs. J. Q. McDougald, successful surgeon ; John P. Turner,
police surgeon and first Negro member of the Board of Education ;
and Virginia M. Alexander, who in connection with her practice,
maintains a private hospital.

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Hygiene and Hygiene Legislation

OVERNMENTAL action in the field of health preservation came
when laymen and medical men alike sought to devise some means
of preventing the recurrence of conditions similar to those prevail
ing at the time of the yellow-fever epidemic in 1793. Agitation along
this line culminated in the 1794 Act of Assembly which created a
Board of Health. Full authority was given the board to make and
enforce all rules and regulations deemed necessary for conducting
effective quarantines.

Health authorities received wider powers from the State Legisla
ture in 1895. An act of that year required the prompt reporting of
contagious diseases, the isolation of patients, and the quarantining
of houses where contagious cases existed. It regulated the school at
tendance of children living in such houses, required the disinfection
of persons and clothing, and instituted compulsory vaccination to
prevent smallpox. The law provided heavy penalties for violations.

Philadelphia s first water works was begun in 1799, with the
erection of a powerhouse and a receiving fountain along the Schuyl-
kill River, south of Market Street. In 1818 the first pumps were in
stalled in the section then known as "Faire Mount" along the Schuyl-
kill, north of Market Street.

Until 1884 Philadelphia s sewer system consisted of less than 30
miles of sewers. The first intercepting sewer was constructed in 1884,
its purpose being to prevent pollution of that part of the Schuylkill
River within the city limits. Eighteen hundred miles of sewers drain
the city today.

Steps toward systematic control of the city s milk supply were
taken in 1888, when the city made an appropriation for the employ
ment of a milk inspector. Today it maintains a special division of
milk inspection, with a chief inspector and a large staff of assistants.
Food inspection has been handled with much greater efficiency since
the division of bacteriology, pathology, and disinfection was estab
lished in 1895. This division performs an invaluable service by con
fiscating impure and tainted foodstuffs.

As for hospitalization, there is no resemblance at all between the
insanitary and miasmic pesthouse of Colonial Philadelphia and the
74 spotless and scientifically equipped institutions of *oday.

Overcrowded conditions in the city s first hospital resulted in the
establishment of the Pennsylvania Hospital in 1751. This institu
tion s department for the sick and injured has remained at Eighth
and Spruce Streets ever since completion of the hospital, construction
of which was begun in 1755. The department for mental and nervous
diseases, commonly known as Kirkbride s, is in West Philadelphia.
The various buildings are scattered over an immense plot of ground

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bounded approximately by Market Street, Powelton Avenue, Forty-
second Street, Haverford Avenue, and Forty-ninth Street. Construc
tion of the buildings to house the mental and nervous department
was begun in 1836. Kirkbride s was for many years a model for
mental institutions all over the world. Pennsylvania Hospital was the
first in America to establish a department of psychiatry. In 1928
ground was broken at Forty-ninth and Market Streets for the erection
of a modern psychiatric institute.

Philadelphia General Hospital, an outgrowth of the city s early
almshouse, is admittedly one of the finest and largest institutions of
its kind in the United States. The hospital was separated from the
almshouse by a legislative act in 1919. A group of old buildings,
which for half a century housed the indigent insane, and physically
ill, was metamorphosed into the gigantic General Hospital at Thirty-
fourth and Pine Streets. The main buildings were completed and first
occupied in 1928. Additional buildings were added in 1929, 1930, and
1933, in which last named year the cost of buildings and equipment
approximated $8,000,000. The hospital is modern in every detail and
has 2,500 beds.

The School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania, founded
in 1765, was the first American medical school connected with a
university. Headquarters are in the Medical Laboratory Building at
Thirty-sixth Street and Hamilton Walk, and the various department
buildings radiate from that point. From the small Surgeon s Hall,
open in 1765 at Fifth Street near Walnut, the school has grown
to vast proportions. Since its founding more than 16,000 students
have received medical degrees from the school, and approximately
500 students are currently enrolled. The courses of instruction include
every branch of the medical profession.

The Graduate Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, at Nine
teenth and Lombard Streets, provides post-graduate courses in all
branches of medicine. The Medico-Chirurgical (Medico-Chi) College
and Hospital merged with the University of Pennsylvania in 1916. The
Philadelphia Polyclinic and College for graduates in medicine and
the Diagnostic Hospital merged with the university in 1918 and 1926,
respectively.

Jefferson Medical College, at Tenth and Walnut Streets, has been
noted since its inception for its distinguished clinicians and the in-
clusiveness of its clinical teaching. The college and clinical buildings,
recently constructed, house one of the most modern medical colleges
in the United States.

There are two hospitals operated by and chiefly for Negroes. Doug
lass Hospital, Lombard Street near Sixteenth, was established in 1895,
the first of its kind in Pennsylvania. In addition to ward, private, and
semiprivate facilities the hospital maintains a special X-ray room for

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diagnosis with modernly equipped pathological and histological labor
atories. It has a bed capacity of approximately 100. Mercy Hospital,
Fiftieth and Woodland Avenue, opened on February 12, 1907, receiv
ing its charter the following March. It maintains a 110-bed capacity
and is supported by State aid and through the community fund Both
institutions maintain a training school for nurses.

The Homeopathic Medical College of Pennsylvania was consoli
dated with the Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia in 1869,
under the latter name. The college, on Broad Street north of Race, is
the oldest homeopathic medical school in existence. The Hospital of
Philadelphia merged with Hahnemann in 1885. Completely reorgan
ized in 1916, many new and desirable educational improvements were
effected. The present 20-story structure was completed in 1928. Every
available aid for the diagnosis and treatment of disease is found in
this modern college and hospital.

The Jewish Hospital Association, at York and Tabor Roads, was
founded in 1865. This institution has from the beginning been "dedi
cated to the relief work of the sick and wounded without regard to
creed, color, or nationality."

An unusual medical institution is the College of Physicians and
Surgeons now located at 15 South Twenty-second Street. A prototype
of the Royal College of Physicians of London, it was instituted in
Philadelphia in September 1787. In its earlier years this scientific
body was active in the maintenance of public health and morals. In
recent years, however, its largest measures have been devoted to the
discussion of scientific matters. Its valuable library occupies a promi
nent position among medical libraries of the world.

A noteworthy forward step in medical progress was taken with the
establishment of the Philadelphia School of Occupational Therapy in
1918. Under the auspices of the National League for Woman s Serv
ice, the school aims to develop the formula of "occupation under
medical prescription" as treatment for both mental and physical ail
ments.

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Do good with what thou hast, or it will do thee no good.

SOCIAL service has by no means been laggard in its contribution
to the picture of general achievement in Philadelphia. Despite
its widely flung area and density of population, the city manages
to take reasonably good care of its destitute.

Even the wealthy, golfing or riding to hounds in the sun-drenched
suburbs far from the city s slums, regard their charities seriously.
The annual Charity Ball of the socialites is as much a part of Phila
delphia tradition as is the thrift of Benjamin Franklin or the prodi
gality of Robert Morris.

The family relief situation in Philadelphia was probably at its
worst during the early days of the Colony, when members of needy
families were forced to beg upon the streets. There was no differen
tiation between those who could not work and those who would not
work. Charitable organizations, such as they were, carried on their
work independently of one another, so that confusion and inefficiency
resulted. Pauper laws, brought from England by the Quakers, were
invoked in the cases of individuals seeking aid. A trace of these laws
remains today in those Philadelphia hospitals which require an oath
of poverty from a charity patient.

The first almshouse in Philadelphia was established in 1713, by the
Society of Friends, on the south side of Walnut Street between Third
and Fourth. It was devoted exclusively to the care of indigent mem
bers of the Quaker faith.

The first municipal almshouse was completed in 1732, and was
operated under supervision of the city government. Known as the
Philadelphia Almshouse, it maintained a hospital department and
accommodated the sick and insane as well as the poor. It was situated
in a green meadow at Third and Spruce Streets. Its hospital depart
ment developed into what is today the Philadelphia General Hospital.
In 1767 a new almshouse with larger accommodations was opened
at Eleventh and Pine Streets.

With the passing of the years, and the steady growth of the city s
population, a corresponding increase in the number of dependents
necessitated a larger institution. On March 5, 1828, an act was passed
providing for an almshouse, hospital, and other buildings "on a site
not exceeding two miles from Broad & Market Sts." In the vicinity

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of what is now Thirty-fourth and Spruce Streets a large tract of land
was purchased, and on it were erected the buildings of the Blockley
Almshouse. Completed in 1834, the institution was operated by the
city for many years.

The oldest prison organization in America, the Pennsylvania
Prison Society, was established in 1787. This society aids and advises
prisoners in the problems facing them during their confinement and
iifter their release.

The first private charitable institution in the city was the Mag
dalen Society, founded in 1799 for the reformation of fallen women.
Bishop William White, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, was its
first president.

Through the efforts of Ann Parrish, a member of the Society of
Friends, the first organization for temporary assistance of the dis
tressed was formed in 1793, following the epidemic of yellow fever,
which had caused great suffering and privation among the poor.
Assistance was given to the sick, and in the winter wood and food
were distributed to the needy.

In 1815 the Second Presbyterian Church erected a two-story build
ing at Eighteenth and Cherry Streets, dedicating it to the care of
orphans. Thus the Orphans Society of Philadelphia was formed. The
society carried on its work at the original address until 1872, when
the encroachment of business houses and the corresponding rise in
real estate values forced its removal to Sixty-fourth Street and Haver-
ford Avenue.

One of the pioneer organizations for poor relief was the Union
Benevolent Association, founded in 1831 by David Nasmith and Rev.
Thomas G. Allen, an Episcopal clergyman. In 1868 the Orphans
Guardian was established under the guidance of Dr. Samuel Hirsch,
rabbi of the Congregation Keneseth Israel. It was restricted to a
policy of aiding only the needy in its own congregation until 1891.
Then its scope was enlarged to noncongregational activities. Under
the Guardian plan, one family became a "big brother" to a poorer
family, aiding it financially, spiritually, and educationally.

The Philadelphia Society for Organizing Charity and Repressing
Mendicancy was formed in 1879. Third of its kind in the country,
its name was shortened later to Philadelphia Society for Organizing
Charity. A central office was established, with trained workers devot
ing all their labors to the alleviation of poverty and sickness. This
idea of centralization and unification has been developed with the
years, until at present most of the funds for relief purposes in Phila
delphia are collected in one large drive conducted annually by the
United Campaign of the Welfare Federation.

Today the poor and feeble of Philadelphia are far less unfortunate
than those of 1700, who dared not go to bed sick, for fear of being

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removed to prison once they had become well. Now they can obtain
medical treatment in charity wards in the city s hospitals or in
hospital clinics. In addition to the hospital clinics, special health
clinics are maintained for low-income and needy families.

There is also an organization known as the Marriage Counsel, with
offices at 253 South Fifteenth Street, which helps young married
couples, or those contemplating marriage, to a better understanding
of what companionship in married life involves. Counsel, in terms of
the individual s needs, is given at one or more personal interviews.
The Maternal Health Centers and the Pennsylvania Birth Control
Federation have offices at the same address.

A committee of the latter organization operates the National Health
centers with four clinics in the city. Since the first of these clinics was
opened in Philadelphia in 1929, nearly 20,000 women seeking reliable
medical information on marital problems have been instructed by
these clinic physicians. The aim of the organization is to make
medically directed birth control information available to under
privileged mothers who have no reliable means of limiting their
families. Social agencies of all kinds cooperate in referring patients
to the clinics.

Philadelphia has also helped lead the way toward socialized
medicine in the State through the C. Dudley Saul Medical Service,
organized in June 1935, which provides low-cost medical treatment
to a large number of subscribers. This service was started in conjunc
tion with the Newspaper Guild of Philadelphia and Camden. Mem
bers of the service pay a monthly fee of $2, for which they receive
necessary medical attention and are entitled to three months hos-
pitalization a year. Dependents are also served at a rate less than
half the ordinary fees. Many minor ailments that might develop into
serious illnesses are cared for under the monthly payment plan with
out additional expense.

The Philadelphia Department of Public Health conducts 12 tuber
culosis clinics. This department also provides eye dispensaries for
those otherwise unable to procure treatment. Many neighborhood
organizations, such as the Big Brother Association and the German-
town Community Center, conduct clinics on a free or nominal fee
basis. The Visiting Nurses Association has skilled nurses traveling
through the poorer districts, ministering to those in need of bedside
care.

Foremost among the community service ventures is the United
Campaign, a joint drive held by the Welfare Federation and the
Federation of Jewish Charities each spring to obtain funds for the
maintenance of the city s social agencies. Altogether, 141 charitable
institutions are supported by this United Campaign.

The Federation of Jewish Charities, organized in 1901, which sup-

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ports 53 Jewish charitable institutions in Philadelphia, was established
in order to eliminate the many benefits, ticket sellings, bazaars, fairs,
and other methods of collection. Among the institutions aided by the
federation are Mount Sinai Hospital, Bureau for Jewish Children,
Jewish Hospital Association, National Farm School at Doylestown,
Jewish Seaside Home for Invalids at Ventnor, N. J., Young Men s and
Young Women s Hebrew Associations and the Jewish Sheltering
Home for the Homeless and Aged.

The Welfare Federation of Philadelphia performs a similar clear
ing house function for other social agencies in the city. Operating in
much the same manner as the Federation of Jewish Charities, its
purpose is to eliminate the waste of a number of solicitation drives
by combining them and by setting up a single unit for collecting
and allocating funds and interpreting agency programs to the public.

Numerous groups are devoted to the welfare of the city s youth.
The Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Campfire Girls, Catholic Young Men s
Association, Boy Council of Philadelphia, and other youth organiza
tions aid the young to obtain healthful recreation and social develop
ment.

The Bureau of Recreation of the Department of Public Welfare,
in City Hall, sets up and manages neighborhood playgrounds, rec
reation centers, and swimming pools. Forty-one playgrounds and 38
swimming pools are maintained by the municipal bureau. Also in
cluded in the municipal Department of Public Welfare are the
Bureau of Charities and Correction and the Bureau of Personal As
sistance. There are many city-wide organizations engaged in better
ing community life and establishing a friendly attitude among the
various peoples of Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia Conference on Social Work holds an annual
meeting at which representatives of social organizations discuss ways
and means of improving the latter s activities.

Constant coordination in social service is achieved through the
Social Service Exchange to which virtually all public and private
agencies engaged in welfare and relief work subscribe. In the central
index maintained by the Exchange are listed the names and addresses
of all persons known to any of the social agencies of the city, there
by permitting each agency to avoid duplicating relief or service and
at the same time to coordinate its activity on behalf of a particular
family with that of other agencies concerned.

The Bureau of Municipal Research is a civic agency designed to
collect and classify facts regarding the powers and duties of municipal
departments, and to seek ways and means of coordinating and ex
pediting the functions of government. There are also within Phila
delphia various agencies whose functions include the sponsoring of

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legislation designed to increase the effectiveness of child education
and to eliminate child labor.

Agencies such as the Armstrong Association and the Whittier
Center strive to better the conditions and culture of the Negro,
through education and other channels.

The American Penal Labor Association, the County Prison Officials
Association of Pennsylvania, and the Philadelphia Criminal Justice
Association seek to curb crime, to alleviate suffering among the
families of imprisoned criminals, and to return discharged prisoners
to normal occupations.

The Philadelphia Zoning Commission, Better Homes in America
Association, Philadelphia Housing Association, and other organiza
tions seek to produce a model residential, commercial, and industrial
community. Marking the city off into zones of residential, business,
and factory sections is the duty of the Zoning Commission. Through
this method, an apportionment of sections is sought to facilitate busi
ness and restrict certain residential sections, for the protection of real
estate investments and municipal improvement areas.

In 1927 Charles Edwin Fox, then District Attorney, ordered an
investigation into the background of four young bandits responsible
for the Olney Bank robbery, in which a policeman was shot and
killed. County Detective Merryweather, assigned to the case, turned
in a startling analysis of the factors contributing to the excessive
criminal delinquency among youths between the ages of 16 and 21.

The lack of recreational facilities and of parental education, com
bined with bad housing and the use of political "pull," was given as
a cause tending to sidetrack these youths into a life of crime. With
this information before him, Fox took steps to alleviate this shock
ing condition. The Crime Prevention Association was formed, with
Detective Merryweather as executive director. It began operating
June 1, 1932. Simultaneously a police department crime prevention
bureau was set up.

Merryweather obtained the second floor of a South Broad Street
building. He installed pool tables, games, and other forms of recrea
tion, and within a few days the street corners of the neighborhood
were virtually clear of youthful loungers. An "unofficial parole" sys
tem and card index file were put into effect, with first offenders and
repeaters segregated. Thus a close contact was maintained with youths
of criminal tendencies. In order to remove the implied stigma the
name was later changed from Crime Prevention Association to the
Philadelphia Council of Older Boys Clubs.

Numerous clubhouses have been established throughout the city.
That their work has proved beneficial is indicated by recent figures

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Preston Retreat
"A child was born .

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

showing an 11 percent decrease in crime among the older boys in
the city. Among the organizations which strive to keep youths off
street corners and provide them recreational facilities are the Big
Brother Association, Bethany Brotherhood Club, Board of Education
Physical and Health Education Division, and the boys clubs in most
communities. The Y. M. and Y. W. H. A., Y. M. C. A., and neighbor
hood settlement houses, as well as playgrounds, swimming pools, and
other facilities, help to swell the total of recreational, educational,
and character-building agencies in Philadelphia.

Community service is materially aided by the great number of
settlement houses, where social problems are discussed, community
group meetings held, and a social life provided for young and old.
Not only do these settlement houses aid in the social scheme of the
community, but during periods of suffering and want they strive
to alleviate cold and hunger by means of soup kitchens and other
forms of relief.

Many of these houses have combined all the phases of worthy
charities heretofore carried on under separate roofs, and today pro
vide reading and recreational rooms, day nurseries, and health clinics.
Some conduct classes where persons may learn trades, or increase
their material education in art or commerce.

The Association of Philadelphia Settlements promotes efficiency
among settlement houses throughout the city, unifying them in a
common purpose. Through mutual exchange of experiences and
through discussion groups, it helps solve their problems.

The Board of Education supervises more than 500 special classes
for cardiac sufferers, deaf, tubercular, and feeble-minded children,
and for those who have defective vision or impediments in their
speech.

For adults whose physical handicaps bar them from regular posi
tions, agencies in the city provide training in the vocations adapted
to their limited capabilities. These agencies also furnish such aids
as braces and artificial limbs, either free or at a nominal charge.
The Shut-In Society provides reading matter and arranges for visitors,
or correspondents for those confined to their homes.

The Red Cross maintains a library of Braille books for the blind.
The Philadelphia Free Library on the Parkway also has a large col
lection of such volumes, which it mails, postage-free, to any part of
the State. The Blind Relief Fund of Philadelphia is an agency for
collecting money to aid the poor and aged blind.

The Philadelphia League for the Hard of Hearing provides a com
munity center to promote sociability and recreation and to main
tain an employment service for the deaf. This society also conducts a
school of lip reading.

For 15 years Philadelphia has had a Junior Employment Service

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for persons who are more than 18 and who have completed high
school. The service is operated in conjunction with the Board of
Education, and school records of applicants are transferred to the
service. Classes are formed for the unemployed, and medical and
psychological examinations are facilitated. During 1936 registrations
numbered 57,256, with 2,757 placements.

The Catholic Women s Alliance founded in 1916, and the Friendly
Sons of St. Patrick instruct immigrants in American principles and
aid them to obtain work.

For men and boys interested in recreation, or seeking living quar
ters, the Y. M. C. A. offers a 1 friendly atmosphere at comparatively
low rates. The central building, at 1421 Arch Street, accommodates
about 1,283 single persons and 55 married couples. There are seven
Philadelphia branches of the "Y" - at Fifty-second and Sansom
Streets, 1007 West Lehigh Avenue, 1724 Christian Street, 117 North
Fifteenth Street, Forty-first Street and Westminster Avenue, Lehigh
and Kensington Avenues and Ninth and Spring Garden Streets.

The Catholic Y. M. A., at 1819 Arch Street, conducts a dormitory,
where Catholic men may board at moderate rates. This association
was formed during the World War to provide accommodations for
service men. It was continued after the Armistice as a society to care
for homeless men and boys. Its purpose is to furnish education, rec
reation, food, shelter, and clothing.

The Luther Hospice, at 157 North Twentieth Street, is a Christian
boarding home for students and business men of all denominations.
The Salvation Army Men s Hotel and the United Service Club main
tain sleeping quarters for workingmen and enlisted men, respectively.

The Salvation Army also has one of the most diversified forms of
relief of any organization. The Philadelphia headquarters is at 701
North Broad Street, in a building provided by the will of John
Wanamaker. This property is to be the Salvation Army s so long
as that organization occupies it. If the Salvation Army vacates the
property, it will go to the Y. M. C. A.

From its headquarters the army distributes family relief in the
form of food, clothing, shoes, and other necessities. It also main
tain a transient bureau at 705 North Broad Street, where free
lodging and food are provided. At 1224 Parrish Street is its social
service department, where cast-off clothing and shoes, and second
hand furniture are reclaimed and sold at nominal prices. Here ap
proximately 125 men, remaining permanently or until they can
better themselves, receive room and board, with a small salary.

The Salvation Army also maintains a children s home at 5441 Lans-
downe Avenue and a day nursery at 224 South Third Street, where
children are cared for during the day while their mothers work. The
army also distributes fuel to the needy during winter months, and

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in the summer provides a camp vacation for underprivileged children
and their mothers.

Philadelphia offers many residences for women and girls, especially
for those who have to support themselves. The Catholic Women s
Club, at 306 South Thirteenth Street, maintains quarters for Catholic
business and professional women ; the Coles House, at 915 Clinton
Street, cares for Protestant women.

The Dominican House of Retreats, at 1812 Green Street, also main
tains a boarding house for women. For the Protestant girl who is
homeless, or dependent upon a low-paying job, Esther Hall, at 2021
Mt. Vernon Street, provides shelter. The Friendship Home, at 1939
North Twenty-second Street, is for Negro girls ; the Rebecca Gratz
Club, 532 Spruce Street, is for Jewish women ; and St. Isaac s House,
at 3311 Haverford Avenue, a non-sectarian institution, furnishes liv
ing quarters for working girls and women.

The Y. W. C. A. of Philadelphia also provides living quarters in
its large central club residence, at Eighteenth and Arch Streets, and
its eight branches throughout the city. The accommodations and rates
are much the same as those of the Y. M. C. A.

The Girls Friendly Society, organized in England in 1875 and
introduced into this country in 1886, is an organization designed to
aid young women who are earning their way in the world, offering
them recreational advantages and instructing them in general sub
jects. The society is operated under the auspices of the Episcopal
Church. There are at present 47 branches of the Girls Friendly
Society in Philadelphia, with a total membership of 2,500. Central
headquarters is at 202 South Nineteenth Street.

For the aid of seamen there are a number of agencies. Foremost
among these is the Seamen s Institute at 211 Walnut Street, with a
branch in Port Richmond at 2815 East Cambria Street. Originally
begun as a "floating church," the institute was moved ashore and
gradually enlarged, absorbing many other similar institutions. The
institute can accommodate 327 men. In addition to sleeping quarters,
it has a restaurant and reading, recreation, and work rooms. Classes
in seamanship are also conducted.

The Lutheran Seamen s Home, at 1402 East Moyamensing Avenue,
and the Lutheran Seamen s Mission, 1226 Spruce Street, care for sea
men, regardless of nationality, creed, or color. Other organizations
are the Pennsylvania Seamen s Friend Society at 201 Walnut Street ;
the Seamen s and Landsmen s Aid Society at 332 South Front Street ;
and the Norwegian Seamen s Church of Philadelphia at 22 South
Third Street.

Many of Philadelphia s less fortunate children are helped by
numerous civic, charitable, or welfare organizations throughout the
year. In summer great numbers of those living in congested or slum

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areas are removed from the heat of the city to healthful camps in
the country, where they enjoy from one to three weeks reveling in
health-giving air and sunshine. Others go to camps at the seashore or
mountains.

Many of these associations in Philadelphia conduct one or more
such camps. The number is swelled by those of the Boy Scouts, Girl
Scouts, Camp Fire Girls, religious societies, universities, Y. M. C. A.,
large industrial organizations, boys clubs, and settlement houses.

Philadelphia likewise has numerous orphan homes supported by
religious institutions, private agencies, foundations, and popular
subscription. They care for children of any race or creed. For physi
cally handicapped children, who cannot attend school as normal
children do, there are special classes and schools.

Outstanding among local welfare institutions is Girard College at
Corinthian and South College Avenues. Founded under the will
of Stephen Girard, the college was first opened in January 1848. It
provides a home and precollege education for the normal white
boy who is either totally orphaned or whose father is dead. Boys are
admitted to the college between the ages of 6 and 10, and discharged
between the ages of 14 and 18.

The Catholic Children s Bureau, at 1706 Summer Street, is the
central office of the diocesan institutions caring for needy children.
All applications for admission and discharge are made at this office.
Children are accepted by court commitment or on private applica
tion. Besides placing children in institutions, the bureau also places
them in private boarding homes.

The Mothers Assistance Fund, at 260 South Broad Street, is the
administrative agency which provides public aid to dependent
children in their own homes from funds derived equally (until
January 1, 1938) from municipal, State, and Federal sources. Aid to
dependent children (formerly known as Mothers Assistance) is given
in the form of monthly cash payments to mothers with young
children, after a careful investigation of eligibility and need. Under
the State Public Assistance Law children must be under 16 and must
have been deprived of paternal support through the death, absence
from home, or disability of their fathers. The Federal Social Security
Board participates in one-third of all payments not exceeding $18
monthly for the first child and $12 monthly for each additional child.
(The law provided that after January 1, 1938, the program of aid
to dependent children, as well as all other forms of public aid to
persons in their own homes, should be the responsibility of a County
Board of Public Assistance, to be financed entirely by State appro
priations, supplemented by special Federal grants-in-aid.) Since 1934
the activities of the Mothers Assistance Fund have included the
administration of State pensions for the blind and State old-age

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assistance, which is granted to needy persons 70 or more years of age.

The Bureau for Colored Children, at 712 North Forty-third Street,
places dependent and neglected Negro boys and girls under 16 years
of age in homes.

During the darkest days of the depression of the early 1930 s, Phila
delphia awoke to the realization that her charitable and welfare
groups, largely of a privately endowed nature, were unable to cope
with the problem of relief and unemployment. In a desperate effort
to meet the situation, a group known as the "Lloyd Committee,"
and headed by the late Horatio Gates Lloyd, was formed. Funds were
raised by popular subscription, and relief was temporarily broadened.

In 1932 the General Assembly of Pennsylvania passed three meas
ures the Woodward act, the second Talbot act, and the Emer
gency Relief Sales Tax act, these becoming the cornerstone of relief
in the days to follow. The Woodward act created the State Emer
gency Relief Board, and authorized the setting up of county boards
to administer aid locally. The Philadelphia County Relief Board was
thus instituted, and the first appointments were made in August 1932.

From September 1, 1932, to February 28, 1933, emergency relief
was financed by State revenue derived from a one percent tax on
gross income from sales. Further support for Philadelphia s needy
families was given in May 1933, by creation of the Federal Emergency
Relief Administration. This State and Federal cooperation continued
until December 1935, when Federal funds were discontinued and
emergency relief became solely the responsibility of the State.

The emergency relief program was financed for a time by the sale
of tax anticipation notes, secured by revenue from several levies im
posed at a special session of the Legislature. Three levies included
allowance for an increase in the State tax on property from one to
four mills, an increase in the tax on corporate loans, extension of the
inheritance tax to cover joint transfer, and a 10 percent tax on liquor
sales at State stores.

From September 1932 to May 1936, the Philadelphia County Re
lief Board disbursed funds totaling $101,000,000, the average grant
per case for the latter part of 1936 amounting to $7.47 per week, the
average family being three persons.

At a special session in the spring of 1936 the Legislature provided
$45,000,000 for emergency relief in Pennsylvania for the period be
tween May 1936 and January 1937. In Philadelphia approximately
161,000 persons were on direct relief at the beginning of 1937. When
on July 1, 1937, the Philadelphia County Relief Board went out of
existence, more than 205,000 families had been assisted at one time
or another. This work is now carried on by the Philadelphia County
Board of Assistance.

In determining individual or family eligibility for relief, a thorough

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SOCIAL SERVICE

investigation is made of financial status, including income, if any,
family resources, and the ability of relatives to aid. One of the basic
requirements of eligibility for employment relief is the registration
of all employable members of the family at the State Employment
Office. The method of making investigations and determining needs
stresses the responsibility of the applicant to assist in establishing his
own eligibility by furnishing documentary and other information.
Relief grants, limited to maximum amounts based on family size and
the essential budget items allowed, are issued weekly in cash. Infor
mation obtained through periodic reinvestigations or reported
voluntarily by relief families makes possible the adjustment of grants
in accordance with changing needs and the prompt discontinuance
of relief to persons no longer eligible.

Through the instrumentality of the Works Progress Administration
program, inaugurated under the Federal Emergency Relief Ap
propriation Act of 1935, employable persons on the Philadelphia re
lief rolls were enabled to earn their livelihood and to so regain self-
respect. The WPA program was designed to replace the less adequate
machinery of work relief previously set up under the Civil Works
Administration in 1933 and the Local Works Division in 1934. The
many useful public works and cultural projects of the WPA have pro
vided gainful and salutary occupation for thousands of Philadel-
phians who otherwise would have lost both skill and morale through
living in enforced idleness on the dole.

Among the long established organizations to shoulder greatly in
creased responsibility during the depression was the Family Society,
which provided food, clothing, and shelter for more than 15,000
families. Founded in 1878 for the purpose of maintaining needy
families as units, the society throughout the years has fought con
stantly for the alleviation of want. Another group to stand the test
of time is the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, established here in 1851.
Neglected children in various Catholic parishes are placed in suit
able homes, and each summer the society conducts a fresh-air camp
in Chester County for children in the poorer sections.

Philadelphia has more than 60 homes for the aged, conducted by
many organizations and churches. They are within the city as well
as in surounding suburbs. Retired and needy actors are cared for
at the Edwin Forrest Home for Actors, at Forty-ninth Street
and Parkside Avenue. Mechanics also conduct a home, as do many
veterans organizations.

The Bureau of Legal Aid, maintained by the municipal government
until 1933, has been superseded by an organization known as the
Legal Aid Society of Philadelphia. Its offices are at 4 South Fifteenth
Street, and it is supported by the Community Fund. The Philadelphia
Voluntary Defender Association, at the same address, provides similar

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

free legal service, except that its interests are restricted to criminal
cases only. The association, organized in 1933, with Maurice B. Saul
as president, Francis Fisher Kane as secretary, and Thomas E. Cogan
as defender began operating April 14, 1934. This association is like
wise maintained by the Community Fund.

Philadelphia Skylirie As Seen from the Art Museum

POINTS of
SPECIAL INTEREST

to the

CITY S GUESTS

Old Gate at Independence Square

INDEPENDENCE SQUARE GROUP

Independence Hall, Congress Hall, Old City
Hall, American Philosophical Society Build
ing. Bounded by 5th, 6th, Chestnut and
Walnut Sts.

INDEPENDENCE SQUARE

WITHIN the confines of a comparatively small plot of ground
known as Independence Square stands a group of red brick
buildings enshrined in the hearts of patriotic Americans.
Revered by liberty-loving people the world over,, these structures,
their beauty and simplicity undisturbed by modern progress, are
mute reminders of heroic times and intrepid men.

Long before the Revolution the old square was the meeting place
of Philadelphia s citizenry. To this outdoor rendezvous they came in
hundreds and thousands whenever trouble threatened. Here, both
indoors and outdoors, many of the events that culminated in American
independence took place events now regarded as having led to one
of the greatest contributions ever made toward establishing an ideal
of free government.

From a small wooden astronomical observatory in the rear of
Independence Hall, John Nixon, a member of the Revolutionary
Committee of Safety, made the first public announcement of the
Declaration of Independence. He read the immortal document in
full to a tense throng of citizens on July 8, 1776. More than a decade
earlier, on October 25, 1765, Philadelphia merchants had met in the
square and adopted a resolution to boycott British merchandise- a
stern retaliation against the obnoxious Stamp Act. On October 16,
1773, several weeks prior to the Boston Tea Party, Philadelphia pa
triots gathered here to devise measures for turning back the tea ship
Polly.

Its early name of State House Yard was given the plot of ground
at the time when it was purchased (in 1730) as the site for a state
house. The yard, near the then western limits of the city, at first ex
tended from Chestnut Street halfway to Walnut ; the remaining lots
on Fifth, Sixth, and Walnut Streets were acquired at various times
prior to the Revolution. Successive acts, the first in 1736, ordered the
ground south of the State House to be retained as a public green for
ever ; but the American Philosophical Society building, which still
stands, encroached upon it, as did the Quarter Sessions Courthouse,
which was removed in 1902.

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

The square was entirely restored in 1875. In 1915-16 it was again
reconstructed, and 56 gas lamps of antique pattern, one for each
signer of the Declaration of Independence, were installed. The four-
acre rectangular tract measures 396 by 510 feet.

In Colonial times the square was surrounded by a brick wall seven
or eight feet high, with an immense central gateway and wooden
door on the Walnut Street side. Prior to 1812, the city of Philadelphia
reduced the height of the wall to three feet along Fifth and Sixth
Streets and placed upon it an iron railing fixed into stone coping.
The wall paralleling Walnut Street, however, was not reduced to a
corresponding height until 1813. At that time an iron gateway, flanked
by marble posts surmounted by lamps, replaced the large double
wooden doors which opened inwardly. These gates were removed in
1876 and have been replaced by a low brick wall.

In the center of the square stands a bronze statue of Commodore
John Barry. The work of Samuel Murray, this statue is a gift to the
city from the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, of which organization
Barry was a member. It was erected in 1907 at a cost of $10,000. An
iron chain which once surrounded the statue was stolen one night
in 1910 and has never been replaced.

Among the trees in the square are 13 red oaks, one for each
of the original Colonies, planted by the National Association of
Gardeners on October 11, 1926. The roots of each tree are nurtured in
soil brought from the State the tree represents. The Independence
Square fountain, with separate drinking outlets for humans, birds,
and dogs, originally stood in the Centennial Exhibition grounds in
Fairmount Park. It is maintained by the Sons of Temperance Society,
and a special guard keeps it supplied with ice during the summer
months.

Measures to protect the buildings in the square against fire have
been taken in response to public insistence. The present dry-head
sprinkler system consists of a network of pipes extending to all the
buildings. In the event of fire, the pipes release a downpour that
covers the exteriors with water deemed sufficient to check the blaze
until firemen arrive. The system is tested in semiannual drills. Two
truck companies, five engine companies, one pipe-line squad, and a
rescue squad take part in these drills. Employees participate in
weekly fire drills.

The city of Philadelphia acquired the entire property of the
Independence Square group in 1816, receiving a formally executed
deed from the State upon the payment of $70,000. More than 500,000
persons annually visit the National Museum housed in the buildings
of the group.

320

INDEPENDENCE SQUARE GROUP

Independence Hall

On Chestnut St. midway between" 5th and
6th. Open daily 8:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Ad
mission free. Visitors and teachers can ob
tain the services of a guide upon application
to the curator.

ANY episodes entitle Independence Hall to lasting fame. Within
its walls, on July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence re
ceived the signatures which made it official. Here, on June 16, 1775,
the Congress had given Washington command of the undisciplined,
inadequately armed Continental Army which later became the
weapon that defeated England. Here, on July 9, 1778, the Articles of
Confederation were ratified, welding the Thirteen Colonies into one
union. And here, on September 17, 1787, the Constitution was drawn
up as the Nation s basic law, superseding the Articles of Confedera
tion, which the swift march of events had outmoded.

The convention at which the Constitution was framed had been
called ostensibly to revise the Articles of Confederation and was held
behind closed doors. This subterfuge was necessitated by reluctance
of the various States to place governmental authority in the hands of
a central body. The secrecy had the effect of forestalling any vigorous
action on the part of the general public toward inserting provisions
that would be inimical to the interests of the leaders.

Construction of Independence Hall was begun in 1732, and in 1736,
while still in an unfinished condition, it was occupied by the Provin
cial Assembly, which used it continuously until May 10, 1775, when
the Second Continental Congress took possession. It was before the
latter body, on June 7, 1776, that Richard Henry Lee, obeying the
instructions of the Virginia Assembly, moved the resolution :

That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be,
free and independent States; that they are absolved from
all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political
connection between them and the State of Great Britain
is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.

At that same moment, Britain s German mercenaries were riding
the high seas towards the seething Colonies, and fortifications were
sprouting along Boston harbor (Charlestown) . The pressing need of
organizing military forces took several of the delegates away from
their legislative duties.

Lee s first speech on the resolution reveals some idea of the high
purpose that actuated the Congress. Said Lee :

321

Barry Statue and Independence Hall
"Father of the American Navy"

INDEPENDENCE SQUARE GROUP

Let this happy day give birth to an American republic.
The eyes of Europe are fixed upon us; she demands of
us a living example of freedom ... If we are not this
day wanting in our duty to our country, the names of the
American Legislators of 76 will be placed by posterity
at the side of these . . . whose memory . . . forever
will be dear.

The absolutely secret debate and the meager records kept by the
beleaguered delegates account in part for conflicting versions of the
exciting events. Three days of deliberation upon the resolution ended
with its postponement until July 1, to allow various Provincial con
ventions time to meet and adopt an authoritative stand. Meanwhile,
a committee headed by Thomas Jefferson was chosen to draw up the
Declaration of Independence "in case the Congress agree thereto."

July 1 was a hot, sultry day. Through open windows of the old
State House came a plague of flies to harass the assembled delegates,
and the air outside pulsated with heat waves and the emotions of an
aroused populace.

Towards the close of the first day the vote showed nine Colonies
favoring the resolution. The final vote, postponed to the next day,
was unanimous, due partly to the spectacular efforts of several dele
gates. Memorable among these was Caesar Rodney, w^ho, suffering
from a life-long affliction, rode 80 miles on horseback from Dover,
Del. He arrived, half-dead from pain and fatigue, in time to break
the deadlock in the Delaware delegation.

This was on July 2. July 4 is celebrated as Independence Day be
cause on that day Jefferson s draft of the Declaration was made
official by the signatures of John Hancock, the Speaker, and Charles
Thompson, the Secretary. However, this was not before Jefferson had
watched in misery while Franklin and Adams performed forensic
surgery upon his brain child, deleting, as a concession to the southern
Colonies, the section on slavery, and curbing his rhetorical flights.

Most historians agree that the delegates did not immediately affix
their signatures. Considerable confusion, resulting from divergent
accounts by Jefferson and Thomas McKean, both present at the time,
later arose on this point. Historical evidence, in contradiction of
Jefferson s letters, points to the fact that the delegates signatures
were not affixed to the Declaration until August 2, when a copy had
been engrossed on parchment. At that time Franklin, in the midst
of the solemn hush that followed the signing, remarked dryly :
"Gentlemen, we must now all hang together, or we shall most as
suredly hang separately."

On July 8, after the Declaration had been printed on broadsides
for distribution among the Colonies, public announcement of the
document was made ; the great bell in the State House tower rang
in a new era of history.

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The LIBERTY BELL, in the rear of the first floor corridor, is
identified in popular imagination with the ideal of freedom. The
great and famous of all lands have paid it homage. But it was not
always thus. This now priceless symbol of liberty was regarded as a
worthless nuisance by the early authorities- It was originally cast in
1751, at the cost of 60, 14 shillings, and five pence, by Thomas
Lister, in London s Whitechapel. The bell, weighing 2,080 pounds,
arrived in Philadelphia late in August 1752. While being tested, it
cracked under the impact of the clapper. Two ambitious men, Pass
and Stow, undertook to recast it. The town wags derided the morti
fied workmen when the new bell, rung in April 1753, complained in
a sour, discordant voice of the presence of too much copper. However,
its tone was such as to satisfy the most exacting critics when, in June
of the same year, it had been again recast and hung in the State House
belfry.

Then followed a virtual epidemic of bell ringing. The huge clapper,
like a termagant s tongue, was rarely still. It rang for state purposes ;
it rang to summon congregations and to announce meetings ; it some
times rang for no good reason at all. Residents in the vicinity of the
State House became irritated at its perpetual clangor. In a petition to
the authorities they begged to be saved from what they described
as a "lethal weapon," declaring : "From its uncommon size and un
usual sound, it is extremely dangerous and may prove fatal to those
afflicted with sickness."

The Liberty Bell acquired its name in 1776, when it pealed forth
its triumphant notes. One year later, as evidence of the strong senti
ment then attached to it, the bell was removed when British troops
approached the city. It was carted to Allentown under military escort
and hidden under the floor of the Zion Reformed Church.

Following British evacuation, the bell was brought back and sus
pended from its beam. The windows of the belfry were covered with
sounding boards to achieve a better tonal effect. For many years it
did yeoman service. In 1824 it pealed a welcome to Lafayette, when
a gala reception for him enlivened Independence Hall. Its voice died
when the metal cracked during a somber accompaniment to the
funeral procession of Chief Justice John Marshall on July 8, 1835.

Years of inglorious neglect followed. Its thunderous voice muted
and its heroic labors forgotten by fickle humanity, the bell was
offered in part payment for a new one ordered by the city fathers
from John Wilbank, a Germantown bell founder. Wilbank cast and
delivered the new bell, but found prohibitive the cost of hauling the
Liberty Bell from the State House.

"Drayage costs more than the bell s worth," he finally declared, and
he left it there.

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INDEPENDENCE SQUARE GROUP

The incensed city fathers haled Wilbank before a magistrate for
failing to remove the old bell. The magistrate decreed that Wilbank
should pay the costs of the suit, but suggested that if the bell maker
offered the burdensome relic to the city authorities as a gift, they
might accept. They accepted, but with little enthusiasm.

The old bell s peal for freedom, however, had penetrated to the
ears of the oppressed peoples of the world imperceptible waves of
sound and meaning that found an echo. These peoples came in multi
tudes, touched the bell with trembling hands and wept tears of
mingled joy and sorrow at sight of the cold, dark metal whose mighty
tongue had given forth peals of defiance to oppressors. Simultane
ously, the city fathers and the local populace awoke to a shamed
realization of their callousness. Today the Liberty Bell s value cannot
be measured.

The bell was shipped around the country for many years, but its
trip in 1915 to the Panama-Pacific Exposition at San Francisco
aroused so many misgivings that descendants of the signers of the
Declaration of Independence demanded that it never again be moved
from Independence Hall. However, another trip was made in 1917,
when the bell was removed for the Philadelphia Liberty Loan street
parade. It has come now to its final resting place, in the building
where its voice rang loudest.

Special precautions have been taken to safeguard the bell. In 1929,
its supporting yoke having been dangerously weakened by dry rot,
one-inch steel bars were inserted to strengthen it. The bell is mounted
upon a truck encased in a removable pedestal, and in the event of
fire it can be towed out of the building by one man in less than two
minutes.

Encircling the crown of the bell is the prophetic lettering from
Leviticus XXV. 10 : "PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT ALL
THE LAND UNTO ALL THE INHABITANTS THEREOF."

The surface of the bell, which is larger than is generally supposed,
is pitted and uneven on the outer walls as well as in the barrel,
evidence of the inexperience of Messrs. Pass and Stow. The gaping
crack zigzags from lip to lettering. The parted edges are held in place
by large round bolts. The chipped and ragged lip discloses the van
dalism of souvenir collectors and the inescapable misadventures at
tendant upon longevity.

The first real attempt to assemble a historical art collection for
Independence Hall was made in 1854 when, at the sale of Charles
Willsori Peale s effects, the city acquired more than 100 of his oil
portraits. Peale, whose museum occupied the second-floor chambers
of Independence Hall from 1802 to 1826, studied art under Hesselius,
Copley, and West, masters of that day. Possessing talent as a portrait

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painter, he set for himself the patriotic task of preserving the like
nesses of the heroes of the day. These formed the nucleus of the
present National Portrait Gallery.

In 1873 this collection, together with numerous relics and curios
that had been accumulating for years, was taken over by the city as
the National Museum. Credit for this is due mainly to Frank M.
Etting, who was most active in urging the restoration of Independence
Hall, and who became chairman of its board of managers when res
toration was accomplished. The museum has grown to occupy ap
proximately two acres of floor space in the several buildings con
stituting the group. Tasteful arrangement has enhanced the attrac
tiveness which patriotic feelings lend to the exhibits

To the right as the building is entered from Chestnut Street is the
room where the Pennsylvania State Constitution was framed and
adopted. It was also used as a JUDICIAL CHAMBER of the Supreme
Court of Pennsylvania from 1743 to 1776.

Left on the first floor is the DECLARATION CHAMBER. A fine
pedimented panel framing a facsimile of the Declaration of Inde
pendence is set between the fireplaces that flank the small platform
at the end of the room. The crystal chandelier in this room, brought
from Waterford, Ireland, in 1745, is the only one of the original
chandeliers remaining. Lining the walls of the chamber are several
pieces of furniture once used by the signers of the Declaration. The
portrait of Washington by James Peale hangs over the chamber en
trance and is surrounded by facsimiles of flags carried by Continental
troops. The room contains the SILVER INKSTAND SET made by
the famous Philip Syng, goldsmith, and used by the signers of the
Declaration.

The Liberty Bell is near the rear door on this floor. Second in
interest to the bell are the paintings in the National Portrait Gallery.
The major portion of the celebrated collection, is on the second
floor of Independence Hall. Conspicuous in the collection is the
painting, Penns Treaty with the Indians, by Benjamin West, and
three portraits of Washington by his contemporaries, Robert Edge
Pine, Rembrandt Peale, and James Peale.

The second floor contains three rooms : the CHAMBER OF THE
CLERK OF THE ASSEMBLY, the BANQUET CHAMBER or LONG
ROOM, and the COUNCIL CHAMBER, where the Provincial Gov
ernors of Pennsylvania and their councils sat from 1748 to the time of
the Revolution.

The West Wing of Independence Hall is known as the COLONIAL
MUSEUM and contains collections relating to the periods of discovery,
permanent settlement, and activities of the Colonies up to the out
break of the Revolutionary War. This wing was built in 1735, and its

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INDEPENDENCE SQUARE GROUP

first floor was used as an office by the Secretary of the Province until
1776.

On the first floor of the West Wing is the COSTUME COLLEC
TION. Here are a brocaded dress worn during Revolutionary War
times, a suit of boy s clothes of the period of 1750, a fashion doll of
the eighteenth century, and many other articles of clothing worn
during that era. On one side of the room is a collection of old spin
ning wheels. The second floor of the west wing was occupied as a
committee room until 1783. Then it was fitted up for the Supreme
Court of the State of Pennsylvania. The building is a restoration
erected in 1897.

The East Wing is used as a museum. It was built in 1735. The first
floor, which is now one large room with a small hallway, was formerly
divided into two rooms, assigned respectively to the Registrar General
and the Recorder of Deeds of the Province. Examples of military
equipment, including a service sword owned by Gen. Anthony Wayne
and a drum carried in the Revolution, are on exhibition. There is a
fine collection of eighteenth century firearms, among which is the
George Washington rifle and the musket which belonged to General
Wayne. In the center of the room is a small Spanish cannon, some
times called a falconet, used in Europe in the sixteenth century.

An exhibit of china, porcelain, pottery, and glassware is on the
second floor of the West Wing. Included in the collection are a cup,
saucer, and soup plate used at the wedding of George and Martha
Washington, and a platter used by the Washington family at Mount
Vernon. Here also is a sixteenth century brewing jar brought to
America by William Penn ; a pitcher used by Washington ; a jar
which belonged to Mrs. John Adams ; glassware used by Patrick
Henry ; an early butter crock ; and pitchers used by Washington and
Lafayette. This room was occupied by the Philadelphia Library
Company as a place of deposit for its books from 1739 to 1773.

Congress Hall

S.E. corner 6th and Chestnut Sts. Open
weekdays 8:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Admission
free.

T N CONGRESS HALL, during the turbulent decade between Decem-
- her 6, 1790, and May 4, 1800, some of the early scenes in the
pageant of America s national history were enacted. Here Washington
delivered his second inaugural address ; the Army and Navy assumed
a creditable footing ; the Mint was born ; the first Bank of the United
States was instituted ; Vermont, Kentucky and Tennessee were
admitted to statehood ; and the celebrated Jay Treaty of Commerce
with England was promulgated. Here John Adams was inaugurated

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as the second President of the United States, and Washington de
livered his famous Farewell Address to the American people.

Congress Hall stands on ground purchased in 1736 as a site for a
Philadelphia County building. Construction began in 1787, two years
after the Pennsylvania Assembly had appropriated $3,000 for that
purpose, and in 1789 the hall was ready for use.

The first session of Congress had been held in New York City, but
most of the Colonies regarded the arrangement as temporary, and
sought for themselves the commercial advantage and the prestige at
tendant upon a capital city. Considerable acrimonious debate was
indulged in, especially in the Senate.

Stealing a march, the Pennsylvania Assembly, on March 4, 1789
(the same day the new Government met in New York for its first
session), instructed the State s Congressional representatives to exert
themselves to obtain for Philadelphia the seat of the National Gov
ernment, offering for that purpose any of Philadelphia s public
buildings, particularly the newly erected county building.

The House of Representatives passed a resolution favoring Penn
sylvania, but Robert Morris activities in the Senate met with abuse
and ridicule. The bill finally passed was a compromise measure
designed to smooth ruffled feelings. The land along both banks of
the Potomac, "neutral territory" later to be known as the District
of Columbia, was designated as the National Capital, beginning with
the year 1800. Meanwhile, Philadelphia became the temporary
capital.

The newly woven fabric of government was subjected to severe
tests, but its essential strength, based upon enthusiastic popular sup
port, was sufficient to withstand them. Gravest of all was the diplo
matic joust with France, when her privateers strained friendly rela
tions by practicing hostilities upon American commerce. As a result
of these clashes President John Adams issued a proclamation, dated
July 13, 1798, depriving French consular officials of their right to
function. The new Government displayed similar resolution in deal
ing with the Whiskey Insurrection and in conducting the Indian cam
paign, made famous by St. Glair s defeat and Wayne s success.

The exterior and interior of Congress Hall, restored in 1913 by a
committee of architects appointed by the city and rededicated on
October 25 of that year in the presence of President Wilson, are
substantially as they were during the occupancy by Congress. Numer
ous exhibits are on display.

The first floor consists of a single chamber, with a vestibule running
along the front and a double staircase leading to the gallery. Here
the House of Representatives met. On view in this chamber is Joshua
Humphreys model of what is thought to be the ship Americana, de-

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INDEPENDENCE SQUARE GROUP

signed in 1777 and presented to John Paul Jones. Here, too, is a
plaster model of Thomas Jefferson, cast more than 100 years ago.
Also on view is a statuette in terra cotta of Lafayette, cast in America
from a Staffordshire, England, pottery figure, at the time of Lafay
ette s last visit to America in 1824. Two of the original fireplaces
still remain, also some eighteenth century implements, such as a foot
stove, candle mold, hearth shovel, and fire tongs.

In the vestibule is the regimental flag carried by troops under Gen.
Philip John Schuyler during the Revolutionary War, also a flag be
lieved to have been carried during the Battle of the Brandywine.

The SENATE CHAMBER is in the rear of the second floor. The
President of the Senate occupied a platform on the south side of the
room. At first this room had no gallery, but at the suggestion of James
Monroe, one suitable for the use of the public, running along the
north side of the chamber, was constructed in 1795. In the center of
the room in front of the speaker s rostrum is a life-size wood carving
of Washington by William Rush. Among the personal effects is one
of Washington s Masonic aprons. There is also the original commission
making George Washington Commander in Chief of the Continental
Army, and the muster roll of Washington s bodyguard. Other exhibits
include original letters written by men of the Revolutionary period
and a Washington life mask, cast from the original owned by J.
Pierpont Morgan.

In the hallway of the second floor is an exhibition of early Ameri
can pewter. Conspicuous in this collection is a molasses jug used by
Washington and Lafayette while in (Widow Ford s) winter headquar
ters. Also on view are plates, an inkstand, and a chocolate pot.

In the first room to the right is a collection of furniture and silver
ware of the Revolutionary period, including the chair used by Lafay
ette when he was the city s guest in 1824 ; the sofa used by Washing
ton s family in the Executive Mansion on High (now Market) Street ;
the drop-leaf table which Washington used while living at the Fred
erick Wampole farmhouse at Tawamencin, Pa., during the winter
sojourn at Valley Forge ; Jefferson s card table ; a collection of eigh
teenth century spoons ; an eighteenth century sperm oil lamp ; and
a teapot used by Daniel Webster. Other objects of interest are Thomas
Jefferson s cane ; numerous watches of the Revolutionary period ; and
a collection of spectacles, including the silver-rimmed pair worn by
George Washington.

In the second room to the right, UNITED STATES COIN ROOM,
is a collection of American coins found during the demolition of the
first United States Mint building on North Seventh Street. They are
the only specimens in existence of planchets and slugs in gold, silver,
and copper from which our first coins were made. There also is a boot

329

Congress Hall
The place of Washington s Farewell Address

Old City Hall

Where the city s statutes artd ordinances were
first passed"

INDEPENDENCE SQUARE GROUP

scraper and other items from the old Mint building. A collection of
early bank notes and a Presidential series of bronze medals from
Washington to Theodore Roosevelt are also on exhibition.

In the first room to the left is a collection of early surgical in
struments, including a number of eighteenth century lancets. Also on
view is an early American jewel box ; a silver loving cup which be
longed to Caesar Augustus Rodney, nephew of the Delaware delegate
to the Continental Congress whose ride is one of the dramatic episodes
in America s history ; a fruit basket made in London in 1763 ; a coffee
pot used by Robert Morris ; George Washington s pocket compass ;
Martha Washington s toasting fork ; a powder horn and bag used in
the Battle of Kings Mountain ; and the ale mug of Admiral John
Paul Jones.

Old City Hall

S.W. corner 5th and Chestnut Sts. Open
weekdays 8:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Admission
free.

PHILADELPHIA S Old City Hall was built at Fifth and Chestnut
Streets in 1791, in architectural harmony with the earlier struc
tures of the Independence Square group. Intended as the seat of the
municipality, the Supreme Court of the United States met here during
the last decade of the eighteenth century. The judicial branch of the
Federal Government, after assembling in New York City in 1789 and
framing a simple code of rules, began sessions for the first time in
Philadelphia s Old City Hall.

The first Chief Justice of the United States was Washington s ap
pointee, John Jay, who later arranged with England the important
commercial treaty which bears his name. The first case of note to
come before the Court was the "State of Georgia v. Brailsford and
others," concerning a bond, given by persons alleged to be aliens,
which was sequestered by the State of Georgia.

Virtually all the cases to come before the Court during its occu
pancy of Old City Hall were of a type that distinguished the rights of
the citizens from those of the States. At this period the Justices served
also as circuit judges whenever the Supreme Court was not in session.

City Council met in the building until 1854, although the Mayor s
office was moved in 1816 to Independence Hall, purchased that year by
the city. After 1800, with the removal of the State capital to Lancaster
and transfer of the Federal Government to Washington, Philadelphia
became less prominent in the affairs of Pennsylvania and the Nation.

331

I I

ttfcl

.,,.

Doorway of the American Philosophical Society Building
Portal of Savants.

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Old City Hall, like Congress Hall, is in scale with the central
unit, their similar crowning cupolas balancing the central tower. The
identical theme of their architecture makes these two almost twin
structures.

To the left as one enters Old City Hall is the OFFICE OF THE
MAYOR. The only article left in this room from the time the first
mayor occupied the building Matthew Clarkson, who served dur
ing the yellow-fever epidemic of 1793 is a built-in wall clock im
ported from England in 1789. It has remained in its original position
since the day of installation. A collection of Indian objects including
arrowheads, tomahawks, wooden and stone implements used in the
preparation of food, blankets, ornamental decorations of beads, and
musical instruments are on display.

In the MAYOR S COURT ROOM on the first floor are several
articles of antique furniture and a large collection of ancient fire-
fighting equipment used by Philadelphia s early firemen ; also a sec
tion of an old water main excavated at Ninth and Market Streets, and
Franklin s perpetual calendar which was presented to him in 1774 by
James Moody of London.

In the vestibule on the side of the stairs leading up to the second
floor is a large piece of the elm tree under which William Penn is be
lieved to have negotiated a treaty with the Indians. Here also is a
miniature model of the old battleship Pennsylvania constructed at
the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Several relics reminiscent of the days
when the Indians were on the warpath include an Indian scalp, a
scalp lock, a scalping knife, and a tomahawk. There are also some
pieces of ancient fire-fighting apparatus.

On the second floor is the SUPREME COURT CHAMBER. There
are four other rooms which were occupied by the Common Council
and Select Council and by various departments of the city govern
ment.

Throughout these rooms on the second floor are interesting ex
hibits of scientific instruments. Of especial attraction is the transit,
one of the three with which astronomical observation in the New
World was made in 1768. Other exhibits include ancient locks and
keys, scales, iron chests, a cradle, a model of Christ Church, and part
of the original pew used by George Washington in Christ Church.

The second floor also has a room devoted to old-time Quaker relics
and costumes, a rather rare and unusual exhibit which satisfies the
keen curiosity shown by many visitors in anything pertaining to the
early Quakers.

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE
American Philosophical Society

On the 5th St. side of Independettce Square,
just south of Chestnut St. Open weekdays
9:30 a. m. to 4:30 p. m. ; Saturdays 9:30
a. m. to 12 noon. Closed Saturdays from
June to September. Admission by appoint
ment.

MELLOWED by a Colonial charm of architecture and setting
which belies its eminent rank in the realm of learning, the
century-and-a-half-old home of the American Philosophical Society
stands on the east side of the square, symbolizing a scientific tradition
interlocking Colonial and modern times.

It was built on a lot in Independence Square and presented to the
society in 1785 by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Funds for the
building were raised by Benjamin Franklin and his associates. The
society shelters a group founded by Franklin in 1727, and its mem
bership rolls list 12 Presidents of the United States.

The first of these was George Washington ; the most recent, Her
bert Hoover. The others were John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James
Madison, John Quincy Adams, James Buchanan, Ulysses S. Grant,
Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and
Woodrow Wilson. Cleveland, Roosevelt, and Taft became members
while in office.

Fifteen of the signers of the Declaration of Independence ; 18
signers of the Constitution of the United States ; 12 Associate Justices
of the Supreme Court of the United States ; and five Chief Justices of
the United States were or are members of the society. Of 23 Ameri
can winners of Nobel Prizes, 11 are on the membership rolls.

The society s collection includes a copy of the original draft of the
Declaration of Independence, in Jefferson s handwriting ; Jefferson s
desk chair ; portraits and busts of a number of distinguished Ameri
cans, including a Stuart portrait of Washington ordered in 1799 ; a
clock made by David Rittenhouse ; and the instruments he and his
associates used in recording the transit of Venus across the sun on
June 3, 1769. Among nearly 15,000 pieces of Frankliniana are Frank
lin s first battery and his ingenious "stepladder library chair." One
of the finest of scientific library collections was maintained in this
building until it outgrew the original structure s facilities. It is now
in the Drexel Building just opposite, in room 222. Manuscripts, paint
ings, and other treasures exhibited by the society are valued at mil
lions of dollars.

334

Interior of Independence Hall

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE
Architecture of the Group

A NDREW HAMILTON, recognized as the original designer of
^^old Independence Hall, is believed to have drawn his inspira
tion for the hall from James Gibbs Book of Architecture, which was
published in 1728. At least, there is a striking resemblance between
a drawing in Gibbs book and the historic shrine. Independence Hall,
however, represents a more elaborate design than Gibbs drawing.
The idea of grouping the State House with the other two buildings
into a harmonious unit is similar to the scheme used in the construc
tion of the Pennsylvania Hospital.

The warmth of the red brick used in their construction effectively
contrasts with well-studied marble and white-painted wooden details.
The dominant feature of the group is the former State House, occupied
in 1735, though work on the interiors lasted for several more years.
The fine tower was built in 1750 ; a steeple was added in 1753
but removed in 1781. In 1828 William Strickland completed the pres
ent bell tower and steeple, a close copy of the original. By that time
the old structure had long been known as Independence Hall.

The handsome Chestnut Street facade attains its dignity by the
stress of horizontal lines and repetition of finely proportioned windows
and blue soapstone panels. Soapstone belt courses connect the key
stones of the first-floor windows and the second-floor sills. The en
trance, approached by four steps, contains a high, simple door
way, which is deeply recessed. Where the pitch of the roof breaks
into a flat gambrel, a balustrade connecting the quadruple end
chimneys repeats the line of the beautiful cornice. Four drain spouts
and the quoined corners are the only vertical accents. At each end of
Independence Hall are unusual triple-arched chimneys, each with a
small bull s-eye window beneath. These circular windows were origi
nally used for the State House clock dials. The clockworks were in the
center of the attic with connecting rods to each dial. Details of orna
ment that usually pass unnoticed are the grotesque keystones with
carved heads, over the windows on three sides of the top story of the
brick tower.

The tower gives access to Independence Hall from the square. Its
exceptionally beautiful Palladian window above the Doric tower en-
trance 5 the setbacks of the upper wooden sections, the small domed
cupola set upon a larger one, and the slim steeple and weather-
vane make this old bell tower one of outstanding beauty.

Connected with Independence Hall by covered arcades are two hip-
roofed wings. The original East Wing, completed in 1735, and the
West Wing, in 1739, had no provision for reaching the upper stories
by an interior stairway, the only access to the second floor being by
the tower staircase. Both were altered in 1813. The two arcades and

336

INDEPENDENCE SQUARE GROUP

the outside stairways of the wings were removed at that time, and
two-story buildings, designed by Robert Mills, were erected in their
places. In 1896 the wings were razed, and new structures the size of
the originals but with interior stairways were erected, with arched
arcades again joining them with the main building. Their two stories
rise to the height of but one story of the State House.

The American Philosophical Society Building, erected in 1789, is
the only private building on Independence Square. Standing as it
does in its position so close to Old City Hall, its exterior is in keeping
with the rest of the group.

The most outstanding interiors architecturally are those of Inde
pendence Hall the entire ground floor, the bell tower, and the long
banquet hall on the second floor. The chief features of the central hall
are the engaged fluted Roman Doric columns supporting the mutulary
entablature which surrounds the hall, the pedimented wall tablets
and the entrance to the Declaration Chamber on the east side, the
triple archway to the Judicial Chamber to the west, and the fine pedi
mented main entrance with its heavy wrought-iron hardware. The
pediments above the main door and the entrance to the Declaration
Chamber are unusual. Between the curved scrolls at the top are heads
with leaf crowns and beards. A fine arched opening leads to the tower
that once housed the Liberty Bell. This bell tower is the most beauti
ful interior of the entire group. Its open staircase and Palladian
window are masterpieces of Georgian Colonial design and craftsman
ship.

The west room is the Judicial or State Constitution Chamber. Here
are Doric pilasters of design similar to the columns of the central
hall. The speaker s platform, extending across the west wall, some
what larger than that in the Declaration Chamber, has been com
pletely restored. Six small steps at each end approach the large, white,
paneled desk which serves as the rail of the platform.

To the east of the central hall is the Independence Assembly Hall,
now known as the Declaration Chamber. It is similar in architectural
treatment to the entrance hall, but has piers and pilasters in place of
columns. At the far end of the room is a small platform two steps
above the floor upon which rests the speaker s desk. Behind the desk
within a large monumental pedimented panel is set a facsimile of the
Declaration of Independence. On either side of the platform is a
broad fireplace. The heavy mantels are supported at the ends by
scroll brackets decorated with acanthus leaves.

The most interesting room on the second floor is the Banquet
Chamber or Long Room, notable mainly for its proportions, its long
row of nine windows, its fine doorways, and its simple end fireplaces.

Congress Hall, completed in 1789, was found to be too small, so in

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

1793 it was lengthened by about 27 feet. The entrance doorway, ap
proached by five steps, is framed within an arch supported by Doric
pilasters of rough gray marble. The double wooden doors in four
narrow sections are painted white. Above the arch is carved a coat
of arms of Pennsylvania, and above this on the second story level is a
fine wrought-iron balcony. The main feature of the ground floor is
the room containing the speaker s rostrum and the small circular
raised platform which seated the first House of Representatives, both
of which have been restored. Aside from the copy of the original glass
chandelier, the interior is simple in detail. The arched windows,
chaste entablature, and simple gallery are the chief features. The
smaller Senate room above, only slightly richer in detail, has an
ornamental plaster ceiling of Adam design.

Old City Hall, or Towne Hall, Fifth and Chestnut Streets, is a two-
story structure similar in design to Congress Hall, but smaller. On
the first floor is the Mayor s Court Room, which is entered through
paneled double doors, having a large single fan light above. The
atmosphere of the room is restrained and dignified. The long axis of
the chamber runs at right angles to the entrance. Opposite the doors
and beneath a broad arch is the speaker s rostrum set within a bay
and guarded by a delicate railing. Three handsome, rounded, headed
windows form a backdrop. On the opposite side of the platform and
above the entrance is a balcony, running the length of the chamber.
A delicate, old pewter chandelier, now wired for electricity, depends
from the ceiling. Doors in either side of the speaker s platform lead
to the courtyard. The witnesses of the walls, ceiling, and wood trim
is relieved by the mahogany-stained floor and the handsome hand
rail of the rostrum.

On the second floor are several rooms. In these the old fireplaces
have been replaced by mantelpieces over a modern heating system.
It was in the south room of this floor that the Supreme Court met.

Beitjamin Franklin s Chair
Presto! It Became a Library Stepladder.

338

CARPENTERS HALL

In Carpenters Court, extending south from
Chestnut St., between 3d and 4th. Open
weekdays 9 a. m. to 4 p. in. Admission free.

AS INDEPENDENCE HALL was the forge on which the sword
of liberty was shaped, so Carpenters Hall two squares east,
and home of one of the Colonies first crafts guilds was the
foundry in which the chains of British oppression were converted into
the steel weapons of resistance.

It was here, in 1774 and by a singular coincidence, on July 4
that the Committee of the City and County of Philadelphia appointed
a subcommittee to prepare plans for a Provincial conference.

It was here, in spite of hints by the Royalist press that the necks
of both participants and abettors "might be inconveniently length
ened," that the First Continental Congress assembled on September
5, 1774.

The Society of Carpenters was organized in 1724 by master car
penters of Colonial Philadelphia for the dissemination of architec
tural instruction, and assistance of needy members of the craft. The
craftsmen s guild was incorporated in 1790 as the Carpenters Com
pany of Philadelphia. Members began construction of the hall in
1770, and although the guild held its first meeting there the follow
ing January, the structure remained unfinished throughout the tur
bulent Revolutionary period. It was not completed until 1792.

Meantime, years of suffering under the heel of oppression had been
capped by numerous outrages against Colonials on the part of British
Regulars. Finally the advent of arbitrary taxation fanned the smolder
ing flame of protest so that it spread to local legislative assemblies.

Convinced that the time was ripe for action, leading patriots urged
that the Colonies call a convention and voice their united protests.
The meeting was called for September 5, and its sponsors, in order to
avoid interference with the session of the State Assembly in the State
House, chose Carpenters Hall as their meeting place.

Three years later, when British troops occupied the city, the hall
was converted into a barracks. Grimly reminiscent of that chapter in
its history is the bullet-riddled metal ball, now displayed in the hall
way. Once a part of the weather vane atop the cupola of the building,
this ball was used as a target by Redcoats intent on improving their
marksmanship. In 1787 the building was occupied by the Commissary
General of Military Stores of the Continental Army.

The communal value of the building was by no means limited to
its wartime service, however, for it served with nearly equal promi
nence in the advancement of trade, finance, and culture. Subsequent
to its evacuation by the British, it quartered a meeting called to for-

339

CARPENTERS HALL

111

Hill

Carpenter s Hall

CARPENTER S HALL

mulate plans for encouraging American manufacture of linens,
woolens, and other textiles. That meeting laid the groundwork of
the great textile industry in Philadelphia today.

In the field of letters, it is a matter of record that the great collec
tion of the present Free Library of Philadelphia had its nucleus in
the volumes that lined the bookshelves of Carpenters Hall between
1773 and 1790.

It was in Carpenters Hall that the first Bank of the United States
set. up its headquarters in 1791. In addition, this historical old
meeting hall has sheltered at various times the Bank of the State
of Pennsylvania, the United States Law Office, United States Custom
House, Apprentices Free Library, Franklin Institute, and the Society
of Friends.

The high character of the Carpenters Company explains in large
degree the excellence of the architecture of this section, of which the
company s own hall, as well as the old State House, built by Edmond
Woolley, a member of the company, are distinguished examples.

The structure is built in the form of a Greek cross, with four pro
jecting gable ends and a central cupola. It is constructed of brick, laid
in Flemish bond, with glazed headers. The main entrance is ap
proached by five steps leading to the pedimented doorway with a
fanlight. Three fine arched windows, with stone balustrades below,
rest on a horizontal belt course of white woodwork at the second-floor
level.

The front part of the building contains a vestibule and stairs lead
ing to the second floor, which is not open to the public. The rest of
the first floor is one large room, in the rear of which is a huge door
way. This door, the finest architectural detail of the interior, was
originally the front entrance. The original floor lies under the
present floor, and the fireplaces have been removed.

In the southwest corner of the room are eight of the Windsor chairs
occupied by members of the First Continental Congress. Arms of the
Carpenters Company, with the inscription, "Instituted 1724," are
woven into two silk banners hanging on the east and west walls.

Also on view are the original minutes of the First Continental Con
gress, portraits of members, original manuscripts and important let
ters relating to the Revolutionary struggle, Stuart s painting of Wash
ington, and the original painting of Patrick Henry addressing the first
Congress. Among the unusual exhibits is the waistcoat worn by
Robert Morris.

The historic events which took place within its walls rather than
the somewhat meager furnishings which remain as mementos of those
stirring days provide the real interest in this storied old structure.

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

With a fine reverence for their old hall, the Carpenters Company
in 1857 withdrew permission to use it for trade and commercial pur
poses, restricting usage almost wholly to the needs of its own or
ganization, but permitting inspection by visitors during fixed hours.
For nearly 170 years the company has maintained the hall at its own
expense.

BETSY Ross HOUSE

239 Arch St. Open weekdays 9 a. m. to 5
p. m., Sundays 11 a. m. to 5 p. m. Admission
free.

THE flourishing but highly controversial legend of Betsy Ross
and the first American flag makes up in sentiment what it lacks
in proof. The first public intimation of the Betsy Ross story came
from William J. Canby, a grandson of the seamstress, in an address
before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania on March 14, 1870. Affi
davits signed at the time by members of the Ross family state that
this story had been long familiar to them. They are presumed to have
delayed its public announcement because of its conflict with their
antimilitaristic Quaker principles. Nearly all the affidavits stated
that their ancestress lived in the house which is now 239 Arch Street.
No other number was mentioned by them.

George Canby, after the death of his brother, William, sought
among Government archives for evidence to convince skeptics, but
without result.

Unverified statements, attributed to Betsy Ross by her descendants,
avow that George Washington, in company with Robert Morris and
Col. George Ross, went to the home of Betsy Ross on a morning in
June 1776. The story dwells minutely upon the feelings of awe,
reverence, and patriotic excitement that filled her when Washington
produced a rough design for a flag sketched on paper, with the design
showing six-pointed stars, and asked if she could piece it together out
of bunting. She replied that she could, but indicated that a five-
pointed star could be made with a single snip of the scissors. When
she had demonstrated this, Washington and his companions approved
its use. By the next day, having sacrificed a good deal of her sleep to
work at her task, Betsy finished the first American flag.

This version is upheld in a volume entitled Betsy Ross, Quaker
Rebel, by Edwin S. Parry, descendant of Betsy Ross. The book s
jacket calls it "The final answer to the controversial question, Who
made the flag? "

An opposite stand is taken by Joseph Jackson, author of the Ency
clopedia of Philadelphia and other historical works ; Albert Cook
Myers, historian ; Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer, officially identified with

342

BETSY Ross HOUSE

the Historical Society of Pennsylvania ; and other authorities. They
maintain that no one knows just where the first American flag was
made, or who made it. Jackson declares that the story of Washington s
visit to Betsy Ross is "pure imagination, uncorroborated by the
slightest evidence."

He further insists that 239 Arch Street was not the dwelling place
of Betsy Ross, but that her house stood at 233 Arch Street. He bases
his belief partly upon the listings in two city directories issued in
1785 the first to be published of Philadelphia but does not im
pugn the good faith of those who hold the opposite view. Diligent
search has failed to produce incontrovertible proof of where Betsy
Ross lived in 1776.

In Macpherson s Directory of 1785 John Claypoole, third husband
of Betsy Ross, was listed as occupying 335 Arch Street. The dwelling
was on the north side of the street, and house numbers then in
creased consecutively east. All numbers in subsequent directories
increased west. The next city directory issued was Biddle s, in 1791,
which listed the Claypoole house as 91. It retained that number
until 1858, when it was changed to the present number 241, an ad
dress one lot removed from what is generally considered the onetime
abode of Betsy Ross.

So far as the purported "Home of Old Glory" is concerned, Mac
pherson s Directory listed a Widow Ford as occupying 336 in 1785.
The number was changed to 89 in 1791, and in 1858 to the present
239 Arch Street. After this dwelling was selected as the Flag House,
241 was torn down to lessen the hazards of fire, perhaps adding a
touch of irony to what may well have been an error in research. The
house at 239 Arch Street was selected, as Jackson says, "in some man
ner not now easily learned."

Even Jackson, while pointing out the error, makes a mistake in
fixing the Betsy Ross address as 233. He identifies the 83 of 1785 with
the 233 of today, though Macpherson s Directory lists a certain Sellers
as living at 339, and it is that number which in 1791 became 83, and
finally 233. Jackson selected the name and address of Alexander Wil-
cocks as his "key to the situation." Wilcocks lived at 325 Arch,
between Third and Fourth Streets, while the Claypooles resided
between Second and Third. Obviously, Sellers is the logical key man,
as he lived four doors east of Betsy Ross Claypoole in 1785, occupy
ing the address for more than a quarter century.

Meanwhile, because it filled a genuine patriotic need, the story that
the first American flag had been stitched together at 239 Arch Street
by Betsy Ross became part of the legendary history of the United
States, in defiance of all the acid tests of historical research.

The house was built about 1700. It has two stories, an attic, and an
additional two rooms in the basement. Extending across the front is

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

a large coved hood, and above it are two second-story windows
topped with a heavy cornice. A single dormer window extends from
the third-story attic. The exterior is of stone faced with brick, of
Flemish bond construction, set with black headers typical of the
masonry walls of the eighteenth century. Part of the rear is con
structed of field stone, apparently because its use was more econom
ical than brick.

The most interesting architectural features of this patriotic shrine
are its small windows and its doors. It also has an attractive, blue-
tiled fireplace which, except for a few broken tiles now replaced, is
just as it was when imported from Holland. Cupboards in the central
passage are interesting chiefly for the HL hinges.

In the basement, floored with brick, are the original kitchen and
dining room. The kitchen, in the rear, has a huge elliptical arched
fireplace of brick, containing a hanger for open-fire cooking. Leading
from this room to the rear yard is a short flight of steps. At the front
a steep, brick-arched opening leads to the street pavement.

The back room on the first floor is the reputed scene of the dis
cussion with Washington regarding the design of the flag. And it was
in this room that the industrious Betsy, with nimble fingers, is
alleged to have sewed the first flag of the United States. The front
room is used as a novelty shop and contains a small, simple fireplace,
with wood paneling above and to the left. Winding stairways lead
to the basement and to the upper floors ; large double doors lead into
a court.

The rooms on the second floor are three in number: fair sized
rooms in the front and rear, and a small room off the central hall.
The front room is fitted with a fireplace and paneled closets ; at the
rear is the children s room, furnished with antiques reminiscent of
the days of Betsy Ross. The front stairs leading to the third floor
have the original handrail, with fine, carved spindles. The third
floor contains one large room with a very small fireplace, and a small
plain room opening off the hall.

Neglected for many years, the Flag House became a center of re
newed interest only within comparatively recent times. A group of
New Englanders interested prominent men in becoming directors of
a movement which raised more than $100,000 through the sale of
more than a million memberships, to buy and restore the shrine. In
December 1936 A. Atwater Kent, socially prominent Philadelphia
manufacturer, offered to spend at least $25,000 for the restoration
of the house. His offer was accepted by City Council, and the property
was rehabilitated under the architectural direction of Brognard Okie.

In the task of renewing the "Birthplace of Old Glory," old floors,
old boards, and old nails were saved wherever possible ; three fire
places, long hidden, were revealed. A stairway in the front of the
344

POWEL HOUSE

house, long since removed, was replaced, and a door leading from
the yard into the basement kitchen was restored. Where replacements
were necessary, material was obtained from old homes in the neighbor
hood those corresponding with the period of the shrine. A mantel
was brought from one old house then being demolished ; bricks and
window glass were obtained from other Colonial homes. The first
floor front was rebuilt, a doorway was transferred from the western
to the eastern corner of the building, and a new window was installed.

In addition to the rejuvenation of the shrine, the work of rehabili
tation included the addition, in the rear, of the heating plant and
a ladies rest room, at a cost of $7,000. For construction of this, brick
of the Revolutionary period was used.

For many years only two rooms were open to the public, but
visitors now are permitted to explore all eight rooms in the house.
In some can be viewed the actual belongings of Betsy Ross. All the
furniture is of the Revolutionary period, or good reproductions. Bunt
ing, said to be similar to that used in making the first flag, is pre
served in a glass case.

The Flag House is maintained with funds raised by the sale to the
general public of souvenirs of all kinds, such as postcards, Liberty
Bells and other mementos. These may be purchased on the premises.

THE POWEL HOUSE

244 S. 3d St. Eastbound trolley on Chestnut
St. to 3d.

THE POWEL HOUSE, which was occupied by Philadelphia s
last pre-Revolutionary mayor, still presents much the same out
ward appearance as when its distinguished owner lavishly enter
tained notables of this country and eminent guests from abroad.

A three-story structure of red brick, it is flanked on the south
side by a garden recently restored in part. Low, broad steps with
a wrought-iron railing lead to a wide Colonial doorway.

The building dates from about 1765, at which time it was regarded
as pretentious. The street door opens into a wide reception hall,
where the noble arch is a dominant feature. A rich wainscoting of
solid mahogany and mahogany spindles on the banisters embellish the
staircase. Every room is of proportions unusually large for a town
house.

The reception room, first floor front, has been restored as a
memorial to Mrs. Cyrus H. K. Curtis, through whose generosity the
original "Survey of the Old City" was made. The dining room is also
completed. The drawing room, the original of which is in the Penn
sylvania Museum, is being restored by carefully copying details of
the original woodwork.

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Originally the Powel House was surrounded by extensive grounds
magnificently landscaped, with rare fruit trees and shrubbery in pro
fusion, and costly statuary lining the walks and paths. When Powel
was elected mayor of the city in 1775, the house and garden became
the scene of numerous meetings of men high in public life. Members
of the American Philosophical Society, to which Samuel Powel be
longed, sometimes came there.

Washington was a frequent guest ; there are constant records in
his diary of his taking both dinner and tea with the mayor and
Mrs. Powell in their Third Street home. Lafayette and many foreign
diplomats and personages of importance also were entertained there.
When the British forces occupied the city during the winter of 1777-
78, the Earl of Carlisle, British High Commissioner, was quartered
in the Powel house. The nobleman wrote home in laudatory terms
of his stay here.

Often called the "Patriotic Mayor," Powel headed Philadelphia s
government until 1789. The last mayor under British rule, he was
also the first under a free government. His father had been one of
the richest members of the Carpenters Company and the first opera
tive builder in Philadelphia. His wife was the former Elizabeth Wil
ling, who did as much as her husband to make the Powel home
famous for its hospitality.

In those days the neighborhood was considered the most fashion
able in the city, and originally there were only three dwellings in
the square between Spruce Street and Willing s Alley. Charles Wil
ling, former mayor and father of Mrs. Powel, lived at the corner of
Willing s Alley. With the passage of time, however, a number of
dwellings replaced the Powel gardens, until finally only the back
yard remained.

In 1931 the Philadelphia Society for the Preservation of Land
marks purchased the Powel House and the house next door. The
second was demolished, and the garden now occupies its site. This
change has done much to restore the appearance of the old dwelling
to its original beauty.

The Powel House is important not only because it was one of the
most beautiful dwellings of the pre-Revolutionary period, but be
cause it is considered the last dwelling in Colonial Philadelphia where
Washington was a frequent guest.

346

The Powel House

ACADEMY OF Music

Broad and Locust Sts., three blocks south of
City Hall.

FEW American buildings hold richer echoes of the past than
does Philadelphia s venerable Academy of Music. Across its
spacious stage has passed a pageant of the Nation s history
political as well as musical.

For generations it has been the focal point of the city s cultural
life, and the auditorium has resounded to the music of great orches
tras, the elopuence of Presidents and poets, the lyric ardor of the
world s finest voices, and once, in a strange metamorphosis, to the
clamor of a circus menagerie.

King Edward VII of England visited the academy when he was
Prince of Wales, and the memory of that brillant occasion is kept
alive by the "Prince of Wales Box," on the balcony floor to the
right. Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil, was a visitor here on several
occasions while attending the Centennial Exhibition in this city.

The vaulted ceiling has resounded to cheers for Clay and Webster
and Blaine ; it has echoed the impassioned voices of William Lloyd
Garrison denouncing the iniquity of slavery, and of Robert G. Inger-
soll demanding freedom for the human mind ; it has echoed, too, the
oratory of scholarly Edward Everett and John B. Gough.

Many Presidents of the United States, from James Buchanan to
Herbert Hoover, have spoken from its stage. Grover Cleveland and
his bride were feted in the auditorium by an assemblage whose bril
liance dazzled even the participants; there were 1,500 persons pres
ent, including foreign ambassadors, at a dinner costing $25 a plate,
an enormous sum in those days.

On the academy s boards Edwin Booth and Tomasso Salvini acted.
Gallery gods thrilled to the incomparable tones of Adelina Patti ; to
the voices of Albani, Campanini, and Caruso ; to the magnetic charm
of Christine Nilsson. The gilded caryatids have looked down upon
the writhing grace of La Argentina; and they have preserved their
immobility in the face of the astonishing sight of an indoor football
game. There in the very citadel of culture !

To list the actors on the world s stage who have passed through its
entrance would be almost to call the roll of modern history. The
academy has seen them all : personages and near-personages, politi
cal pygmies strutting their little hours, and the authentic great
Lloyd George and Clemenceau, Charles Evans Hughes, the Earl of
Birkenhead, Prince William of Sweden, Galli-Curci, Paderewski,
Josef Hofmann, Roald Amundsen, Jane Addams, John McCormack,
Dr. Charles H. Mayo, Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick, Elman,

348

ACADEMY OF Music

Heifetz, Kreisler, Ole Bull, Rubenstein, Chaliapin, Viscount Cecil
the list is well nigh inexhaustible.

Versatility has been the ruling note in the academy s long life. The
first motion pictures ever thrown upon a screen were exhibited
there. Not long after the World War the Hagenbeck-Wallace circus
filled the auditorium briefly. Dances, debutantes teas, lectures, card
parties, musicales, and even boxing and wrestling matches have
occupied the auditorium or the second-floor foyer ; and in that foyer
many aspiring young musicians have made their first public appear
ance.

The splendors of its past are veiled behind a drab exterior. The
building, designed by Napoleon Le Brun, was completed in 1857 and
was opened with a grand ball which eclipsed in size and brilliance
any event held up to that time in Philadelphia. It had been five
years building, and there had been many periods of delay while
funds were being collected to finance the $400,000 project. The first
opera offered there, // Trovatore, was presented on February 25,
1857, with Gazzaniga, Aldini, Brignoli, and Amodio in the cast. To
this day, opera and concert music have remained the mainstays of
the academy s varied repertoire. In the Philadelphia Orchestra sea
son, music lovers with more devotion than worldly goods form block-
long queues in Locust Street, often standing in line for hours to obtain
low-priced gallery tickets.

Solidly constructed of brownstone and red brick, the sullen ex
terior is unmitigated by the large, arched windows on the Broad
Street and Locust Street facades.

The huge Corinthian columns of the auditorium were designed in
elliptical sections, to provide as unobstructed a view of the stage as
possible. The four steep balconies ; the huge crystal chandelier (orig
inally in the old Crystal Palace in New York) ; the painted ceiling ;
the use of baroque ornamentation ; the caryatids ; and the lavish use
of gold, cream, and red plush coloring all blend to create a gay and
intimate atmosphere.

An interesting feature is the acoustical pit under the floor of the
auditorium, built in the shape of an inverted elliptical dome. The pit
and the domed ceiling of the auditorium were designed to obtain
acoustical excellence. Today, however, engineers doubt that the acad
emy s marvelous acoustics is attributable to this construction.

Extraordinary precautions have been taken to prevent the huge
chandelier from falling. It hangs from a separate iron structure above
the ceiling, and is suspended by several cables, so that if one should
break there still would be no danger.

Olive gray walls adorned with Ionic pilasters and columns ; numer
ous mirrored doors ; window openings delicately paneled in the

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

manner of the eighteenth century ; and brilliant crystal chandeliers
form the decorative scheme of the fayer.

THE FREE LIBRARY

Logan Square and the Parkway (Vine St.
between 19th and 20th). Bus "A" from Key-
burn Plaza ; Routes 21 and 33. Open daily,
9 a. m. to 10 p. m.; Sundays, 2 p. m. to 10
p. m., except during June, July, August, and
September. Closed on legal holidays, except
Election and Armistice Days.
Outstanding features: rare an d original
editions, collections, and treatises ; docu
ments, newspaper and magazin e files ; col
lections of music ; cuneiform tablets ; and
books for the blind.

THE FREE LIBRARY, one of the most imposing buildings along
the Parkway, was erected at a cost of $6,300,000. It is constructed
of Indiana limestone with a granite base and is of the French
Renaissance style. The design of the facade follows closely that of the
Ministry of Marine building in Paris, and is distinguished by a long
row of Corinthian columns above the first floor.

Within the building are a number of spacious rooms well ap
pointed for their particular purposes. The entrance hall and great
stairway are of marble and impressive both in size and dignity.

The library contains a large lending department and a compre
hensive reference department. It also possesses many rare books,
some of them long out of print, and many priceless original editions.
There are also special departments arranged to facilitate study and
research.

Shelf space has been provided for 2,000,000 volumes. The cir
culating department contains 110,000 books, about 30,000 being avail
able on open shelves. In Pepper Hall alone, there are 36,000 refer
ence books dealing with a wide variety of subjects and including
a splendid collection of Judaics and Hebraics. There is also a novel
"circulating library" in the form of a collection of more than 2,000
cuneiform tablets which scholars are permitted to examine in the
privacy of their own homes. The reference department conducts a
business and statistical service, and it has a collection of Philadelphia
directories dating from 1785, as well as telephone directories of every
city in the United States of more than 100,000 population.

Another interesting feature is the library for the blind, which con
tains 21,000 volumes of embossed type. These volumes were pro
vided by the Pennsylvania Home Teaching Society for the Blind,

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FREE LIBRARY

the Library of Congress, and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Chapter,
American Red Cross. This department also maintains a collection
of 9,319 "talking book" records which combine the features of a
portable radio and a phonograph. The records are reproductions,
in the speaking voice, of entire volumes. Books and records, with
return postage, are mailed free to blind persons living in eastern
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.

Collections of connoisseurs and bibliophiles have been added to
the library from time to time. Examination of these volumes is per
mitted, but the rarer books may not be removed from the building.

Among the departments of special interest are those devoted to
law, music, children and public documents.

The law department contains the Hampton L. Carson collection
illustrating the growth of the common law. It consists of 8,000 books
and includes more than 100 manuscripts and 8,000 prints. Another
collection is that donated by Henry R. Edmunds which deals with
admiralty law. Simon Gratz presented a number of volumes devoted
to State trials, while a collection covering early American law was
received from William Brook Rawle.

In the music department more than 52,000 items are cata
logued, including 12,597 bound biographies and opera, orchestral, and
organ scores, all of which are available for home use. In addition,
there are 1,389 books of biography, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and
textbooks, and 39 current musical periodicals for reference use, to
gether with thousands of unbound pianoforte numbers, numerous
phonograph records, and several hundred player piano rolls. Here
also is the Edward A. Fleisher collection of chamber music consist
ing of more than 4,100 items. Mr. Fleisher also presented to the Free
Library one of the world s largest collections of orchestral music,
of more than 2,522 numbers for full orchestra, 1,700 numbers for
string orchestra, and 1,686 concertos, each of which is complete with
conductor s score and all necessary parts for its performance.

The following outstanding collections are also of major interest:
David Nunes Carvalho, collection of manuscripts and documents
relative to handwriting ; John Frederick Lewis collection of Oriental
manuscripts, medieval manuscripts, books on engraving, early print
ing and manuscripts ; John Frederick Lewis collection of portraits,
containing some 88,000 portraits arranged under the names of the
sitters.

A department devoted to children contains on open shelves more
than 8,000 books available for home use, 700 reference books, and
2,500 books devoted to work with children. There are also many
picture books and a number of volumes printed in large type for
children with defective vision.

The public documents department is for reference use only. It

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FREE LIBRARY

contains all documents distributed to public libraries by the Federal
Government and the various States and the more important docu
ments issued by foreign countries, as well as publications of organi
zations such as the League of Nations. It also contains a number of
film-volumes issued by the National Recovery Administration and
the Agricultural Adjustment Administration publicizing the activities
of both these organizations, and accounts of hearings on the codes
of fair competition. A municipal reference division contains docu
ments dealing with municipal affairs in this and other nations, and
much unofficial material relating to civic affairs.

The periodical department receives currently 3,223 publications
of general or specialized interest. It has 47,600 bound volumes and
an extensive index and check list. The newspaper files embrace 235
publications.

An extension department provides library service at seven hos
pitals and three prisons and also conducts traveling libraries and
neighborhood service through 102 local agencies, such as community
centers, fire stations, industrial plants, schools, and summer camps.

Outstanding among the diversified collections and exhibits are the
John Ashhurst collection of title pages and printers marks, and a
treasured group of old Bibles, pamphlets, manuscripts and what
is said to be the world s largest book: Investigations and Studies in
Jade. This book, which required 20 years to complete, is illustrated
in colors, the work of many famous Chinese artists.

The Rosenwald collection, 3,000 books on printing, engraving,
book collecting, portraiture, and book plates, is available for refer
ence under certain restrictions. The collection was lent by Lessing
J. Rosenwald. The extensive Isaac Norris medical library is also
available for reference use under certain restrictions.

There are also exhibition galleries for paintings and prints, a
catalogue department, a binding department, a shipping department,
and a photostat room where the public may have photostats made at
cost. There is also a large reading room and additional reading
facilities on the roof, where an enclosed portion offers protection
against the vagaries of the weather.

The free library system in Philadelphia was established under
a charter granted in 1891, with a board of trustees as the governing
body. Operating expenses are provided by appropriations made by
City Council and by income from such funds as have been donated.

The free library in this city was opened in three rooms in
City Hall on March 12, 1894. A year later it was moved to 1217-21
Chestnut Street, and on December 1, 1910, it was removed to the
northeast corner of Thirteenth and Locust Streets. The present
library on the Parkway was opened on June 2, 1927. The city s free
library system embraces 31 branches, three deposit stations, and 112

352

FRANKLIN INSTITUTE

other agencies, included in which is the H. Josephine Widener
Memorial Branch (open daily, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sundays and legal
holidays excepted). The Widener Memorial Branch is situated at
the northwest corner of Broad Street and Girard Avenue and con
tains more than 500 works of incunabula representing more than
300 different presses in Belgium, France, Germany, Holland, Italy
and Switzerland. It also possesses many lantern slides comprising
biography, history, literature, travel, and other educational subjects.

FRANKLIN INSTITUTE

Winter St., at 20th St. and Parkway. Limited
parking permitted at all times on Winter St.
and 20th St. sides of building.
MUSEUM Open Wed., Thur., Fri., Surt. 2
p. m. to 10 p. m. Sat. and holidays, 10 a. m.
to 10 p. m. Adm. 25 cents. Closed Man.,
Tues., Christmas and Independence Days.
PELS PLANETARIUM Winter Street en
trance facing the Parkway. Demonstrations
accompanied by 45 - minute explanatory
talks : weekdays at 3, 4 and 8:30 p. m. Sat.,
12 noon, 3 p. m. and 8:30 p. m. Sun., 3, 4
and 8:30 p. m. Closed Christmas and Inde
pendence Days. Adm. 25 cents.

THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE, which includes the Fels Plane
tarium, houses a diversity of exhibits such as has seldom been
seen under one roof. The contents of this imposing building
represent man s persistent efforts to wrest from nature an ever-in
creasing knowledge and use of her laws. The exhibits illustrate his
cautious groping for scientific truth and his efforts at practical
application.

The Franklin Institute, named to honor Benjamin Franklin, is the
oldest organization in the United States devoted to the study and
promotion of mechanical arts and applied sciences. It was founded
in 1824 by Samuel Vaughan Merrick, who later headed the South-
wark Foundry, and Dr. William H. Keating, one of the leading
scientists at the University of Pennsylvania. The institute held its
first exhibition in the fall of the same year at Carpenters Hall. It
met with immediate success, and the following year the association
erected a building on the east side of Seventh Street, below Market,
where it remained for more than a century.

During the ensuing upsurge of scientific accomplishment, the in
stitute s hall became a recognized assembly place for scholars from
all over the world.

The present building, begun in 1930 and opened in 1934, repre
sents the culmination of the combined efforts of the institute itself

353

Franklin Institute by Night
"The Layman s Temple of Science

League Island Navy Yard Crane
"A Seadog Home for Repairs"

FRANKLIN INSTITUTE

and the Benjamin Franklin Memorial, Inc., an organization spon
sored by interested citizens. The museum, the first of its type in
this country, is modeled after the Deutsches Museum of Munich,
Germany. John T. Windrim was the architect of the building. It is
of classic design ; having two symmetrical and almost identical
facades, the principal one on the Twentieth Street side facing
Logan Circle. The central portico consists of six massive Corinthian
columns supporting a heavy entablature. The exterior is of light
buff limestone with a granite base. The structure is not yet com
pleted (1937).

The museum of the institute has the following departments :
astronomy, marine engineering, graphic arts, electrical communica
tions, physics, chemistry, aviation, railroad engineering, medicine, a
miscellany of manufacturing exhibits, and the Fels Planetarium.

Exhibits are housed in spacious chambers. It is virtually impos
sible to give a comprehensive representation of all the exhibits,
since even a casual survey would consume about 15 hours. Every
item has been chosen carefully, arranged attractively, and con
structed simply and ingeniously. Particularly fascinating are the
numerous experimental exhibits which may be operated by the
visitor or the guide, thus serving to fix in the mind the scientific
principles involved.

Immediately within the heavy bronze doorway of the Twentieth
Street entrance is a large hall. The painted canvas ceiling of Renais
sance design, profusely decorated in colors of red, blue, and gold,
was imported from England. Four steps lead from this hall to the
outstanding architectural feature of the building the octagonal
Benjamin Franklin Memorial Chamber. The quiet dignity of this
large hall, its design inspired by the Pantheon in Rome, is a suit
able setting for the heroic statue of Franklin which is to be placed
here. Foreshortening of the setbacks within the large coffers of the
dome creates an illusion of height greater than actually exists. The
following representative list of exhibits, a small part of the total,
is arranged in the order suggested by the institute for visitors.

An official greeter, a six-foot mechanical man, was installed in
1934. Nattily dressed in a brass-buttoned blue uniform trimmed with
gold braid, the robot salutes each visitor passing through the Twen
tieth Street entrance. "Egbert," so named at the time of his arrival,
also bows, and in the manner of the perfect host, says, "How do you
do ? I am very glad to see you. I hope you enjoy your visit."

"Egbert" is set in motion by the interruption of two invisible rays
focused on photoelectric cells. Visiting patrons unknowingly pass
through the beams, and the robot s seeming independent action
makes it appear to be a living being. "Egbert" was designed by

355

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

F. R. Marion, a New York engineer, and it is Marion s voice that
issues from a phonograph concealed in the mechanism.

HALL OF ELECTRICAL COMMUNICATIONS: Exhibits here
give a comprehensive history of electricity and its practical applica
tion, from the first experiments to modern times. The nature of
frictional electricity is shown with various types of friction machines,
among them one used by Benjamin Franklin.

The properties and effects of electromagnetism are shown with
various types of apparatus. The action of a simple transformer is
demonstrated, showing the mechanical force due to currents in an ad
joining coil and the attraction of an iron rod to a magnetic field.

The telegraphy group contains one of the earliest forms of tele
graphic recorders. A complete portrayal of telephonic communication
includes a machine which records the "looks" of the voice. Radio
transmission and reception are demonstrated with exhibits includ
ing the early "rock crusher" spark transmitter, the latest receiving
sets, and loud speaker comparisons.

HALL OF MECHANISMS: Here is vividly portrayed the develop
ment of many modern mechanical devices vacuum cleaners, sewing
machines, locks, air brakes, reapers, plows, cash registers, and numer
ous others. In almost every case the new is contrasted with the old.
An especially effective exhibit in this room is a modern bank vault
entrance weighing 35,000 pounds, contrasted with the small hand
made type of safe of 100 years ago.

A sectional view of a modern adding machine shows the intricate
maze of levers between the operator s button and the adding and
printing devices. An automatic mechanical woman, constructed by
Maelzel more than a hundred years ago, writes three verses and
draws four pictures.

A five-ton cross section exhibit of the cables used to support the
Philadelphia-Camden bridge reveals the myriad of fine wires that
compose the finished cable. The first steam coining press, used in
the United States Mint in 1836, is shown in operation stamping out
souvenir coins.

HALL OF PRIME MOVERS: Exhibited here are numerous mecha
nisms which utilize nature s power sources to do the work of man
kind. Various types of steam engines and turbines are on display: a
quarter-size scale model of the Newcomen steam engine, the world s
first successful piston engine ; a half-size model of the Watt steam
engine (1782), the first to use the principle of steam expansion ; the
walking-beam engine built by the Franklin Iron Works in 1847.

Typical of early devices using animal power as a prime mover is
the dog treadmill exhibit. Nearby is a complete hydraulic power
plant with many accessories. So-called "perpetual motion" machines

356

FRANKLIN INSTITUTE

are represented with a model of the machine of the notorious Red-
hefer and one of the more notorious Keely.

PAPER MAKING AND GRAPHIC ARTS: Exhibits in this sec
tion are among the most extensive in the museum. They present a
visual history of the arts of paper making and printing from their
inception up to the present day. Upon entering the room, one sees
displayed at the right and left the most up-to-date typesetting ma
chines used for the printing of books and newspapers. The monotype
which casts single types in justified lines, and the intertype. a line-
casting machine of the latest design, are shown.

One exhibit, entitled "How a Newspaper is Printed," gives a thor
ough visual explanation of the processes used. A press built by Cot-
trell shows the mechanics of four-color printing.

Various old hand presses show by comparison the tremendous
advance made in the printing field. A unique exhibit of engraving
and matrix making is that showing the Lord s Prayer, containing 253
characters and spaces, engraved in a space one-sixth of an inch
square.

The paper-making display includes an exhibit showing how pulp
is made. A working scale model of a Fourdrinier paper-making
machine shows the complete process.

ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING AND HALL OF ILLUMINA
TION: The generation of electrical energy and its uses are portrayed
here. A number of early dynamos include Joseph Saxton s magneto-
electric machine and Edison s original bipolar direct current gen
erators for three-wire distribution driven by a steam engine.

A large collection of direct and alternating current motors give
an insight into the principles of operation and development. Among
other exhibits in this room are experimental generators, transformers,
and arc lamps used by Elihu Thomson in his experimental work;
a collection showing the development of the watt-hour electric
meter ; a group of recording and indicating instruments ; and 25
types of relays.

Especially interesting and revealing are the exhibits devoted to
the development of illumination, tracing its history from the primi
tive pine-knot torch to modern lighting units. A series of striking
settings compare the halting progress of early lighting with the rapid
advances of recent years. Exhibits are arranged successively, show
ing first the "rush lights" and "Betty lamps" used by this country s
early settlers in their log cabins ; then the whale-oil lamps of
Colonial times; then the candle fixtures of the Louis XV period;
then the open-flame kerosene lamps and gas lights of th^ early
Victorian era ; then the incandescent carbon filament lamp of today ;
and finally a glimpse into the future, when artificial illumina
tion may supplant sunlight entirely in all new buildings.

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Exhibits seeking to convey the value of proper lighting as an aid
to good sight include the "sight-light" demonstrator which proves
the importance of sufficient light ; a display treating with the prob
lem of "white" light and "artificial sunlight" in relation to color
discrimination and matching ; and a number of instruments designed
to record the physical characteristics of various light sources.

LOCOMOTIVE ROOM: Exhibits include a number of early loco
motive models, steam and electric. Comparison of the old with the
new reveals the great strides made in locomotive development. The
"Rocket," built in England in 1837 and weighing slightly more than
eight tons, has run 310,164 miles. Nearby is the "60,000," a modern
3-cylinder compound heavy duty engine built in 1926 by the Bald
win Locomotive Works. It weighs 350 tons. This exhibit has been
arranged to move a short distance on a real railroad bridge in re
sponse to manipulation of the controls. Degrees of ensuing stress
and strain on the bridge are recorded on instruments in the hall be
low the engine.

HALL OF AVIATION : Dominating this room is the Lockheed-
Vega airplane in which Amelia Earhart spanned the North Atlantic.
(She was lost in the Pacific in July 1937 on a round-the-world flight.)
A number of exhibits review the history of airplane development, be
ginning with Orville Wright s trial flight in 1903 when he rose a
few feet above the ground at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and lead
ing up to the round-the-world flights of today. A mural by William
Heaslip accurately depicts Wright s first successful flight. Among the
actual aircraft on exhibit is the only existing Wright Brothers V plane
still capable of flying. It was first flown in 1912. Also on view is a
faithful reproduction on a 1 to 15 scale of Col. Charles A. Lindbergh s
famous Spirit of St. Louis.

The fundamental principles of flight are demonstrated with the
aid of several wind tunnels. A model of an airplane engine runs
under its own power and turns a 14-inch propellor 6,000 revolutions
a minute.

MEDICINE, SURGERY, AND DENTISTRY : This section has
many exhibits, all designed to show the contributions made by chem
istry, physics, and mechanics to the development of medical science.
An early model of the Drinker respirator, designed to furnish
artificial respiration over long periods of time, can be operated so
that a doll within the machine seems to breathe. This exhibit is
supplemented by a rubber model of human lungs illustrating the
principles of breathing.

The principles of the electrocardiograph are shown in an exhibit
in which the observer serves as subject. Other exhibits show the value
of X-rays and other scientific phenomena as applied to the problems
of human health.

358

FRANKLIN INSTITUTE

Numerous medical and surgical instruments are displayed in a
glass case. This collection, changed from time to time, includes re
productions of instruments found in the ruins of Pompeii ; a series
showing the development of the stethoscope ; surgical instruments
used during the Civil War ; and devices for the hard-of -hearing. A
dentist s office of 1860, as well as one of today, is shown.

HALL OF ASTRONOMY : The astronomy room is equipped with
two telescopes, a 10-inch refractor, and a 24-inch reflector. Shown also
is a scale model of the 200-inch telescope which will go into operation
on a western mountain peak in 1940, and a sample of the glass of
which the mirror is made. An old 8-inch telescope, installed in Central
High School in 1839 and a source of education for many generations
of Philadelphia students until 1900, has been added to the collection.

Other exhibits, too numerous to mention, are displayed in the
HALL OF CHEMISTRY, HALL OF RADIATIONS," MARINE
TRANSPORTATION ROOM, AND THE FRANKLIN PRINTING
SHOP (an authentic reconstruction of a printing shop of Franklin s
time, with printing presses used by Franklin).

The institute has a scientific library known as PEPPER HALL, which
houses more than 100,000 volumes. The library s wall and Corinthian
pilasters are painted yellow, with details in buff ; the door, windows,
and bookcases are of walnut. A nicely executed cornice completely
surrounds the base of the institute s acoustically treated BOARD
ROOM, a simple and dignified circular chamber in light buff shades.

Its research department includes two laboratories ; a periodical
devoted to the discussion of scientific questions has been published
monthly since 1826.

The board room, lecture room, and library are reached by means
of a stairway of monumental proportions at the right of MEMORIAL
HALL. This, the lecture hall, designed along the lines of the old
Franklin Institute, is a dignified room in the Doric order, tinted
gray, buff, and green. Its walls have been treated with a special
plaster which makes it doubly soundproof. All the walls throughout
the building are padded or insulated with punctured steel sheets
backed by rock wool.

Fels Planetarium

HP HE FELS PLANETARIUM, gift of Samuel S. Fels, a Philadel-
- phian, was the second of its kind in the United States. Its vivid
demonstration of the motion of the heavenly bodies has made it of
outstanding interest among the institute s exhibits. The apparatus con
sists of a hemispherical metal dome 68 feet in diameter, and a pro
jector shaped like a huge dumbbell, composed of thousands of small
devices lights, shutters, gears, and lenses all precisely timed and
spaced. The planetarium, entered through a semi-circular entrance

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

hall of travertine walls and red marble trim, consists of the dome of
the heavens rising above a silhouette of the Philadelphia skyline.
Echoes usually occurring in circular auditoriums have been elimin
ated by using a dome of perforated sheets of stainless steel and pad
ding the walls with mineral wool.

Lights are extinguished, and the dome becomes the dark blue
sky of a moonless night. The demonstration of the planetary system
the phases of the moon and the positions of the stars and constella
tions during the annual journey of the earth proceeds with con
vincing verisimilitude. Phenomena that require years to complete are
condensed into a brief hour.

The heavens can be depicted as they appear from anv pa-t of th
earth, at any time in the past or future. So many phenomena can be
demonstrated that the topic of the demonstration is changed monthly.

THE PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM OF ART

Parkway at 25th St. "A" bus at Reyburn
Plazi. (Onen free, daily and Sniday: 10:30
a, m. to 5 p. mj.

Imnortant exhibits: Period rooms of the
English, French, and American schools; art
of the Middle Ages; cloisters, furniture col-
lections and contemporary exhibitions of
art.

THE PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM OF ART, one of the most
imposing buildings in the city, is situated at the extreme upper
end of the Parkway, near the east bank of the Schuylkill River
and at the southernmost end of Fairmount Park.

This museum, th? chief repository of art in Philadelphia, is the
architectural product of Zantzinger & Borie and Ho- ace Trumbauer.
Its exhibits present a comprehensive view of the history of art from
ancient times to the present day.

Originally conceived as a $5,000,000 project, the museum repre
sented a cos! of $25,000,000 when it was opened in 1928. Although
not entirely completed up to 1937. it reflects as fine an interpretation
of Grecian architecture as any structural effort of modern times.

On the summit of a rock-terraced hill known as Olde Faire Mount,
the building is constructed of Minnesota, Mankato, and Kosota stone
stories of similar tvpe, havrng a wa~in- golden hn^. T he roof, cover
ing an expanse of about four acres, is of blue tile with gilded orna
ments at the corners and ed^es

From its high place on the hill die structure affords a beautiful
view of the Parkway and overlooks the imposing Washington monu
ment on the Parkway Plaza, in the immediate foreground.

The approach to the museum, across the Plaza circle, is up a

360

Zeiss Plnnatarium Instrument in the Pels Planetarium
"... f/ie stars in their courses proclaim ..."

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

series of 68 broad stone steps which rise in five levels to an expan
sive forecourt paved with flagstone, that leads to another flight of 26
steps to the main entrance.

On either side of the five series of steps, cascades of water descend
with a rush that suggests unending motion. And in the forecourt a
great fountain lends color and charm. This fountain was erected in
1932 with funds bequeathed by Henry M. Phillips, an original mem
ber of the Fairmount Park Commission and its president from 1881
to 1884.

The museum is built in three great wings : the main or west wing,
along the western edge of the courtyard ; the north and south wings
extending east, bordering either side of the court.

Maintaining a fidelity to classic precedent, the design of the
museum facade incorporates a certain subtlety of construction such
as was practiced by the ancient Greeks for the purpose of creat
ing optical illusions and to soften the starkness of absolutely straight
lines. The walls were built slightly convex, and other lines were
made to appear straight to the eye by curving them rows of
columns follow an imperceptibly curved line ; the roof peaks and
the steps of the main approach are convex.

Within the pediment surmounting the northeast facade are 13
freestanding, life-size figures designed by C. Paul Jennewein and
John Gregory. They were executed in chrome and gold glazes and
occupy a tympanum 70 feet wide at the base and ranging to 12 feet
in height. They are considered an outstanding example of the cera
mic art in colors. The mythological figures, according to the sculp
tors, signify sacred and profane love, the two underlying forces
which are basic in the development of art and civilization in every
age. Among the figures represented are Jupiter, Venus, Aurora,
Cupid and Adonis. They, together with the figures of a lion, a mighty
serpent and an owl, all made from polychrome terra cotta, symbolize
the influences which produced western culture.

The massive main entrance of the building represents a com
promise between modern exigency and adherence to Greek art.
Ancient Greek temples were built without windows or doors, en
trance being through a large central opening. The Pennsylvania
Museum of Art was built with this in mind the unadorned, severe
looking opening of great breadth rising to the heights of the portico
pillars. This opening, however, has been enclosed with many panels
of glass which admit light to the interior court. This glass primarily
serves the purpose of excluding the wintry winds and the summer
heats.

Just within the glass-enclosed entrance is the Great Hall. Within
362

PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM OF ART

the hall the polychrome decorations of the columns and entablature
correspond with the external treatment, where gilded ornamenta
tion and scarlet, yellow, blue, and green colors are used so effec
tively, following the precedent of ancient Greece. The imposing
grand staircase, which faces the entrance and dominates the hall,
leads to a colonnaded gallery on the second floor.

As one enters the Great Hall, one of the first things to greet the
eye is Augustus Saint-Gaudens Diana, a splendid example of Ameri
can sculpture. This statue once graced the pedestal atop the old
Madison Square Garden, in New York. It was presented to the
museum in 1932.

Adorning the walls of the Great Hall and the adjoining rooms, as
well as throughout the building, are a number of beautiful and price
less examples of the age-old art of tapestry. Tapestries of the finest
weave, some dating back to the fifteenth century and many of
modern design, are contained in this extensive collection.

Among those to be seen in the Great Hall is an exquisite piece of
modern work showing American troops, on the way to France, pass
ing Indepenence Hall. It is a Gobelin made in France and was de
signed by G. L. Jaulmes. It was presented to the museum by the
French Government in recognition of the welcome extended to
French artists by the city of Philadelphia.

Included among the more valuable tapestries on view are an
Arras tapestry from France, made in 1400 and showing a boar hunt ;
a Coptic tapestry, from Tournai, Belgium, about 1600 ; an Esperance,
from Tournai, 1475 ; Scene of Courtly Life in France, 1490 ; Deposi
tion of Christ, Brussels, 1510 ; Beauvais tapestry showing Italian
village feasts, 1736.

The Arras tapestry, sometimes called the "tapestry of 1,000
flowers," hangs in the medieval section of the Romanesque Court ;
the Coptic is in the same section. Gothic Hall, in the medieval sec
tion, has the "Courtly Life" and the Esperance tapestries.

Although the Philadelphia Art Museum is not mellowed with age
so far as its physical aspects are concerned, it has achieved eminence
as a repository of priceless art and rare treasures that date back
hundreds of years, some to the eleventh century. Masterpieces from
the hands of the great artists of the ages and of virtually every recog
nized school may be seen ; handiwork of some of the foremost crafts
men in furniture may be viewed ; superb tapestries, fine marbles,
great clocks, prized doors, specimens of architectural art of every
race and clime are exhibited. And all of these treasures are laid out
in chronological order, thereby revealing the evolution of the broad
field of art in simple fashion.

On the first floor is exhibited the John G. Johnson collection of
art which comprises masterpieces representing the most important

363

East W / ing of Art Museum
"The grandeur that was Greece, the glory

PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM OF ART

phases in the history of painting. It is the largest single collection
in the world that is chronologically listed, except that in the British
Museum.

Johnson, a noted lawyer as well as a distinguished art collector,
left his collection of 1,280 pictures to the city when he died in
1917. The collection has been kept intact, in accordance with the
provisions of his will, and was on exhibition at the Johnson home,
510 South Broad Street, until several years ago, when the house was
abandoned temporarily. The collection was moved to the museum,
where it is rotated, only 300 pictures being on view at any one time.

Included in this collection are representative works of the Italian,
Flemish, Dutch, Spanish, German, French, and English schools,
executed by the skilled hands of the world s great masters.

Johnson began his collection in 1881 and during the ensuing years
acquired works by such famous painters as Jan Van Eyck, founder
of the Flemish fifteenth century school ; Rogier van der Weyden,
founder of the Brussels school ; and Hieronymous Bosch, whose
satirical art forms a connecting link between the Flemish and Dutch
schools. In fact, the collection comprises paintings of distinction done
by such famous artists as Pieter Bruegel, the elder ; Rembrandt,
Rubens, Aelbert Cuyp, Pieter de Hooch, and Adriaen Brouwer.
Works of Botticelli, the Florentine master ; Fra Angelico, Francesco
Pesellino, Pietro Lorenzetti, Luca Signorelli, Carlo Crevelli, Anton-
ella Da Messina, Giovanni Bellini, Titian, Tiepolo, Cosimo Tura,
Canaletto, Marieschi, and Francesco Guardi, of the Italian schools,
are also in this collection.

The German primitives are represented by Lucas Granach, Master
Wilhelm, and Bartholomaeus Bruyn, the elder ; while the French
school is represented in primitive and modern work by Simon
Marimon, master of Moulins ; Francois Clouet, Corneille de Lyon,
Poussin, Chardin, Gericault, Delacroix, Manet, Monet, Corot, Millet,
and others, with the English school having Hogarth, Sir Joshua
Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, Turner, Constable, and Crome.
The Spanish painters are well represented in a group which in
cludes three very fine panels by El Greco.

Among the better known works are St. Francis Receiving the
Stigmata, by Van Eyck ; two panels showing Christ on the Cross
with the Virgin and St. John, by Van der Weyden ; The Shepherd
Fleeing from the Wolf, by the elder Bruegel ; Saint Francis, by
Fra Angelico ; four exquisite predelle panels and some other fine
work by Botticelli, including : Portrait of Lorenzo Lorenzano, Last
Moments of the Magdalene, Noli Me Tangere, Feast in the House of
Levi, and Christ Preaching ; The Virgin and Child with Samts, by
Pesellino ; Pieta, by Crevelli ; Madonna and Child, by Bellini.

On the second floor, the central section contains the Joseph Lees

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Williams collection of Persian rugs, and collections of china and
bric-a-brac, and jasper medallions of Wedgewood.

In the south wing is part of a Romanesque cloister of the eleventh
and twelfth centuries and a Catalan cloister from Saint Genis des
Fontaines, construction of which started in 1086. About one third
of the original structure was brought here, together with stones taken
from adjacent territory, sufficient to complete the erection. Beyond
the cloister is the medieval art gallery devoted mainly to early German
and Spanish art. Next to this gallery are numerous Gothic-Roman
esque details, such as fine stained-glass windows, including the Cru
saders windows (roundels) which are gem-lined and made of full
blown glass, with polychrome mother-and-child theme. In the ad
joining room is a Gothic chapel, interesting in that it has a vaulted
roof and buttresses at each end. The chapel wall is about 40 inches
thick, and the exterior stone is laid in pleasing pattern, while the
interior is of rough gray stone.

In this section there are numerous examples of Romanesque sculp
ture the triple-arched portal from Saint Laurent les Augustins, a
Burgundian abbey of the twelfth century, and a traceried doorway
of about 100 years later ; a wainscoted French room of the sixteenth
century French Renaissance period, which is hung with interesting
paintings and tapestries ; two Italian Gothic rooms from Florence
and Venice and various specimens of Gothic art. Here, too, one finds
an interesting reminder of the romance of old in the figure of The
Knight on Horseback, who eternally rides in the Romanesque Court.
This "knight" is merely a suit of tournament armor bearing the mark
of Lorenz Colman, armorer to Emperor Maximilian. It was brought
from the imperial collection at Vienna and dates back to 1500. The
horse, festooned with armorial trappings for tournament use, bears
the arms of Freiherr Behaim von Schwarzenbach, a German or Aus
trian of the seventeenth century. In addition to the trappings, the
"knight" is armed with a lance, fully prepared for the joust.

A number of exhibits of secular rooms are to be found in the west
wing, including a French-Gothic room that is wood-paneled with
linen fold motif on the walls and a polychrome floor of fleur-de-lys
pattern ; a Florentine-Gothic gallery with flagstone floor and paint
ings in the Giotto tradition by Giovanni di Paolo ; a room from a
Venice house, completely furnished and including a fireplace, a
Savonarola bed or tea chair, and a floor with crushed stone imbedded
in cement, dating back to 1493.

In this west wing there are five galleries devoted to an exhibition
of American art which includes works by Sully, Peale, Sargent,
Eicholtz, Stuart, Thomas Eakins, Mary Cassatt, Charles Rosen, Arthur
B. Charles, Daniel Garber, and other representative artists of the

366

PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM OF ART

seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. This ex
hibit also contains a number of miniatures, a group of eye miniatures,
a large statue of Washington, busts by Charles Grafly, Serge Yourie-
vitch, and Alexander Portnoff, as well as such furniture as a Queen
Anne chair, a splat-back chair, a Chippendale lowboy, and an Empire
style sideboard.

The north wing has two Italian Renaissance galleries of the fif
teenth and sixteenth centuries. The former contains paintings by
Antonello Da Messina, Lorenzo Lotto, and Jacopo di Barbari, and
sculpture by Bertolodo as well as terra cottas ,; furniture, and tapes
try ; the latter has a stone chimney piece in the style of Sansovino ;
chairs, paintings, tables, large wrought-iron candleholders, and paint
ings by Cariani Guardi, and others. Immediately adjoining is another
Italian fifteenth century Renaissance room, with doorways and ceil
ings from Rome, Venice, and Pesaro ; a fireplace of carved wood and
a flagstone floor. A beautiful plaque, The Virgin Worshipping the
Child., by Delia Robbia, is set in the wall. Two large altarpieces are
the work of Masolina da Panicale, and the several paintings by Botti
celli and Fra Angelico. One of the masterpieces in this room is the
low-relief Madonna and Child by Desiderio da Settignano.

The German (Austrian) Renaissance period is represented by a
sixteenth century exhibit from Stiegerhof (Nagerschigg) in Carinthia.
Austria, which includes a white marble fountain, a French table of
the same period, templated ceiling, an interesting tile stove and case
ment windows, as well as a painting by Hans Maler.

The French Renaissance room of the fifteenth century is still in
complete, but it has some fine examples of wood carving, a draw
bridge table, a child s high chair and a high-backed chair from the
Chateau de Cussac. Although the French gallery is not yet perman
ently placed, it has some good eighteenth and nineteenth century re
presentation in paintings by Delacroix, Courbet, Chasserian, Corot,
Jongkind, Millet, and Gericault. It also has some bronze animals by
Barye and several pieces of furniture typical of the period, as well as
an attractive Louis XVI interior from the Hotel Letellier, Paris
(1789), showing parquetry floors, paneled and mirrored walls, over-
door bas-relief, heavy Empire .ornamental furniture, bric-a-brac, and
china of the luxuriant period of Louis XVI.

More humble and homelike is the Dutch room with wooden floors,
walls, and ceilings ; casement windows of stained glass design, tiled
fireplace, alcove bed, and a painting by Jerborch. This room was
taken from a house called "Het Scheepje" (the little boat) , in Haar
lem, Netherlands, which was built by Dirk Dirick. Paintings in the
Dutch gallery of the seventeenth century are by Jacob Ruysdael,
De Hooch, Steen, and Hobbema.

A Tudor room from Red Lodge, West Wickham, Kent, England,

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

dates from 1529 and contains elaborately carved, oak paneled walls,
brick and stone fireplace, large windows, velvet drapes, period furni
ture, and a painting by Antonio Moro. The small English gallery in
cludes several pictures by George Moreland, such as Old Coaching
Days, Fruits of Early Industry and Economy, and The Happy Cottag
ers. There is also a painting by Richard Wilson of Westminster Bridge.
This gallery also shows a London interior of 1760, with plastered,
painted walls, period furniture, and a fireplace of marble and metal.
In this wing there are five galleries for current exhibitions of art.

Close by is an exhibit of three beautifully paneled old rooms
brought complete from the Sutton Scarsdale House, Derbyshire,
England, and dating back to 1724. The bedroom, in the style of Chris
topher Wren, contains a gilt marble table of Georgian style, porcelain
vases, damask drapes, brass candelabra, and a side chair of the
William and Mary period. Another room, in the style of William
Kent, has a mahogany console dating from 1745; English pottery,
and a vase from Delft, Holland ; and the third room, at one time a
dining room and done in the style of Wren, contains numerous pieces
of furniture that have no logical connection with the period, but
are noteworthy because of other details. In this room is a grand
father clock made in London in 1700 which still keeps excellent time
and chimes the hours. All these rooms have original fireplaces, pan
eled oak walls, ceilings, cornices, floors, door frames, knobs, and locks
brought from England direct to the museum. Paintings in the rooms
include Gainsborough s A Classical Landscape, Reynolds Edmund
Burke, Raeburn s Portrait of a Gentleman, Constable s The Locke,
Crome s Blacksmith s Shop, near Hingham, Norfolk, and portraits by
Romney. Here, too, may be seen Hogarth s Assembly at Wanstead
House ; Going to the Hay field, by David Cox ; The Storm, by John
Linnell ; Burning of the Houses of Parliament, by Joseph M. W.
Turner ; Sir Walter Scott, a portrait, by Sir John Watson.

In this same wing there is an interior of the Derby House (1799),
Salem, Mass., with a secretary-bookcase of the Sheraton style, a
Hepplewhite side chair, a tall clock, a mahogany sofa, and a painting
by Francis Wheatley. There is also a room from Wrightington Hall,
Lancashire, England (1748), with a Carlton House desk, Sheffield
candlesticks, silver inkstand, Chippendale chair, an elaborately carved
fireplace with Chelsea porcelain figures on the mantelpiece, a curtain
cornice, and carved wood covered with old damask.

Next comes the German-Dutch kitchen a room from the Muller
House (1752), at Millbach, Lebanon County, Pa. The furnishings
were given by J. Stogdell Stokes. It has wooden beamed ceilings ;
plain plastered walls ; a picture of A Mennonite Woman, by Jacob
Eicholtz ; pewter plates ; slip and Sgraffito ware ; large, stone fireplace
fully equipped with large iron kettle and other cooking utensils ; a

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PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM OF ART

wooden stairway ; a long, crude wooden table ; long, narrow benches
about six inches wide ; an iron candelabrum and an old musket
over the fireplace.

From the same house is the adjoining bedroom exhibit with its rare
wood trimmings, small pane windows, wicker basket, wooden cradle,
small bed, crude wooden table, plain straight-backed chairs, cross-
stitch mottoes, painted wooden chests with primitive decorative
motifs, a triangular cupboard, and quaint pictures on the walls.

Still another old Pennsylvania room in this section is that from the
Powel House, Philadelphia (about 1765) . It has paneled, painted pine
walls ; a bas-relief ceiling, and a white marble fireplace. It contains
two wing chairs, two tables, a secretary, sofa, and candlestick, all
Chippendale style ; two silver coffee pots, four wall mirrors, and a
great clock.

For a time, with the help of Works Progress Administration funds,
work was in progress which would have greatly increased the present
exhibition facilities of the museum. In the autumn of 1937, it was
announced that the WPA phase of the work would be gradually
discontinued.

Art Museum and Old Water Works
Gazing Placidly Across the Schuylkill River

GIRARD COLLEGE

Corinthian and Girard Aves. Broad St. Sub
way northbound to Girard Ave.; westbound
Route 15 trolley to college.
Important exhibits: Murals by George
Gibbs ; Girard statue by Gevelot ; sarcoph
agus containing Girard s remains ; Girard s
furniture and other relics.

THE COLLEGE, enclosed within a 10-foot stone wall and pleas
antly situated in a park-like setting in the midst of a populous
residential section, is outstanding among institutions of its kind.

"To rest is to rust," was the motto of Girard. And that is the key
note of the institution which carries on progressively the work of its
taciturn founder.

Established under the will of Stephen Girard, mariner merchant,
banker, and philanthropist, the college received a legacy conserva
tively estimated at about $6,000,000. Farsighted real estate investments
made by Girard, and careful management by the trustees, have in
creased the value of the estate far beyond expectations. The trust fund
today amounts to approximately $87,000,000.

The curriculum includes a comprehensive manual training course,
grammar, and high school courses. The senior high school offers
a full college preparatory school course, and one to two years junior
college work is provided, at the discretion of the college authorities,
to a limited number after graduation. The college is a home as well
as a school to the students, whose entire maintenance and care are
assumed by the trustees.

Construction of the first five buildings of the college was begun in
1833. On January 1, 1848, the school was opened on its present site,
then known as Peel Hall Farm, with 100 boys. By 1936 the student
body numbered 1,730, and the college group embraced 29 buildings,
including Founder s Hall, an armory, containing also music and
recreation facilities, library, a high school, an infirmary, a mechanical
school, dormitories, and officials residences. Light, heat, and
power are furnished by a central plant at the western end of the
grounds. The college staff exceeds 600. During the 90 years of its
existence more than 12,000 youths have gone forth from its guarded
portals, many to occupy places of importance in the world.

The college campus embraces 42 acres of land extending south
west along South College Avenue from Nineteenth Street and Ridge
Avenue to Twenty-fifth and Poplar Streets, north to North College
Avenue, east to Ridge Avenue at Twentieth Street, and southeast to
Nineteenth Street.

Entrance to the college is at Corinthian and Girard Avenues. This

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GIRARD COLLEGE

entrance, just east of the middle of the campus, is attended by gate-
men who admit visitors through a small lodge east of the gate.

Within the walls and directly ahead from the gate is the main
building, known as Founder s Hall. The structure was designed by
Thomas U. Walter and is recognized as being an excellent reproduc
tion of a Greek temple. Supporting the structure, and surround
ing it, are 34 fluted Corinthian columns rising from a broad-stepped
base. At the ends are wide and simple pediments. The building
is roofed with marble tiles. Just inside the main entrance to
Founder s Hall is a life-size statue of Stephen Girard sculptured
by Francois Victor Gevelot. A sarcophagus, close by the statue, holds
the remains of the founder. Opening from the vestibule are the direc
tors rooms and the Girard Museum wherein are housed the founder s
furniture and many other relics.

While Founder s Hall, set in the framework of a broad expanse of
beautiful lawn decorated with flowers and shrubs, is the most monu
mental building on the campus, the new chapel, located west of the
main gate, is equally impressive, presenting as it does a dignified
exterior with an interior of rare beauty. The chapel, dedicated in
1933, was designed by Thomas, Martin & Kirkpatrick. Bearing in
mind the ban imposed by Girard against sectarian training, the archi
tects departed from all known orthodox ecclesiastical styles of archi
tecture, yet retained sufficient spiritual beauty to make it "a joy
forever." The chapel is of classical design, wedge-shaped, and built
after the Doric style. Within recesses on each of the exterior side
walls are 10 massive columns. At the choir end of the building and
at the opposite or gallery end, four and six additional columns,
respectively, are similarly recessed. The leaded windows are so deli
cately colored as to be effective from both the exterior and the
interior; the great main doors are of cast aluminum.

Inside, the dominant feature is a carved ebony desk surmounting
a rostrum of black Belgian marble with lighter marble forming a
mosaic. A great organ and an echo organ are placed above the ceiling.
A novel mechanism broadcasts quarter-hour chimes across the ex
pansive campus. The chapel Jias a seating capacity of 2,400.

Parallel with the chapel, but located immediately east of the main
gate, is the college library. This structure, which was built with funds
remaining from the allotment that had been provided for the
erection of the chapel, is a square two-story building of white
Vermont marble. It is modern Greek in style, and presents an unusu
ally dignified appearance. The building was dedicated in the spring
of 1933 ; it contains more than 30,000 books.

The high school building, west of the front entrance near the
south wall, was begun in 1914 and completed in 1916. Farther west,
beyond the chapel, is a modern armory which contains a drill hall

371

Founder s Hall at Girard College
"Portico and Stately Corinthian Columns"

Stephen Girard Sarcophagus at Girard College
"Doth the tomb pen up the spirit?"

GIRARD COLLEGE

110 by 220 feet, classrooms, company rooms, and supply rooms for a
cadet battalion of four companies. The instrumental music activities
also center in this building, with facilities for band and orchestra
group and individual instruction.

At the southwest corner of the grounds are the dormitories for the
youngest boys, a group of six houses accommodating 25 each. A
governess presides over each of these houses. To the east of this
house group is the mechanical school, which includes departments
for instruction in carpentry, printing, drafting, forge and sheet metal
practice, machine shop practice, pattern making, electrical construc
tion, painting and auto mechanics.

Along the north wall, about the middle of the grounds, are the
laundry, bakery and shoe repair shop. Just beyond to the east is a
commodious dining and service building wherein is housed the de
partment of domestic economy. It also includes a series of dining
rooms for the five houses of the oldest boys, all of which are sertved
from a central kitchen.

Comparatively new homes (with garages) for the president, the
vice-president and the superintendent of household occupy a wedge-
shaped tract of land at the easternmost end of the grounds.

In addition to the many buildings within the college area, there
are three playgrounds in the armory, five outdoor playgrounds, a drill
field and a playing field, two swimming pools, and two gymnasiums.

The subtle eccentricities of the great philanthropist whose heart
and mind provided this unique institution for the protection and
education of orphan boys boys whose fathers alone have died were
born in a philosophy of good that, despite much adverse criticism,
has accomplished the fruitful results for which Girard hoped. He
wanted his wards to be educated and guided in inclination and habit
in order to assume their rightful places in the world ; he intended
that they be taught the purest principles of morality in an atmosphere
of tenderness such as other boys might expect at home. And to assure
the carrying out of the broad, general purposes of his program, he
stipulated in his will that no denominational or sectarian doctrines
might be taught to the students. He further stipulated that no person
must influence the boys in this respect, and he specifically barred
clergymen of all denominations from the college.

There was, however, no lack of reverence intended in these regula
tions, since Girard, himself, was a courageous, God-fearing man. The
Bible, indeed, was the first book carried into the college. Girard s
insistence on strict adherence to his wishes in respect to moral train
ing was due solely to his peculiar love for humanity, which endowed
him with unusual consideration for all, regardless of creed. Neither
denominationalism nor sectarianism has a place in the college, and
neither must there be any influence exercised against his religious be-

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

liefs while in school, nor hinder a student, upon the attainment of
mature reasoning, from holding such religious tenets as he may prefer.

At the age of 14 Girard ran away from his home in France because
of ill-treatment by his stepmother. He obtained work as a ship s cabin
boy. By the time he was 23 he had won a master s license. His ship
plied between New York, New Orleans, and the West Indies. In 1776,
after narrowly escaping capture by British frigates patrolling the
American shores, he took refuge in Philadelphia where he later
opened a small store. Rising successively through the states of mer
chant, shipowner, and banker, he acquired a large merchant fleet and
established trade with all the leading ports of the world.

Girard s preeminence as a great humanitarian began with the
yellow-fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793. He contributed lib
erally of his material wealth and risked his own life by working
among the victims of the pestilence. He frequently carried out and
helped bury the dead, and labored many long nights in the over
crowded hospitals.

During the second war with England, Girard helped the Federal
Government finance the national defense with ships and money.

Although born a Roman Catholic, Girard developed a peculiar
philosophy from his study of Voltaire and other French writers.
Always a contributor to the Catholic Church, he nevertheless joined
the Masonic fraternity. He believed in a Supreme Being, but insisted
upon the right of a man to follow the dictates of his own conscience.

He died in Philadelphia in 1831 and was buried in the cemetery
of Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church, Sixth and Spruce Streets.
His remains eventually were disinterred and removed with much
ceremony to the sarcophagus in Founder s Hall, where they were
laid at final rest with full Masonic rites.

United States Mint

Where silver and copper become the

coin of the realm"

374

UNITED STATES MINT

Spring Garden St., from 16th to 17th
Sts. Northbound trolley 16th St. (Open
weekdays from 10:00 a. m. to 12 m.; Sat
urdays 9:30 to 11 a. m.; admission free).

THE PHILADELPHIA MINT is the oldest and largest of the
three United States mints. Here it is possible to observe the
process of minting, from metal in a molten state to the finished
product coins ready for circulation.

The mint coins 65 percent of the specie used in this country, as
well as a large amount of coins for South and Central American
nations. It also makes Army and Navy medals and "proof" coins,
which may be purchased. The Bureau of the Mint not only coins
money for the Government, but also assays precious metals for private
owners at fixed rates and collects statistics on the production of these
metals in the United States. The mint can turn out 1,250,000 coins in
an 8-hour workday.

The first mint in the country was established in Philadelphia in
1792, after agitation on the part of Thomas Jefferson, Alexander
Hamilton, and Robert Morris had influenced Congress to pass an
enabling act. The flag raised over the mint was the first displayed on
a Government-owned building.

First set up at 37 North Seventh Street, the mint was moved to
Juniper and Chestnut Streets in 1833, and to its present quarters in
1901. It has been operated as a bureau of the Treasury Department
since 1873, when passage of the Coinage Act made its operations sub
ject to conditions imposed by Congress. Prior to 1873 it was under
the supervision of the Director of the Mint at Philadelphia.

As the mint service grew in its operations and other mints and as
say offices were opened, the supervisory heads of these institutions
were called superintendents, all under the supervision of the Director
of the Mint, whose office is in Washington.

Every process in the mint is attended with safeguards to ensure the
least possible loss in precious metals. The metals are weighed at the
beginning and end of each operation. Steel-grated floors scrape valu
able dust from workmen s feet. Gloves, machine wipers, and hand
towels are gathered up and burned, and the ashes are washed in a
special bath that separates metal from waste.

The metals gold, silver, copper, nickel, tin, and zinc received
at the mint are cast into ingots. The content of the ingots depends
upon the type of coin to be cast. Silver coins are made of silver
alloyed with copper in the ratio of one part copper to nine parts
silver bullion ; nickel coins of 75 percent copper and 25 percent

375

UNITED STATES MINT

nickel ; bronze coins of 95 percent copper and 5 percent tin and zinc.

The ingots are run through rolling mills until they have been
reduced to the required thickness. The sheets pass through a cutting
press, where blank discs are stamped out. They are then passed
through an annealing furnace to anneal, or soften, them before they
go to the coining presses. The discs are revolved in barrels filled with
a burnishing solution and then dried in centrifugal drying machines.

After each of these steps the coins are weighed. If found too heavy,
they are shaved to the proper weight ; if too light, they are rejected.

Next, the blank discs are put through machines, which mill the
edges, then stamp the designs and the lettering in one operation.
Finished coins pass on belts before inspectors, whose task it is to
detect any flaw. Those which survive the rigid tests are placed in bags
and held in the mint vaults awaiting distribution to the various
Federal Reserve Banks, which order them through the Treasury De
partment in Washington. Rejected coins are returned to the refinery
to be melted for recasting into ingots. All silver coins, with the excep
tion of dimes, are weighed separately. If the coins are found to be
outside the legal weight, they are condemned. The weight of the
dimes is verified by frequent test weights, but not all pieces are
weighed separately. In addition, all silver coins are weighed in $1,000
lots before being bagged for circulation.

All these operations may be observed from glass-enclosed galleries
along the sides of the various rooms.

The mint building is of solid granite, rectangular in shape, and
designed in the Italian Renaissance style. A loggia with four Ionic
columns supporting the entablature is directly above the triple-arched
entrance. The first story is horizontally rusticated, the upper two
smooth-surfaced. The entrance hall with six vaulted bays is finished
in white marble with ceilings enriched by gold mosaics. Piers and
pilasters are of the Doric order. Seven circular mosaic murals within
the arches of the walls depict the early development of coinage.
They were designed by Tiffany & Co. A monumental staircase rises
opposite the entrance. On the second-floor landing is a striking pedi-
mented doorway leading into a large, high, octagonal exhibit room
with a domical ceiling, from the center of which hangs a magnificent
crystal chandelier. The walls are faced with red Virginia marble.

Relics preserved in the mint include record books dating from
1792 ; the original of a letter from President Buchanan to the Director
of the Mint ; the first hand press and scales ; facsimiles of Presi
dential medals and of medals presented to Col. Charles A. Lindbergh
and Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd ; and specimens of service
medals.

376

ROADS and
RAMBLES

in and around
THE CITY

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

City Tours

Philadelphia s City Hall is the starting point for all city tours. The courtyard
at the intersection of the two axial streets, Broad and Market, is the heart of
the city.

All traffic passing City Hall swings a half circle around the building. Pedes
trians, however, may walk through archways built into the four sides of the struc
ture. The archways lead north and south on Broad Street and east and west on
Market Street. A large compass dial is cemented in the center of the courtyard.
The cardinal points are plainly marked, and broad arrows point to the corre
sponding axial streets. Thus, west on the compass dial may be used as a guide
to the West Market entrance, which is marked by a red-and-gold sign on the
west arch. The East Market, South Broad, and North Broad Street arches are
similarly designated.

City Hall and Skyline
The Heart of the City

HEART OF THE CITY

PHILADELPHIA S CITY HALL (1) (open weekdays, 9:30 to 5 ;
9 to 11 ; closed Sun. ; adm. free), and the buildings in its
proximity are, in some measure, symbolic of the metropolis as a
whole. A walk around City Hall brings into view many types of
structures, each representing a definite phase of the city s varied ac
tivities.

The granite mass of City Hall, one of the largest municipal build
ings in the world, rises from Penn Square, which covers an entire
city block in the crowded heart of the metropolis. The courtyard of
the mid- Victorian structure encloses the actual intersection of Broad
and Market Streets, main axes of the city as planned by William
Penn, and still the chief north-south and east-west thoroughfares.

Rising 510 feet above the street and topped by a 37-foot statue
of Penn, its hand outstretched in benediction over the city he
founded more than 250 years ago, City Hall tower is the highest
building point in Philadelphia.

This temple of local politics represents an outlay of $26,000,000,
and its construction, attended by much bitter criticism and more
than a hint of bribery and corruption, dragged on for almost a third
of a century. Some parts of the building still lack finishing touches.

Thomas U. Walter, architect of Girard College and of the United
States Capitol extensions, prepared plans for City Hall in 1842. Noth
ing further was done until December 1868, when City Council passed
an ordinance providing for the erection of municipal buildings in
Independence Square. However, in a referendum on August 5, 1870,
the citizenry defeated this proposal. In its stead the voters chose
the present site, then known as Center Square, at one time the site
of the municipal waterworks. A commission created by the Legislature
to handle construction of all municipally owned edifices took charge
of the City Hall project on August 27 of the same year. The body
continued functioning for 30 years. It was dissolved on July 1, 1901.
and city authorities took command in the final weary drive for com
pletion of the building.

John J. Me Arthur, Jr., the chief architect, gave nearly 20 years of
personal service to construction of City Hall. His bust rests in a
niche high up on the grand stairway on the south side of the build
ing. Alexander Milne Calder spent 15 years on the sculptural and

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

statuary work. His huge statue of Penn was hoisted to the top of the
tower in 1894.

The immense masonry structure is treated in a debased French
Renaissance style. Columns, pedimented windows and a variety
of sculpture embellish the four similar facades of white granite and
marble. The total effect is gray, heavy, and somber. Accent was
placed on the four main entrances centering on the facades and on
the four corner entrances by extending them from the main wall.
The corner stairways extend through five stories in octagonal spirals,
their huge granite blocks cantilevered from the wall.

Interiors of interest are the mayor s suite, with its gilded ceiling
and great chandelier ; the finance committee room, with its matched
panels of Circassian walnut ; Council Chamber, Conversation Hall,
and the Supreme Courtroom, which, like the mayor s office, are
decorated in the heavy, classic style with columns, pilasters, and
paneling of colored marble and granite.

The four-faced tower clock, a colossal mechanism with illuminated
dials which are visible for a great distance, has been Philadelphia s
official timepiece since 1899. Shortly after the clock was installed
the city inaugurated a custom which still continues. Every evening
at three minutes of nine the tower lights are turned off, and then
turned on again on the hour. This enables those within observation
distance, though unable to see the hands, to set their timepieces.

In early days City Hall had a private water supply. A pipe line
more than five miles long connected the water system to the Belmont
reservoir in Fairmount Park. Before filtration of the city s supply
became general, persons who worked in the building were permitted
to carry home bottles of reservoir water filtered by a special plant
in the building. When the building was electrified, considerable drill
ing was necessary to run wires through the granite walls and the
three miles of corridors.

One of the greatest feats of underpinning ever attempted was
accomplished in 1934 when the weight of the mammoth structure was
shifted to new foundations thus permitting the Market-Frankford
Subway-Elevated to run in a straight line underneath the building
instead of circuitously a hazardous task, as some of the basement
walls are 22 feet thick, with single blocks weighing from two to
five tons. Huge steel "needle" beams were threaded through the old
masonry, and the final transfer of weight was effected by an in
tricate arrangement of steel wedges. The new foundations are 20
feet below the old.

The task of beautifying the City Hall area began in 1931, and
work was completed July 1935. Bare plots in the corners of the
courtyard were gradually given the appearance of heavily wooded

380

HEART OF THE CITY

miniature parks. The two largest plots are in the northeast and
northwest corners, with a slightly smaller patch in the southwest
corner. In the southeast corner are two relatively small patches.

All the beds are bordered by dwarf barberry, a compact form
of Japanese hedge which presents an attractive foliage. Privet honey
suckle occupies the beds bordering the east-to-west walks. Other
plants growing here include azalea, dwarf box ilex, the spreading
English yew, Japanese holly, and sumach. A compass in the center of
the courtyard acts as a guide to pedestrians emerging from the sub
way.

Beautification of City Hall itself was begun in the autumn of
1936, when a large crew of WPA workers started the gigantic task
of cleaning the million square feet of stone composing the build
ing s exterior. Twenty tons of pipe and 25,000 feet of lumber were
used in the scaffolding, erected to a height of 150 feet. Fifty thousand
gallons of specially prepared paste were used in one of the largest
cleaning jobs ever attempted.

Despite its size, City Hall is too small to accommodate all munici
pal offices. CITY HALL ANNEX (la), standing at Juniper and
Filbert Streets, was completed in 1927. The structure is 15 stories
high, of Italian Renaissance design, with a light gray limestone veneer
covering the steel and concrete. The first three stories of this building
are in Doric style, and the last two in the Ionic style. The middle 10
stories are without embellishment. The building was designed by
Philip H. Johnson. A vaulted open arcade with 11 arches runs along
Filbert and Thirteenth Street sides of the building.

At the northeast corner of Juniper and Market Streets, facing
City Hall, is the 24-story salmon-colored MARKET STREET NA
TIONAL BANK BUILDING (Ib), a modern office building.

Opposite City Hall (to the southeast), covering an entire city
block on the site formerly occupied by the old Pennsylvania Rail
road warehouse, stands the main store of Philadelphia s merchant
prince, the late John Wanamaker.

THE WANAMAKER DEPARTMENT STORE (2) is a distin
guished example of the trend toward cultural and civic enterprise
as an adjunct of commercial activity. Designed by Daniel Burnham,
its broad surfaces are unusually well treated in Italian Renaissance
style with huge Doric pilasters and columns at the base.

Rising 12 stories above the street, with three more floors below,
the store has spacious aisles and attractive displays. The whole struc
ture is built around a Grand Court, six stories high. Concealed in
the court s walls are the 30,000 pipes of one of the world s largest
organs. Hundreds of persons throng the court to listen to the 15-
minute recitals given hourly. During the Christmas season, carols
are sung.

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Also sheltered within the court is the gigantic "Wanamaker Eagle"
of shining metal, a popular meeting place for Philadelphians. "Meet
me at the Eagle" has become a common phrase to many residents.
Ionic and Corinthian architectural details suggest a palatial atmos
phere. A dome rises 150 feet above the main floor and is supported
by a series of Italian and Greek marble arches. At the south end of
the court is a gallery holding the console of the organ and space
for the seating of bands and orchestras.

The policy of the store is to promote originality in decorative de
signs each year. The Grand Court is decorated seasonally in recogni
tion of Christmas and Easter. The Easter decoration exhibits two
great canvases by Michael de Munkacsy Christ Before Pilate and
The Crucifixion and through the year calendared events are recog
nized with suitable decorations.

Rich paintings, tapestries, and fabrics, furniture, and rare objects
brought from the far corners of the earth abound in the store. In
Egyptian Hall on the second floor is the superb painting, The Con
querors, by Pierre Fritel. Greek Hall, on the same floor, in pure Greek
style, is paneled in mahogany inlaid with satinwood.

On the fifth floor is the Eighteenth Century House, its rooms
furnished and decorated with authentic pieces of that period.

Several rooms of a Virginia mansion designed by Thomas Jefferson
are faithfully reproduced in the Old Colony House on the sixth floor.

On the seventh floor on the Chestnut Street side, entered through
an imposing iron grille, is the Wanamaker Art Gallery. It houses
representative art works of five schools English, French, Flemish,
Italian, and Dutch. Included are canvases from the Salon des
Artistes Francais and the Societe Nationale des Beaux Arts, and some
excellent pieces of statuary.

Adjacent is the Wanamaker Men s Store, occupying seven floors
of the LINCOLN-LIBERTY BUILDING (3) on the east side of
Broad Street between Chestnut Street and South Penn Square. The
Men s Store was opened in 1932. The 26-story structure is a modern
office building, surmounted by a tower from which a deep-voiced
bell booms the hours.

Across Broad Street is a low-domed structure built in 1908 for
the century-old GIRARD TRUST COMPANY (4). It was designed
by the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White, and inspired by
the Pantheon in Rome. Several additions were necessitated by the
company s growth. Its latest acquisition, erected in 1930, is the ad
joining 30-story Girard Trust Company Building, on the south
west corner of Broad Street and South Penn Square. Designed by the
same architects, it is faced with white marble and is of a dignified,
classic design.

382

HEART OF THE CITY

On the southwest corner of West Penn Square and Market Street,
directly facing the western facade of City Hall, is a squat structure
housing the MITTEN BANK (5). Directly in back of it looms the
22-story Commercial Trust Building, another bank and office building.

Across Market Street and extending to Filbert is the BROAD
STREET STATION (6), of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Erected by
the railroad in 1880, it was at that time one of the largest railroad
stations in the United States. Built of brick, terra cotta and granite,
it is a highly individualistic interpretation of Gothic architecture,
designed by the firm of Furness & Evans.

Additions have been made to this old five-story landmark, but
the northern part of the building is still in its original condition.
In 1892 foundations were laid for elaborate additions including a
10-story office building. The improved building was opened in 1894
and remains unchanged, with the exception of the train shed, which
was destroyed by fire in 1923. Railroad officials are contemplating
demolition of the building and train shed.

Beyond the northwest corner of City Hall, at Broad and Filbert
Streets, lies the open sweep of REYBURN PLAZA (7), an area
acquired by the city under ordinances between 1909 and 1934. From
time to time, by special permit, various public functions are held
here addressed, concerts, mass meetings, and ceremonials. The
band shell was erected with private funds.

Stretching northwestward from the plaza, the wide smooth Park
way leads directly to the Pennsylvania Museum of Art (see Points
of Interest).

On the east side of Broad Street at Filbert, facing the plaza, is
the MASONIC TEMPLE (8), headquarters of the Pennsylvania
Masonic order (see City Tour 5).

The BULLETIN BUILDING (9), home of the Evening Bulletin,
is at Juniper and Filbert Streets. The Bulletin., established in 1847 as
the Cummings Telegraphic Evening Bulletin, has grown to be the
largest daily newspaper in Pennsylvania.

383

WHERE THE CITY FATHERS WALKED

NORTH OF OLD "HIGH STREET"

cmr H i i L

it-START OF HIKE BROAD

l_2th_

READING b
(TERMINAL

llth

1. City Hall

2. Wanamaker s
Department
Store

3. Philadelphia
Saving Fund
Society Build
ing

4. Department
Store of N.
Snellenburg &
Company

5. Reading Ter
minal

6. Reading Ter
minal Market

7. The Federal
Building

8. Chinatown

9. Franklin Sq.

10. Zion Lutheran
Church

11. Edgar Allan
Poe House

12. St. George s
Methodist Epis
copal Church

13. St. Augustine s
Roman Catho
lic Church

14. The Friends
Meeting House

15. The Christ
Church Burial
Ground

16. The Arch
Street Friends
Meeting House

18. Elfreth s Alley

17. The Betsy Ross
House

19. Christ Church

WHERE THE CITY FATHERS WALKED

City Tour 1
North of Market (Old High Street) East of Broad

FROM the heavy Victorian mass of CITY HALL (1) (see Heart
of the City) the tour proceeds east on Market Street.
On the southeast corner of Market, and Juniper Streets stands
WANAMAKER S DEPARTMENT STORE (2) (see Heart of the
City).

At Twelfth Street, on the southwest corner, is the PHILADELPHIA
SAVING FUND SOCIETY BUILDING (3) (glass-inclosed observa
tory, 35th floor, open weekdays, 9:30 to 4:30 ; adm. 25$, children
under 12 years of age accompanied by an adult, free ; additional fee
of 10^ for use of telescope).

Rearing its black and chromium-ribbed bulk above the lesser
structures of Philadelphia s varied skyline, this pillar of stone, glass,
and chromium stands forth as a monument to modern architectural
achievement.

New as it is, it has become generally known as "12 South 12th
Street," the address of the office building entrance. The Market Street
entrance is for the bank only.

The PSFS building is one of the best examples in America of
the so-called modern International style of architecture. The aim
of the architects, Howe & Lescaze, was so to construct the interior
as to offer ideal working conditions. Broad surfaces of glass admit
sunlight ; restful colors reduce eye strain ; and wide escalators and
fast elevators speed communication between floors. It was the second
office building in America to be air-conditioned. Of particular in
terest is the fact that the vertical structural members of the exterior
have been built on the outside of the walls to eliminate interior sur
face obstructions.

The architecture expresses its commercial purpose. Horizontal
courses of windows and stone are cut by light accents, stone covering
the vertical structural members. Highly polished gray and black
granite on the lower stories contrasts with the light-colored limestone
of the rest of the building.

An enormous window composed of 25 huge panes of glass encloses
the 52-foot high entrance hall on the Market Street side. The lofty
lobby of gray and black Belgian marble contains a modern double
escalator of chromium giving access to the second-floor banking room.

Near the banking room is a course of black marble under a high

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

window of heavy plate glass, which runs along two sides of the build
ing. The only warm note in this room of glass walls and large sur
faces of light gray and black Belgian marble is given by the large
light-reflecting panels of the acoustically treated ceiling. Business in
the banking room is transacted over open counters, the customary
glass partitions being absent.

The entire building is conspicuously free of ornamentation. All
metal fixtures and the sign and the doors are of stainless steel ; the
window frames are of aluminum.

Built in 1932 on the early site of the William Penn Charter School,
this skyscraper contrasts strangely with the old Quaker meetinghouse
next door ; typifying Philadelphia s past and present.

The DEPARTMENT STORE OF N. SNELLENBURG & CO. (4)
occupies the entire frontage on the right side of Market Street from
Twelfth to Eleventh.

On the northeast corner of Twelfth Street is the READING TERMI
NAL (5), principal station of the Reading Company and terminal
for a number of bus lines.

The building, erected in 1893, is an eight-story structure of brick
and cream terra cotta, designed in heavy Italian Renaissance style.
A broad shed protects the main entrance. The top story forms the
architrave of the broad, rich entablature, and a balustrade crowns the
structure.

In the rear of the station, at Twelfth and Filbert Streets, is the
READING TERMINAL MARKET (6), largest indoor market in
the city and a center for the sale of farm products, rare edibles, and
sea foods.

The FEDERAL BUILDING (7), on the southwest corner at Ninth
Street, is one of the centers of United States governmental activities
in Philadelphia (1937). It was formerly the city s main post office
and is now a branch post office, and the home of the Federal Court
and several governmental departments.

The building, erected in 1872, occupies the site of the old University
of Pennsylvania buildings, one of which was the so-called "Presi
dential mansion" built by the State of Pennsylvania for the use of
Washington, but never occupied by him.

Constructed of limestone and granite, the design of the Federal
Building was influenced by the Louvre in Paris. Each story is
divided by a heavy entablature supported by Ionic pilasters and
columns. Above the center of the Ninth Street facade is a huge
mansard dome, a large slated superstructure with tall flanking chim
neys.

The Market and Chestnut Street sides are similar in design to the
Ninth Street facade. On the Chestnut Street sidewalk stands a statue
by Boyle commemorating Franklin as Postmaster General.

386

NORTH OF OLD HIGH STREET (Cmr TOUR 1)

It was from this site, then an open field, that Benjamin Franklin
flew his famous kite into a thunderstorm, and touching a knuckle to
the brass key at the end of the hempen line, demonstrated the ac
curacy of his belief that lightning and electricity were the same.

The low coping that surrounds three sides of the Post Office is the
meeting place of the life-weary of Philadelphia, who bask in, and
follow, lizard-like, the moving sun, feeding their companions, the
pigeons.

Plans were announced in 1937 for the demolition of this building
and the erection of a new structure to house the Federal Courts in
the city.

L. from Market St. on 9th to Race ; R. on Race.

Along Race Street, between Ninth and Tenth, is Philadelphia s
CHINATOWN (8) , a block of three- and four-story buildings, erected
more than a hundred years ago as dwellings. The dormer windows
of the attics, the swing signs, and skeletal fire escapes, intertwining
the decorative iron balconies, give the street a bizzarre effect.

The Far East Restaurant is one building in the block that gives
an Oriental flavor to the row of ramshackle and neglected stores and
restaurants. The recessed balcony with Chinese inscriptions painted
on plaques between the windows, the curved roof, with upturned
scrolls and reclining dolphins and dragons, add the only touch of
the Orient to the drab street.

Placid Chinese, the younger in western dress, tend novelty store,
and serve in restaurants. The older generation, clinging to the robes
of the East, lounge about the sidewalk, smoking, their long silver-
bowled pipes.

Retrace on Race St. to Franklin.

The tour passes FRANKLIN SQUARE (9), which occupies the
block between Race and Vine, Sixth and Franklin Streets, and faces
on the wide approach to the Delaware River Bridge.

The park, one of five originally outlined by William Penn in his
city plan, was at one time the center of a fashionable residential
section. With the expansion of the city, however, the wealthier citi
zens moved out to leave the neighborhood to decay and disrepute.
Some of the brown stone houses along Franklin Street still retain
traces of the austere respectability that once permeated the area.

On the left side of the square, between Race and Vine Streets, is
the ZION LUTHERAN CHURCH (10). It is constructed of brown
sandstone in Gothic style, with a slate steeple and six buttresses on
each side. The congregation of this church was organized in 1742 by
Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, the patriarch of the Lutheran Church
in America. In its first church building at Fifth and Appletree
Streets, the Evangelical Lutheran Ministerium of Pennsylvania was
organized on August 14, 1748. In Old Zion, the second church, at

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Fourth and Cherry Streets, Congress met on October 24, 1781, for a
thanksgiving service after the victory at Yorktown. The national
funeral services for George Washington were held in Old Zion on
December 26, 1799. It was at these services that Gen. "Light Horse"
Harry Lee pronounced his famous tribute : "First in war, first in
peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen." Memorial services for
Gen. Lafayette were held in Zion Church in 1834. The present edifice
was erected in 1870 upon the site of the former burial ground.

R. from Franklin St. on Vine ; L. on 7th.

At 530 North Seventh Street (beyond Spring Garden Street) is a
small cottage haunted by the ghost of a genius who lived there and
knew tragedy during his stay. This is the EDGAR ALLAN POE
HOUSE (11) (open daily 9 to 5 ; adm. 25f), where from June 1842
to May 1844, the "Prince of Melancholy" lived and worked on some
of his best-known stories.

With Poe during this time was his tragic child-wife, Virginia, who
inspired much of his darkly romantic poetry. During the time he oc
cupied this cottage Poe was dependent upon his meager earnings as
a free-lance writer, and he and Virginia often endured acute priva
tion. Here one evening while singing for Poe, Virginia suffered the
rupture of a blood vessel in her throat. That accident was partly
responsible for her death three years later.

The building is a single three-story structure of red brick with
a steep roof slanting toward the front. It is devoid of ornamentation.
An interesting feature is the squareness of the four windows in the
front of the top story. The cottage was without fitting designation
until 1927, when, through the philanthropy of Richard Gimbel, it
was restored to its former appearance, and a museum of Poe s works
installed. Here, in "The Rose-Covered Cottage," Poe wrote The Raven,
The Gold Bug, The Black Cat, Masque of the Red Death, The Pit and
the Pendulum, and other celebrated works. Many important manu
scripts and all first editions are on display. Use of the library on the
premises is restricted to research students, who must make special
arrangements through the caretaker.

Retrace on 7th St.; L. on Noble; R. on 4th.

Just north of the Delaware River Bridge approach on the left at
New Street is ST. GEORGE S METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH
(12).

Old St. George s Church is American Methodism s oldest and most
historic edifice. Its style of architecture is American Georgian. The
cornerstone was laid in 1763, and the edifice was dedicated and oc
cupied in 1769. It is a square structure, with two square doorways
separated by a stone memorial. The huge pediment above the third
floor formed by the gable is pierced by a semi-circular window.

The deep affection in which it is held today was well illustrated

388

St. Georges Methodist Church
"In the shadow of modernity ..."

when its demolition was threatened by the original plans for the
Delaware River Bridge. Protests raised by Methodists throughout
the country, accompanied by a barrage of petitions and letters, caused
a change in the plans. Now the church stands in the shadow of the
great bridge that once threatened its existence.

The walls and roof were built by seceding members of the Dutch
Reformed Church, who, not being able to finish or meet the obliga
tions of their enterprise, were jailed for debt, and the edifice was
offered at public auction. Among the bidders was a young man
of feeble intellect but wealthy parentage, and his bid of 700 was
accepted. The young man s father, unwilling to admit that his son
was mentally infirm, paid the money.

He immediately sold the church to Miles Pennington, agent for
the Methodist Society, and Capt. Thomas Webb, famous in Colonial
times as a Methodist evangelist. Captain Webb preached there very
frequently. He delivered his sermons attired in the full regimentals
of a British officer, with a patch over his eye and his sword laid
across the pulpit. Throngs were attracted by his powerful personality.

Old St. George s Church, one of the evangelical outposts of Metho
dism in America, contributed to the fusing of the newly developed
country with its new religious doctrine. It was in this house of prayer
that Bishop Francis Asbury, the Methodist apostle to America, de-

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

livered on October 28, 1771, his first sermon on this side of the At
lantic. At this church the first conference of American Methodism,
held on July 14, 1773, was attended by 10 ministers, six of whom took
appointments.

Under the direction of a committee of parishioners, in 1837 a
basement was dug to provide adequate space for Sunday School
purposes.

Today, in a small room are still to be seen the desk and chairs used
by Bishop Asbury. Much Revolutionary tradition is associated with
the old church.

On the walls of the church are three marble memorial tablets, one
on each side of the pulpit platform and one on the south side under
the gallery. Upon these tablets are chiseled the names of all the
pastors who served at St. George s since 1769. Among them are four
bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church : Francis Asbury, Richard
Whatcoat, Robert R. Roberts, and Levi Scott. Rev. John Dickins,
an early pastor of St. George s, founded the Methodist Book Con
cern of the United States.

On the right, near Race Street, is ST. AUGUSTINE S ROMAN
CATHOLIC CHURCH (13), which was erected on the site of the
original edifice, built in 1796 by the Hermits of St. Augustine. The
building was destroyed by fire in 1844 and rebuilt in 1847.

The present building was designed after the manner of the churches
of Sir Christopher Wren. Constructed of red brick with limestone
doorway and trim, the building shows strength of character in the
tall tower with its heavy white quoins centering on the facade. The
interior, heavily ornamented, is Corinthian in design.

R. from 4th St. on Arch.

The FREE QUAKER BUILDING (14) is on the southwest corner
at Fifth Street. It was erected in 1783 by those Friends who defied
the principles of the sect and took up arms in the Revolution.

This two-story building is enriched by the delicacy of the pediment
above the main doorway and flat stone arches above the windows.
Flemish bond brickwork with black headers adds color to the build
ing.

The CHRIST CHURCH BURIAL GROUND (15), on the south
east corner of Fifth Street, contains Benjamin Franklin s grave.

The burial ground was established in 1719 in what was then the
outskirts of the city. The tomb of Franklin and his wife is situated at
the cemetery s northwest corner, and is marked by a flat stone with
the simple inscription : "Benjamin and Deborah Franklin," and the
date, 1790. In the same lot lie the remains of Franklin s son, Francis
F. ; his daughter, Sarah Bache ; Sarah s husband, Richard Bache ;
and John Read, Franklin s father-in-law.

390

Elfreth s Alley
"Candlelight and cobblestones

Benjamin Franklin s Grave
Like the cover of an old book, its
contents torn .

,|tf -:\. f

Jfe*

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Near Franklin s grave the brick wall was removed in 1858 and an
iron railing substituted, so that the hallowed spot might be viewed
readily from Arch Street. In 1911 bronze tablets recording Franklin s
achievements were attached to the wall. These were gifts of the late
Cyrus H. K. Curtis.

Other graves within this two-acre enclosure hold the remains of
many men and women who devoted their lives to the cause of civil
and religious liberty, among them four signers of the Declaration of
Independence : Benjamin Rush, distinguished physician who founded
Dickinson College and the Philadelphia Dispensary ; Francis Hopkin-
son, noted composer ; Joseph Hewes ; and George Ross. Also buried
here are three commodores of the United States Navy Thomas Trux-
ton, Richard Dale, and William Bainbridge and the first Treasurer
of the United States, Michael Hillegas.

Christ Church Burial Ground, in the business section of modern
Philadelphia, was purchased by the vestry of Christ Church for the
modest sum of 72. When the original wooden fence around the
grounds began to fall apart in 1772, a brick wall was constructed.
More than a century and a half later the wall was rebuilt, much of
the old material being used again. A Bible, a prayer book for soldiers
and sailors, and other items of historic interest were sealed in a cop
per container in the rebuilt wall, dedicated in 1927.

Retrace on Arch St.

On the right, midway between Fourth and Third Streets, is the
ARCH STREET FRIENDS MEETING HOUSE (16). The building
was erected in 1804 on ground granted by William Penn and origi
nally used as a cemetery. The house has served continuously for
the Yearly Meeting of (Orthodox) Friends. The grounds constitute a
colorful garden of trees and flowers.

For about 70 years no one has been interred there, but within the
century preceding that more than 20,000 persons were buried in the
grounds many of them victims of the yellow-fever epidemic of 1793.

The first person buried there was the wife of David Lloyd, one of
the early Governors of the Province of Pennsylvania. William Penn
stood at her grave and spoke in appreciation of her character and
piety. In the yard also rest the remains of James Logan, Penn s dis
tinguished secretary, who later became Governor of the Province, and
Lydia Darrah, heroine of the Revolution.

The broad, low, red brick building, devoid of all ornamentation, is
typical of the Quaker architecture of the times. The simple facade is
relieved only by a large central pediment and the three small en
trance porticos. Behind the building is an old Colonial watch box.

A big room in this old Meeting House was the scene of many early
Quaker gatherings. The original key is still used, and the original
deed from Penn is preserved by the Meeting.

392

NORTH OF OLD HIGH STREET (CITY TOUR 1)

The ground floor contains three large meeting rooms, and end
rooms with galleries on three sides. Benches are made of wood from
trees cut down to clear the site. On the second floor, in the center,
roof beams are made of hand-hewn timbers.

Today the Arch Street Meeting House is one of the most frequently
used in the Philadelphia area, many of the Society s social functions
being held there.

On the left side of Arch Street between Second and Third is the
BETSY ROSS HOUSE (17), where the first flag is said to have been
made (see Points of Interest}.

L. from Arch St. on 2d.

ELFRETH S ALLEY (18) is that portion of Cherry Street between
Second and Front.

Another remnant of Colonial days, only lightly touched by Time s
effacing hands, is Elfreth s Alley. To the alley it is an alley in name
only now, and the name is but little known there still clings the
aura of the candlelit eighteenth century and the whisper of great
names.

The alley is an echo of yesteryear. Within sound and sight of the
commercial bustle of Delaware Avenue and the humming traffic of
Delaware River Bridge, its houses are still the prim, brass-knockered,
white-doored brick dwellings of Colonial Philadelphia.

Tradition has it that Benjamin Franklin and Talleyrand both re
sided in houses in the alley. If either did, it was for such a brief
period that history failed to record the stay. That Stephen Girard
lived there is certain. Detained in Philadelphia when the British
blockade prevented departure of his merchantmen, Girard took lodg
ings in the house at 111 Elfreth s Alley.

Talleyrand resided in Philadelphia for two years, and there is
evidence that a group of French emigres lived in the alley for a time,
but whether or not the astute diplomat was among them is uncertain.
These emigres were from San Domingo, whence a scourge of yellow
fever had routed them.

For age alone, the houses of the alley would be notable. Three
standing there, among the oldest in the country, were saved from
demolition in 1933 through intervention of the Philadelphia Society
for the Preservation of Landmarks, acting upon the plea of Mrs. D.
W. Ottey, a resident of the alley. In Mrs. Ottey s house, at 115, may
be seen a fine Colonial mantelpiece, constructed when the house was
erected in 1720. Many of the present-day dwellers in the alley retain
and treasure the fine woodwork and handmade glass installed by the
Colonial builders.

The exteriors of the houses are typical of the Philadelphia Colonial
type. Two stories in height, their red-brick fronts line both sides of
the little street uninterrupted by any discordant newer buildings.

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

The windows are wood-shuttered ; the entrances are arched white
doorways, approached by two or three stone steps. Of special note
are several simple but well executed pedimented doorways. In better
repair, this street could be one of the show places representative of
the old Philadelphia.

The alley takes its name from the Elfreth family, whose name in
old documents is variously spelled Elfreth, Elfrith, Elfrey, and even
Elfrit. The first of the name to come to Philadelphia was Jeremiah, a
blacksmith, who arrived from England in 1690. He wished to estab
lish a wharfage and shipbuilding business and acquired land for the
purpose. Public clamor thwarted him, however, when it was learned
that his land had previously been reserved for a public dock by the
Penns. His nephew, Henry, bought property for a wharfage business
on what is now Cherry Street, near Front, and prospered. He married
Sara, daughter of John Gilbert, merchant, and came into possession
of his father-in-law s property, known as Gilbert s Alley. He renamed
it Elfreth s Alley.

To stimulate an appreciation of the alley s historic associations, the
people residing on it have formed the Elfreth Alley Association and
hold open house at their dwellings each year on the first Saturday
in June.

Retrace on 2d St.

On the right, south of Arch Street, is old CHRIST CHURCH (19),
first Protestant Episcopal church in the Province. Here Washington,
Franklin, and other leaders sought spiritual guidance for their service
in the cause of freedom and democracv. John Penn, last male of his
line, is buried near the steps of the pulpit.

Still preserved, and marked by bronze tablets, are the pews oc
cupied by the Penn family, by Washington, Adams, Franklin, La
fayette, Robert Morris, Hopkinson, Rush, and Betsy Ross. Washing
ton worshiped here regularly during the seven years of his residence
in Philadelphia, and the door to the southeast of the nave, through
which he was accustomed to enter, is known as the Washington Door.
The Washington pew is number 58, and that of Franklin, number 70.
Members of the Continental Congress attended a service of fasting
and prayer in Christ Church, shortly after the Battle of Lexington.

Still to be seen are the eight bells that added their volume to that
of the Liberty Bell on July 8, 1776, when the Declaration of In
dependence was first read to the public. These same bells were
removed to Allentown along with the Liberty Bell when Howe s army
advanced upon Philadelphia. They were brought back after the
British had evacuated the city.

In addition to their primary function of calling worshippers to
service and their jubilant announcement of the Nation s birth, the
Christ Church bells were sounded on the eve of marketing days. On

394

NORTH or OLD HIGH STREET (CiTY TOUR 1)

such occasions residents of outlying villages would journey part way
to the city to listen to their silver-voiced symphony. These bells are
referred to in Longfellow s Evangeline. The bells were purchased in
England for about 560 through a committee, of which Franklin was
a member.

The church was established by a group of 36 English churchmen
under a provision inserted in King Charles charter to Penn at the
instance of Rt. Rev. Henry Compton, Bishop of London. The first
structure was erected in 1695 and was succeeded by the present build
ing, begun about 1727 and completed in 1754. St. Peter s Church was
erected at Third and Pine Streets in 1761, as a chapel of ease of Christ
Church, and St. James s Church was built in 1809. The three were
known as the United Churches. Later, however, each became a sepa
rate corporation.

The red brick edifice is a Colonial adaptation of Georgian archi
tecture in the general style of Sir Christopher Wren s churches in
London. It is generally agreed that the structure was built under the
direction of Dr. John Kearsley, one of the vestrymen. Though all but
lost among the drab buildings that surround it, the church cuts a
salient contour in Philadelphia s skyline as seen from the Delaware
River.

The profusion of decoration, which renders the church almost
baroque in its architectural design, is unusual for old Philadelphia.
A feature of the east facade is a large Palladian window in which is
a memorial to Bishop White. Over the window is a heavy entablature
with a rounded frieze. Rows of fine arched windows in both the first
and second stories, separated by brick pilasters and enriched by
delicately patterned keystones, ornament the sides of the church.
The baroque effect is due largely to the detail of the entablature and
balustrades, which are surmounted by flaming colored urns. Much
of the detail work, especially the cornices, arches, and pilasters, is of
beautifully molded brick.

In sharp contrast with the ornateness of the main structure, rises
the massive and severe stone tower, its walls four feet thick and faced
with Flemish bond brick. The tower, adjoining the western end of
the church, supports a wooden belfry, incongruously light for the
mass of the tower. Above this is the steeple. The tower was completed
with proceeds from the Philadelphia Steeple Lottery and other lot
teries, which in the early days of the city were an accepted means of
financing public improvements.

The crown which originally capped the spire was replaced by a
mitre, after the Rt. Rev. William White became Bishop of Pennsyl
vania in 1787. This was in line with previous action of church officials,
immediately following the signing of the Declaration of Independ
ence, in authorizing their ministers to abandon the prayer for the

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

King of England, and to phrase in its stead a prayer for the new
government.

Prayer hooks that have been preserved show the erasure of the
reference to "our most gracious sovereign Lord, King George," and
the substitution of the words: "all in authority, legislative and judi
cial, in these United States." Likewise, the vestry took down several
coats of arms of English kings that had adorned the walls of the
church. Some of these have been replaced recently.

Within the church are the communion silver presented by Queen
Anne in 1708 ; the Kearsley Cup, made in Cologne not later than 1610
and presented to the church by Dr. John Kearsley ; and numerous
other mementos of the institution s early history. The central chande
lier dates from 1749. The original organ, recently supplanted by
the Curtis memorial organ, was installed in 1728. The organ stands in
the curved back portion of a balcony that runs along three walls. The
cream and gold pulpit was erected in 1769. The Lord s Table, built
by Jonathan Gostelowe, a vestryman, after the Revolution, now is en
closed beneath a new altar installed as a memorial to Rev. Dr.
Edward Y. Buchanan, brother of President Buchanan. The octagonal
baptismal font, constructed in 1795, is five feet in height, composed
of black walnut, and resembles in style the old-fashioned wooden pep
per box with revolving top, used to grind peppers. A plain iron ring
encircles it.

The interior was altered in 1834 under the direction of Thomas U.
Walter, architect of the United States Capitol dome. In 1881 it was
restored to an approximation of the original arrangement. Although
the baroque note is less in evidence, the opulence of the exterior is
sustained within the church. Large fluted Doric columns with en
tablature "impost caps" support the arches and separate the nave
from the side aisles. The Palladian window above the altar was the
first stained glass window in Philadelphia. Another interesting feature
is the wineglass pulpit which stands near Washington s pew. It is a
sexagonal goblet-shaped pulpit in rich cream color with gilt deco
ration. The front face is decorated with a sunburst. White wooden
paneling with brown trim adds a note of richness to the enclosed
pews.

The remains of several illustrious early Americans repose in family
vaults in the churchyard. The family vault of Robert Morris, patriot-
financier of the Revolution, stands at the head of the new Morris
Garden of Remembrance. Near the southwest door is the grave of
Gen. Charles Lee, of the Continental Army, and close by, until 1840,
was that of Gen. Hugh Mercer, who fell in the Battle of Princeton in
1777. The churchyard also contains the graves of Peyton Randolph,
President of the First Continental Congress ; Commodore Nicholas
Biddle; and James Wilson, a signer of the Declaration of Independ-

396

Christ Church Doorway

"Here Seven Signers of the Declara
tion of Independence Sleep Serenely"

WHERE THE CITY FATHERS WALLED

FROM CITY HALL TO "SOCIETY HILL"

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AMERICAN
Street / GUIDE

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BROAD STREET

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juniper Street

1. Adelphia Hotel

2. The New Century Club

3. Jefferson Medical College and
Hospital

4. The Mercantile Library

5. The Federal Reserve Bank of
Philadelphia

6. The Federal Building

7. Leary s Book Store

8. Gimbel Brothers Department
Store

9. Benjamin Franklin Hotel
9a. Site of Green s Hotel

10. Old Franklin Institute

11. Ledger Building

12. Independence Hall

13. The Philadelphia Bourse

14. The Old Custom House

15. Carpenters Hall

16. The First National Bank of Phila
delphia

17. The Bank of North America

18. Custom House

19. Krider Gun Shop (Drinker
House)

20. Dock Street

21. Stock Exchange Building

22. The Girard National Bank

23. St. Joseph s Church

24. St. Paul s Protestant Episcopal
Church

25. The Powel House

26. Second Street Market

27. St. Peter s Protestant Episcopal
Church

28. Old Pine Street Presbyterian
Church

29. St. Mary s Church

30. Shippen Wistar Residence

31. Philadelphia Contributionship

32. Penn Mutual Life Insurance Com
pany Building

33. Holy Trinity Roman Catholic
Church

34. The First Presbyterian Church

35. Washington Square

36. Curtis Publishing Company

37. Residence of Robert Morris

38. Walnut Street Theatre

39. Bonaparte House

40. Musical Fund Hall

41. S t. George s Greek Catholic
Church

42. The Cemetery of Mikveh Israel
Congregation

43. Pennsylvania Hospital

44. Clinton Street

45. Camac Street

46. The Artists Union

47. The Historical Society of Penn
sylvania

48. Library Company of Philadelphia

49. Rosenbach Galleries

To SOCIETY HILL (CITY TOUR 2)

ence. Bishop White, first bishop of Pennsylvania and long presiding
bishop of the United States, is buried in front of the chancel rail.
His episcopal chair stands beside the altar.

R. from 2d St. on Church ; L. on Philip.

On the right side of Philip Street, known in Colonial days as
Grindstone Alley, is a plaque, attached to the side of the Philadel
phia branch building of the First Camden National Bank and Trust
Company, which marks the site of the old headquarters of the Union
Fire Company.

L. from Philip St. on Market.

At Front Street, on the southwest corner, is the site of the Old
London Coffee House, where the first stock exchange in America
originated. Attempts to organize an exchange were made in Philadel
phia as early as 1746.

Retrace to 2d St.

Take Market Street subway westbound at the Second Street station,
leaving the train at either the Thirteenth or Fifteenth Street station.
Signs in the underground concourse direct the traveler to stairways
leading to City Hall.

City Tour 2

From Market Street (Old High Street) To Society
Hill, East of Broad

S. on Broad St. from City Hall ; L. on Chestnut St.

AMID the specialty shops and department stores which line Chest
nut Street, one of Philadelphia s busiest shopping thorough
fares, a shining copper marquee sets apart the ADELPHIA
HOTEL (1), just beyond Thirteenth Street on the left. The building
was erected in 1914 from the plans prepared by Horace Trumbauer.
It is 21 stories in height and contains 400 guest rooms. It is con
structed of brown brick with cream terra cotta on the upper and
lower stories, in French Renaissance design.

R. from Chestnut St. on 12th.

The NEW CENTURY CLUB (2), 124 South Twelfth Street, or
ganized on February 8, 1877, and chartered in the following month,
is the oldest women s club in Philadelphia and the third oldest in
the United States.

In 1877 married women were not allowed to hold property in their
own name, and therefore the application for a charter was signed by
single women only.

Great as have been the advances in according privileges to women
in the lifetime of the New Century Club, the marked growth of

399

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

women s club movements has been greater. This pioneer club of its
kind has namesakes throughout the country, while the membership
in the general club movement now exceeds 3,000,000 women.

The New Century Club is the outgrowth of the Women s Committee
of the Centennial, which issued a small paper, the New Century, in
honor of the dawning new century of American independence. The
Centennial over and the committee desiring to continue its work, it
hit upon the idea of forming a women s club, an almost unheard of
and not at all popular venture at that time. The first president was
Mrs. S. C. Hallowell, and the first meeting place was in a hall on
Girard Street east of Twelfth. The members furnished the rooms
with articles from their own homes. From this modest beginning
the club has grown into a membership exceeding 600.

The first cooking class in Philadelphia was established by the club
in its headquarters.

The State Federation of Pennsylvania Women was organized at the
New Century Club in 1895.

Retrace on 12th St. ; R. an Chestnut ; R. on 10th.
JEFFERSON MEDICAL COLLEGE AND HOSPITAL (3), on the
right side of Tenth Street from Sansom to Walnut, was organized in
1825 as the medical department of Jefferson College, then at Canons-
burg, Pa. In 1838 by a special act of the Legislature it became a
separate institution. Today it is one of the most highly rated medical
schools in the United States.

Retrace on 10th St. ; cross Chestnut.

The MERCANTILE LIBRARY (4), 14 South Tenth Street (open
weekdays 9 to 9, except July and August, when closing hour is 6, and
legal holidays, 5), is preeminent in the scope of its collection of
more than 300,000 volumes. Light novels and abstruse treatises, books
long out of print, and books and periodicals fresh from the press
crowd its shelves.

Among its treasures are special collections of Civil War history,
Irish history and Irish literature ; old almanacs, newspapers, and
records ; a pastel of Walt Whitman, done from life by J. P. Silver ;
and a portrait of Washington by Rembrandt Peale.

The building, erected in 1859, originally designed by John Mc-
Arthur to house the Franklin Market, was purchased from the Penn
sylvania Railroad Company in 1867. Although never used as a market
house and since altered to meet the requirements of the library,
which took possession of it in 1869, the structure has served as a
model for several other market buildings. The classic red brick facade
with its large and decorative arch above the triple-arched windows of
the second floor has at least the merit of expressing on the exterior
the curve of the vaulting of the interior stack room.

An unusual air of freedom prevails ; congeniality replaces the

400

To SOCIETY HILL (CITY TOUR 2)

restraint called for in most libraries. In addition to a chess room,
which has gained a wide reputation as a meeting place of chess en
thusiasts, there are a smoking room and a conversation room. Cur
rent newspapers and periodicals from cities and towns throughout
the country are on file.

Owned and maintained by the Mercantile Library Association and
conducted without State aid, the institution is supported by endow
ments and the membership dues of its 2,600 members who pay an
annual fee of $5 each. Library services are free to members and non-
members alike, but borrowing privileges are extended to members
only.

The library had its origin in the zeal for intellectual improvement
that made itself felt after the War of 1812. The city s cultural leaders
wanted a new circulating library, but the necessary public funds
were lacking. So, on November 10, a meeting was held in Masonic
Hall on Chestnut Street to consider the establishment of a Mercantile
Library Association. The meeting was called and attended by the
city s leading business men, and they issued a public notice inviting
merchants and merchants clerks to meet at the Mayor s office on
November 17 to discuss the subject. At this meeting a committee was
appointed to draft a constitution. Robert Wain, whose shipping busi
ness had been established in this country by his father early in the
eighteenth century, was chairman of the committee.

The constitution was adopted at a meeting held on December 1,
and a committee of 15 was appointed to secure subscribers to it, with
instructions to give public notice of an election of directors when
100 were obtained.

The new library was warmly welcomed, for 300 members enrolled
themselves, and on January 10, 1822, they met in the Merchants
Coffee House, formally organized the Mercantile Library Association
and elected the first board of directors.

The aim of the group was to serve its members not only with the
average reader s selection, but also with records, almanacs, and books
helpful in their businesses. The library formally opened in a second-
story room at 100 Chestnut Street, on March 5, 1821, with less than
1,000 books and pamphlets. The collection at first was marked by
quantity rather than quality, but the passing years have brought the
library to eminence in both respects.

Retrace on 10th St. ; L. on Chestnut.

On the northeast corner at Tenth Street is the FEDERAL RE
SERVE BANK OF PHILADELPHIA (5). As the seat of the Third
Federal Reserve District, the bank serves a territory embracing 48
counties of Pennsylvania, nine counties of New Jersey, and the entire
State of Delaware.

The great volume of banking transactions originating in this highly

401

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

industrialized region has made the bank a correspondingly large insti
tution. This marble building, where about one thousand are employed,
houses an organization that began business in a suite of two rooms at
408 Chestnut Street on November 16, 1914. Since before the World
War, the bank has served as the fiscal agent of the Government.

The building, designed by Paul Philippe Cret, rises six stories in
height. It has a frontage of 170 feet on Chestnut Street, 144 feet on
Tenth. Ramps to the basement loading platforms lead in from the
Tenth Street side.

The design of the building, which is a free adaptation from Grecian
forms, is admirably subordinated to function. The result is both har
monious and individual.

The entire facade is of Vermont blue-white marble. The lower
half, with its 14 square piers, supports an unusual entablature, there
being no architrave. The frieze is wide and unornamented, except at
the corners. The massive upper stories are set back several feet.
Sculptured reliefs flanking the simple entrance and the heavy eagle
above the cornice are the chief decorations.

The main entrance, on Chestnut Slreet, leads to a vestibule with
bronze doors and side grilles which embody the symbolic griffon,
guardian of treasuries ; the tw r o-faced Janus, looking to the past and
to the future; and the seal of the Third Federal Reserve District.
From the vestibule, revolving doors give access to an inner lobby,
whence the main banking room is reached through bronze and glass
bays. The end wall of this lobby bears the coats of arms of the States
composing the banking district New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and
Delaware.

The main banking room is a well-lighted, high-ceilinged room,
divided into offices by bronze and glass partitions. The ceiling of
white plaster is supported by a number of colored marble pillars of
severely plain design.

In the lofty executive room on the left of the entrance hall are 16
huge piers of dark Levanto marble and delicate rails and partitions,
also of imported marbles. The simple classic ceiling is decorated with
a cornice border in delicate colors and the silver-colored official coat
of arms of the United States in the center.

The building has an air-conditioning system. The lighting system is
of the indirect type, with fixtures in bronze which carry out the sym
bolism found in the entrance.

Its grimy next-door neighbor is the FEDERAL BUILDING (6)
(see City Tour 1).

L. from Chestnut St. on 9th.

LEARY S BOOK STORE (7), 9 South Ninth Street, was founded
in 1836, at Second and New Streets, and is the oldest book store of
its kind in the United States. Here bookworm, casual reader, and

402

To SOCIETY HILL (CITY TOUR 2)

student browse undisturbed through rows and stacks of books and
pamphlets books of every size and color, some fresh, some dog
eared and worn, some bearing on their flyleaves the pen-and-ink senti
ments of those who owned them in an earlier day. A wide range of
subjects is covered and a score of languages represented.

The store, regarded as a landmark for many years, occupies the
only space in the Ninth Street facade of the GIMBEL BROTHERS
DEPARTMENT STORE (8), used for purposes other than those of
Ginibel Brothers. In 1925 the book store was moved from the site,
which it had occupied since 1877, for about a year during enlarge
ment of the Gimbel store, which now occupies almost the entire
block, Market to Chestnut Streets and Eighth to Ninth Streets.

Retrace on 9th St. ; L. on Chestnut.

On the southeast corner is the BENJAMIN FRANKLIN HOTEL
(9). The "Ben Franklin" occupies the site of the old Continental
Hotel, the scene of many historic and colorful episodes. Edward VII,
then Prince of Wales, and Charles Dickens, who found Philadelphia
"a handsome city but distractingly regular," were guests at the Con
tinental. In one of its rooms Thomas Buchanan Read wrote his
dramatic Sheridan s Ride.

On the northeast corner at Eighth Street is the SITE OF GREEN S
HOTEL (9a), now an open-air parking lot. Gathering place of poli
ticians, sportsmen, artists, and writers from the time of the Centennial
year, 1876, until the advent of prohibition, Green s Hotel represented
an era in the life of Philadelphia an era of good living and easy
spending that reached its height in the "gay nineties." Famous for its
bar and barroom, the hotel was highly esteemed also for the quality
and diversity of its food with emphasis on the sea food.

When the hotel was first opened in 1866 by Thomas Green, the
former home of Edward Shippen, Chief Justice of Pennsylvania in
Colonial times, was made part of it. The room in which Peggy Ship-
pen and Benedict Arnold were married was preserved intact by
Green.

After several changes in management, the trustees of the Green
estate transferred the property to a New York syndicate in 1923. How
ever, changing times and changing habits, and especially the useless-
ness of its famous bar, caused the place to lose its popularity.

It was sold at sheriff s sale on August 7, 1934, and the following
month demolition work was started.

L. from Chestnut St. on 7th.

The old BUILDING OF THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE (1), at
15 South Seventh Street, was the first official home of the great scien
tific institution on the Parkway (see Points of Interest). Six broad
soapstone steps, flanked by two iron lamps, lead to the auster, digni
fied facade of this simple, two-story, Doric structure of gray marble.

403

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Four sturdy piers support a heavy entablature containing a frieze of
simple wreaths. This old building is an example of the Greek Re
vival period. Designed by John Haviland, it was completed in 1826,
but has fallen into disrepair. Its demolition has been considered a
number of times, but public opposition has prevented it.

Retrace on 7th St. ; L. on Chestnut.

On the west side of Sixth Street below Chestnut is the entrance to
the LEDGER BUILDING (11), home of the Evening Public Ledger.
(Open weekdays 9 to 4 ; guides provided, adm. free.)

In the square on the right is INDEPENDENCE HALL (12) (see
Points of Interest).

L. from Chestnut St. on 5th.

The PHILADELPHIA BOURSE (13), right, between Ludlow and
Ranstead Streets, is the center of maritime business in Philadelphia.
The building was erected in 1895 as a meeting place for trade or
ganizations. It is occupied now by the Philadelphia Shipping Ex
change, a number of shipping agents, and the Grain Exchange.

Retrace on 5th St. ; L. on Chestnut.

The OLD CUSTOM HOUSE (14), on the right, midway between
Fifth and Fourth Streets, now grimy and weather-worn, housed the
second Bank of the United States from 1824-1837. The structure
is of Greek Revival design. The architect, Benjamin H. Latrobe, used
the Parthenon as his model. A statue of Robert Morris, who helped
to finance the Revolutionary War, stands in front of the building.

Just beyond 320 Chestnut Street, on the right, is a small alleyway
leading to CARPENTERS HALL (15) (see Points of Interest).

The FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF PHILADELPHIA (16), 315
Chestnut Street, was chartered by act of Congress in 1863 and issued
the first national currency. It is a two-story granite building of Greek
design, built in 1865.

At 305 is the BANK OF NORTH AMERICA (17) , whose first presi
dent was Robert Morris. This was the first bank chartered by the
Continental Congress on December 31, 1781. The present building,
erected in 1893, is a Roman classic adaptation in light brown stone
and red granite. The Doric order is employed on its first floor, Ionic
on the second.

At Second and Chestnut Streets the new CUSTOM HOUSE (18)
rises high above the surrounding buildings. Here are the offices of the
Collector of the Port of Philadelphia and numerous Army and Navy
and other Federal department offices.

The building, a large red brick and limestone edifice, is a modern
ized version of a classic design. The contrasting red and white of
these materials is intended to harmonize with the structures of old
historic Philadelphia. A tall cruciform tower rising over the center
of the building terminates in an ornate enclosed water tank.

404

To SOCIETY HILL (CITY TOUR 2)

The chief interior feature is the circular rotunda of the ground
floor. Eight black columns support a balcony and dome with un
usual shell designs set within the coffers of the dome. The details, in
cluding the balcony of the rotunda, the spiral stairways, and the triple
entrace doors are of aluminum. The building, designed by Ritter
and Shay, was erected in 1933.

R. from Chestnut St. on 2d.

On the northeast corner at Walnut Street stands a small, gray
building, on the site where the first white child in Philadelphia was
born. The original building has been replaced by one which today
houses the old KRIDER GUN SHOP (19), with its collection of
antique firearms in the windows. Built by the Drinker family in 1751,
this building displays a marker commemorating the birth. The
marker gives John Drinker as the child s name.

R. from 2d St. on Dock.

DOCK STREET (20) is the produce center of Philadelphia. While
most Philadelphians sleep and other streets are silent from shortly
after midnight (and as early as 8 p. m. in summer) until 8 in the
morning this strange byway throbs with the pulse of trade. The
clatter of horses hoofs and the rumbling of heavy trucks mingle
with the gruff roars of drivers and the trade talk of shippers and
merchants in this bypath of the city s modern scene. Carrots and
cabbages, apples and grapes, and every edible root, leaf, and fruit
from persimmon to artichoke lie in piles on street and sidewalk.

The street, three blocks long and forming a misshapen S, carries
on a billion dollar business annually. It is the sidewalk pantry of
half a million kitchens. Hundreds of trucks nightly are unloaded and
loaded to rush the day s food throughout Philadelphia and its out
lying districts, sometimes as far as 100 miles away.

Dock Street is built upon the filled-in course of Dock Creek, once
a winding inlet of the Delaware River, on which Indians paddled
canoes and white men sailed barges. In the early days the creek was
spanned by a drawbridge. Until 1784 there was only the waterway,

Drinker House

"On the Site Where Philadel- -
phias First White Child was I
Born"

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

with markets along its banks, upon which boats unloaded their pro
duce. Today a paved roadway overlies the bed of the creek, but it is
still an inlet an inlet for vast amounts of produce, arriving on
freighters. They come up the Delaware with delicacies gathered from
far-away fields and orchards oranges from Florida and California,
bananas and pineapples from Cuba, strawberries from Georgia, pea
nuts and sweet potatoes from other southern States, and apples from
Virginia.

The importance of this small street to Philadelphia was painfully
demonstrated during a truck drivers strike in 1935. Virtually all the
fresh vegetables and other commodities supplied by the merchants
of Dock Street were tied up, and business was at a complete stand
still. The truck drivers union, realizing the strategic value of this
little street, refused to allow any produce to leave it. Prices soared
while fruits and vegetables rotted where they had been dumped from
ships and farmers drays. But Philadelphia could not long forego
fresh food, and the strike was settled within a few days.

Shortly after noon, Dock Street slumbers. The shop doors are closed
and the street virtually deserted. "Evening" comes early on Dock
Street.

At Third Street, left, is the old STOCK EXCHANGE BUILDING
(21). Wide and winding Dock Street serves as the eastern approach to
this building of old Philadelphia. The semi-circular Corinthian colon
nade above the first floor, the entablature and the unusual tall crown
ing cupola of alternate columns and windows embellish this beautiful
gray stone structure, which was designed by William Strickland and
completed in 1834.

L. on 3d St.

The GIRARD NATIONAL BANK BUILDING (22), 116 South
Third Street, is the oldest bank building in the country. It was com
pleted in 1797, designed by Samuel Blodget, and originally was the
home of the Bank of the United States. Stephen Girard purchased the
building in 1812 and conducted a private bank there until 1831. It
is now the Philadelphia headquarters of the American Legion.

Except for the rich wooden entablature and pediment, the ex
terior of the building is of Pennsylvania blue marble. It is designed
in the Corinthian style, with six free-standing fluted columns support
ing the pediment. The main room is two stories high with a circular
rotunda. Eight Corinthian columns support the balcony and above
these rise 40 small Corinthian columns supporting the low dome with
its large skylight. The original fireplace is in the southeast corner
room of the second floor.

Continue on 3d St. ; R. on killing s Alley.

In Willing s Alley stands ST. JOSEPH S CHURCH (23), oldest
Roman Catholic church in Philadelphia. A German pastor of St.

406

To SOCIETY HILL (CITY TOUR 2)

Joseph s is said to have been the first to refer to Washington as "Des
Landes Vater" "The Father of His Country."

Beneath an archway, a curiously wrought iron gate opens from
Willing s Alley into a large paved courtyard, along the inner side of
which stands the church. The present structure, in spite of its record
of constant reconstruction, retains a few mementos of the vicissitudes
to which the Catholic Church was heir in its early days in Philadel
phia.

The original edifice was erected in 1733, enlarged in 1821, and re
built in 1838. Additions have since been made. Today the unpre
tentious brick building, with large, rounded, stained-glass windows,
is so surrounded by the offices of insurance companies that little is
visible of the exterior beyond two bays of side windows. Its red-brick
wall, with white wood trim, has little decoration, except for a marble
bust of Father Felix Joseph Barbelin, S. J., rector of the church for
25 years, and a tablet to his memory. As for the ornate interior, a
curved balcony at the sides and back, and Ionic columns which sup
port the arch above the altar, constitute the only architecturally
significant features.

The Jesuit priests in charge of the parish live in a dwelling on the
right side of the courtyard. The doorway of this house is distin
guished by a little wicket through which a lay brother, before open
ing the door, may inspect those seeking admittance. The large lamp
hanging beside it illumines all after-dark callers. The interior offers
little of historical note. The portion of the rectory adjoining the
church, including the sacristy, is the only part of the original build
ing that remains, and this section has been completely renovated. The
few archaic fireplaces that have been preserved are on the upper
floors, which are closed to visitors.

Of considerable interest is a canvas on one of the rectory parlor
walls. This, Benjamin West s first large and important work, was pre
sented by the painter to the Jesuits of Conshohocken. The painting
a woman in conventional scriptural dress giving a child a drink from
a little bowl, while an old man stands beside her and an angel hovers
near the child was formerly believed to portray the Holy Family,
and for many years hung over the main altar. When it was discovered
that the artist intended to commemorate the adventures of Hagar
and Ishmael in the desert, the picture was removed from a position
which was considered inappropriately conspicuous.

The land on which St. Joseph s stands was purchased and a modest
chapel was erected in 1722. It was built to resemble a private house,
because English law then forbade the erection of a Catholic church
or chapel. In 1722 Father Joseph Greaton, of the Jesuit Order, was
sent from Baltimore, and on arriving in the city, he donned the garb
of a Quaker lest he provoke outbreaks of intolerance. Before a year

407

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

had passed, he had resumed his clerical robe. A chapel, with its own
pastor and a regular congregation, could not long pass unnoticed, and
the following year the situation began to excite comment. Father
Greaton s activities were referred to the Provincial Council and dis
cussed at two meetings, but the matter was allowed to rest, and the
priest continued his work undisturbed. During the anti-Catholic riots
of 1844, when houses were burned to ashes and churches were set
afire, St. Joseph s escaped unscathed.

The church today is a center for the devout who work in the old
business center of the city. They frequently visit here during the
luncheon hour or after work. A narrow areaway provides access to
the church from Walnut Street, in addition to the main entrance to
the courtyard from Willing s alley.

Retrace on Willing s Alley.

On Third Street opposite the alley is ST. PAUL S PROTESTANT
EPISCOPAL CHURCH (24) , a red and white brick structure set back
between two poplar trees and surrounded by a neatly designed brick
wall. Large limestone spheres surmount the wall s eight brick posts.
Originally erected in 1761, the building was extensively altered in
1832 by William Strickland, who virtually rebuilt the white wood
work interior. Edwin Forrest, tragedian, is buried in the churchyard.

R. from Willing s Alley on 3d.

The POWEL HOUSE (25) is at 244 South Third Street (see
Points of Interest).

L. from 3d St. on Pine.

Standing in the center of Second Street and facing on Pine is the
HEADHOUSE OF THE SECOND STREET MARKET (26), a quaint
two-and-a-half-story structure with heavy octagnal cupola and steep
gable ends. There is a tasteful use of marble trim in the belt course
and window sills. Edward Shippen and Joseph Wharton began the
structure, August 1745, by building stalls at their own expense. They
received rents until they were repaid the principal and interest of
the advanced money. This site has been a market place since the
days of Penn.

The cupola was probably used as a lookout tower for locating fires.
(Fire engines were kept downstairs and the second story was long
the headquarters of the volunteer Hope Fire Engine Company.) The
first building was erected in 1745. About 1800 the present headhouse
was built, and in 1814 the market was extended to South Street.

Retrace on Pine St.

On the southwest corner at Third Street is ST. PETER S PROTES
TANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH (27), a simple and dignified structure
of red brick, designed by Robert Smith. One of the older churches in
the city, it is surrounded by an old cemetery and by lawns and tall
trees within brick walls and iron fences.

408

St. Joseph s Roman Catholic Church

"/n the Quiet of killing s

Alley . ."

St. Peter s Church

"Whose rear pulpit caused

consternation"

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

At its western end rises a five-and-a-half-story square tower sur
mounted by a simple wooden spire from which rises an octagonal
lantern topped by a ball and cross. The austerity of the tower, with
its corner piers and suggestion of a crenellated top, is relieved by the
finely designed windows, rising one above the other.

The chief feature of the eastern side of the exterior is a large Pal-
ladian window with 237 panes. The fine arched windows on the sides
and rear light the interior balcony the first such arrangement used
in America. All of the windows have brick arches and white marble
sills, spring blocks, and keystones. An unusual feature is the location
of the organ and altar at the eastern end and the reading desk and
lofty pulpit at the western end a rare arrangement which compels
the rector to conduct part of the service at each end of the church,
with an accompanying shift in seats by the congregation. The organ,
rising to the height of the ceiling, blocks the Palladian window.

St. Peter s was erected in 1758-1761 as a branch of Christ Church,
and for many years both were under the same rectorship. Wash
ington, on his frequent visits to Philadelphia, often attended services
in this church, and the pews used by him, by Governor Penn, and by
Benjamin Franklin have been carefully preserved. The sacristy dis
plays a number of relics significant in the church s history.

At Fourth Street is the OLD PINE STREET CHURCH (Third
Presbyterian) (28). A number of documents and portraits reminis
cent of the days when the Nation was young are preserved in the
church.

Founded on its present site in 1768, this church remains today a
well-known place of public worship, although racial population
changes have caused 30 Protestant churches in the vicinity to close
their doors in recent years. An endowment fund enables the church
to carry on in the face of decreasing attendance.

The site was used as a place of worship prior to the founding of
Old Pine Street Church. Members of the First Presbyterian and other
churches constituted a congregation which worshipped in a small
edifice known as the Hill Meetinghouse, erected in 1764 when the
group received letters patent to the site. Previous to that time, when
he was refused permission to preach in any of the churches in the
vicinity, George Whitefield had preached from a platform erected
on this spot.

The present church, built in 1837, is of late Greek Revival design.
It has a huge raised portico with four pairs of fluted Corinthian col
umns. One of the walls of the original building of 1768 still stands as
part of the present structure. Various alterations have been made,
including the raising of the roof and floor, and the addition of an
entrance porch and columns.

Rev. George Duffield, D. D., first chaplain of the church, who was

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also chaplain of the First Continental Congress and the Pennsylvania
Militia at the time of the Revolution, was so well known for his fiery
revolutionary spirit that the British placed a price on his head. Dur
ing British occupation of Philadelphia the church was used as a
hospital, and the pews were burned for fuel.

Old records show that many members of the church served the
country in times of war. Sixty-seven served in the Revolutionary
Army, outstanding among them being Gen. John Steele, personal
aide-de-camp to Washington in New Jersey. Later General Steele was
in charge of the military unit assigned to protect Martha Washington
during her stay in Norristown. During the Civil War 130 members of
the congregation carried arms. In the upper vestibule a tablet bears
the names of 18 who died in action.

Among the many famous men who attended services at the vener
able church was John Adams, second President of the United States.
His diary contains many references to " Dumeld s Meetings." Many
early historic figures connected with the church are buried in its
grounds ; among them are Dr. Dumeld ; General Steele ; Col. William
Linnard, Quartermaster of the United States Army in the War of
1812 ; Mrs. Mary Nelson, in charge of the Philadelphia powder mag
azine in the War of 1812 ; and William Hurrie, bell ringer at the
State House, who probably rang the Liberty Bell on the first day of
America s independence. One hundred Hessian soldiers were buried
here. The Sunday school, begun in 1814, is the oldest in Philadelphia.

R. from Pine St. on 4th.

ST. MARY S CHURCH (29), 244 South Fourth Street, is the sec
ond-oldest Roman Catholic church in the city. Built in 1763 and en
larged in 1810, it presents a facade of red brick with white marble
trim, a fusion of Colonial and Gothic styles. The interior consists of
one large rectangular room with balconies on three sides. With the
appointment of a bishop for this country, in 1808, St. Mary s became
the first cathedral. Commodore Barry and several members of the
Continental Congress are buried in the churchyard.

At Locust Street on the southwest corner is the SHIPPEN RESI
DENCE (30), built about 200 years ago by Dr. William Shippen and
his brother Joseph, on land granted them by the Penns. When, in
1798, the famous Dr. Caspar Wistar established his residence in the
house it became the scene of the celebrated Wistar parties. Parties
are still held here in memory of the hospitable doctor. The building,
typical of the Colonial town house, was built in 1752 and adjoined
the Cadwalader house on the south. These two structures of red brick
laid in Flemish bond with white trim and shuttered windows have
been converted into one building in recent years. The garden of the
house at one time extended to old St. Mary s Church.

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

On the left at 212 is the PHILADELPHIA CONTRIBUTIONSHIP
(31), which houses an old insurance company.

The structure, designed by Thomas U. Walter and erected in 1836,
follows the style of the Greek Revival period. The outstanding feature
of the red brick and white marble exterior is the porch, which is ap
proached from both sides by curved stairs. Four fluted marble Corin
thian columns support a heavy entablature. Double windows in either
side of the porch have slightly projecting hoods following the line
of the porch cornice. The second-story windows call attention to their
pilasters and lintels. Three dormer windows framed by pilasters,
scrolls, and low pediments rise above the third-story cornice.

The keynote of the interior is one of severity, with the ground floor
consisting of two small rooms and one large room, in the center of
which rises a gracefully curved staircase.

L. from 4th St. on Walnut.

On the right between Fifth and Sixth Streets is INDEPENDENCE
SQUARE (see Points of Interest).

On the southeast corner of Sixth Street, now occupied by the PENN
MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY BUILDING (32), is the
site of the old Walnut Street Prison. The British, who took over the
jail during their occupancy of Philadelphia, herded all of Wash
ington s troops who fell into their hands into this prison. Many of the
captured Continentals died after enduring unspeakable treatment.
The British commandant responsible for these conditions was later
tried and hanged in England. On the southern portion of this lot a
Debtors Prison was erected, and for a time Robert Morris, financier of
the Revolution, was incarcerated there.

L. from Walnut St. on 6th.

On the northwest corner at Spruce Street is HOLY TRINITY RO
MAN CATHOLIC CHURCH (33) , in the graveyard of which Stephen
Girard was buried. His remains were later removed to a sarcophagus
in Founder s Hall at Girard College. A grave here is said to be that
of Evangeline, heroine of Longfellow s poem. The poem reads :
Still stands the forest primeval ; but far away from Us shadow,

Side by side in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping.
Under the humble walls of the little Catholic churchyard,
In the heart of the city, they lie, unknown and unnoticed.

Retrace on 6th St. ; L. on S. Washington Square.

The FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (34), facing on the
square, was erected in 1820 following the plans of John Haviland, who
designed it after the Temple on the Illisus near Athens. It is one of
the best examples of the Greek Revival style. The structure has fallen
into disrepair since the congregation left it several years ago to merge
with that of the Christ Calvary Church near Fifteenth on Locust
Street.

412

Philadelphia Contributionship

The Home of the Hand-iri-HantT,
founded in 1752"

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

WASHINGTON SQUARE (35), extending along Walnut Street
from Sixth to Seventh Streets, once was a Potter s Field for Phila
delphia. Here, during the Revolution, hundreds of Continental sol
diers were buried after death released them from the horrors and
torture of the British prison. Here, too, were interred thousands of
the victims of the yellow-fever plague that ravaged the city in 1793.
In 1825 the ground was leveled and converted into a memorial park.

Continue around Washington Square to Walnut St.

CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY PLANT (36), across Walnut
Street from the square (5 tours daily ; free), is one of the world s
largest foundries of the printed word and home of the Saturday Even
ing Post, father of all five-cent weeklies. It occupies a vast 12-story
boxlike building bounded by Walnut and Sansom and Sixth and
Seventh Streets, with the main entrance on Sixth Street.

The exterior design of the huge Curtis plant, the cornerstone of
which was laid in 1910, represents an attempt to establish harmony
with the Independence Square group across Sixth Street. The archi
tect, Edgar Seiler, succeeded in achieving a certain amount of dignity
by the use of marble in the lower and top stories. Various bits of de
tail, such as the oval design work in the frieze and the keystones, are
distinct adaptations from Independence Hall. The 14 huge Ionic col
umns on the lower facade arc white monoliths weighing 21 tons each.

The entrance lobby is dominated by a large, especially processed
glass mosaic, executed by Louis C. Tiffany, distinguished New York
artist and decorator, from an elaborate sketch, The Dream Garden,
by Maxfield Parrish.

The dining room for female employees contains 16 panels from the
brush of Parrish, and his large pastel mural, The Florentine Fete.
The original painting of The Dream Garden hangs in the executive
dining room. The luxurious directors room features tapestries and
furniture of the Adam period, a deep piled rug and vase of Chinese
origin, a carved table of Carrara marble, and originals of drawings
used in the company s publications.

The plant covers 23 acres of floor space. Four thousand workers
are employed in three shifts. Operating day and night, it is a notable
example of organized efficiency and modern mechanical development.
Special steel construction eliminates vibration, and the editorial
rooms are shut off from the clamor of the mechanized departments
by an elaborate system of soundproofing. Giant multicolor presses.
in a single lightning operation, produce 16-page units, vividly colored
and printed on both sides with the aid of an exclusive wax-spraying
process. In all, there are 200 presses, each weighing many tons and
costing many thousands of dollars. The total output is 17,000,000
magazines each month. Figures showing paper, fuel, and ink con
sumption read like recordings of astronomical distances.

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To SOCIETY HILL (CITY TOUR 2)

Each of the five daily tours requires about one hour, but this time is
sufficient to obtain only a bare idea of the breadth, scope and intricacy
of this huge production center.

L. on Walnut St. ; L. on 8th.

At 225 South Eighth Street is a Colonial structure that was once
the city RESIDENCE OF ROBERT MORRIS (37). Although built
shortly after the Revolution (in 1786) the house is completely Geor
gian Colonial in character. Faced with brick laid in Flemish bond
with black headers, the building has a severely simple facade of
broad horizontal lines accented by the second and third-floor belt
courses and a beautiful cornice. Two windows flank the central door
way, with its fluted pilasters, dainty fanlight, and simple broken pedi
ment.

Retrace on 8th St. ; L. on Walnut.

At Ninth Street, in the gray building on the right, is the WALNUT
STREET THEATRE (38), built in 1808 and the oldest existing
theatre in the city. Here during the prime of the theatre s life ap
peared most of the stage stars of a century.

The building now bears little resemblance to the original as de
signed by John Haviland, but the early classical atmosphere of the
interior has been retained.

Renovation and remodeling have given a modern aspect to the an
cient playhouse, and its name has been changed several times, but it
still occupies the original site, and the mellowness of great stage
traditions clings to it.

It was opened in 1809 as a circus and later as a combined theatre
and circus. Philadelphia entertainment seekers thronged to the "New
Circus" for four years during the management of Pepin and Bres-
chard.

After its early circus days, the playhouse assumed a new dignity
and a new name, the Olympic, when it was converted into a theatre
for the presentation of legitimate stage productions. This new phase
of its existence began New Year s Day, 1812, with a presentation of
Sheridan s comedy, The Rivals. A musical farce, Poor Soldiers, was
the second on the theatre s list of stage performances. The Olympic
was renamed the Walnut Street Theatre in 1820 and, except for a
brief period during which it was called the American Theatre, that
name has clung.

Edwin Forrest, later eminent as a tragedian, made his first appear
ance here at the age of 14. Edmund Kean, another outstanding trage
dian, played at the Olympic frequently. Louisa Lane, later to become
Mrs. John Drew, made her first stage appearance in this theatre at
the age of 7, in the cast of Shakespeare s Richard HI.

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PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

Many of the greatest names in theatrical history are linked with
the Walnut. Edwin Booth, whose father, Junius Brutus Booth, had
previously appeared there, was for many years part owner of the
house. Indeed, every actor or actress of note who appeared in this
country during the nineteenth century trod the boards of this theatre.

At the height of their popularity, Sarah Bernhardt, Ellen Terry,
and Sir Henry Irving played the Walnut. Here appeared Richard
Mansfield, Lily Langtry, John Drew, DeWolf Hopper, David Warfield,
and Maude Adams. Otis Skinner, Ethel Barrymore, Julia Marlowe,
James K. Hackett, Walter Hampden, George Arliss, and Grace George
in more recent years have sustained this theatre s fine tradition.

For 16 consecutive years, during the Christmas holidays, Chauncey
Olcott appeared here before enthusiastic audiences. In 1905 Mme.
Schumann-Heink, beloved songstress of two generations, appeared
here in the opera, Love s Lottery. Douglas Fairbanks began his suc
cessful theatrical career at the Walnut in 1906, and his autographed
picture still hangs in the lobby.

The playhouse suffered the same decline that threatened all legiti
mate playhouses with the development of the "movies," the "talkies,"
and the radio. In 1920 heirs of Edwin Booth and John Sleeper Clarke
sold the establishment to James Beury, who restored it to its high
estate for a few seasons. It was formally reopened on December 27,
1920, with George Arliss in The Green Goddess.

Since 1932 the theatre has changed management several times, pass
ing through brief eras of movies, vaudeville, and stock.

Doorways leading into the auditorium from the foyer and the cur
tained screen or "stand-up" rail are Colonial in detail. The massive
globular crystal chandelier hanging immediately before the prosce
nium was removed from the old Bingham House when that hotel was
torn down.

The balcony has been rebuilt with steel supports, but the stage
remains substantially the same as during the early circus days, when
its boards creaked under the feet of performing elephants. Most of
the roof is borne by the original wooden trusses which once vibrated
to the roars of trained lions.

L. from Walnut St. on 9th.

At 260, south of Locust Street, is the BONAPARTE HOUSE (39),
residence for two years of Joseph Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon.
Some of the mural canvases Joseph brought with him from France
adorn the walls of the dining room. The house was built in 1812.

Retrace on 9th St. ; R. on Locust.

MUSICAL FUND HALL (40), 808 Locust Street, is the oldest music
hall in the United States. Built in 1824. it once echoed to the liquid
notes of Jenny Lind. Here, too, William Makepeace Thackeray lec
tured during his visit to Philadelphia. In June 1856 it was the scene

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To SOCIETY HILL (CiTY TOUR 2)

of the first Republican National Convention. Today the building pre
sents a forlorn appearance, out of keeping with its colorful past.

The building, a three-story structure of Italian Renaissance design,
is constructed of light buff brick and terra cotta with a marble base,
and the cornice and central pediment of copper. Pilasters of the com
posite order decorate the upper two stories.

R. from Locust St. on 8th.

South of Locust, on the right, is ST. GEORGE S GREEK CATHO
LIC CHURCH (41). This church, erected in 1822, was designed by
John Haviland, who patterned it after the same model (the Athen
ian temple on the Illisus) which he had used two years before for
the First Presbyterian Church on Washington Square. Its huge porch
with fluted Ionic columns at the top of seven marble steps supports a
massive denticular entablature, surmounted by a broad pediment. A
great paneled doorway of wood, painted to simulate bronze, leads to
an interior lavishly painted in blue, gold, and white. The most ar
resting feature is a choir screen with a central pedimented entrance
containing a painting of the "symbolic eye."

R. from 8th St. on Spruce.

The CEMETERY OF MIKVEH ISRAEL CONGREGATION (42)
occupies a small parcel of land at Spruce and Darien Streets. The
ground was granted to Rabbi Nathan Levy by John Penn in 1783, and
it contains the graves of numerous Philadelphians of the Jewish faith.
The most famous grave is that of Rebecca Gratz, the original of Sir
Walter Scott s heroine, Rebecca, in Ivanhoe.

It was through Washington Irving, whose fiancee, Matilda Hoff
man, was an intimate friend of Rebecca Gratz, that Miss Gratz be
came the inspiration of Scott s medieval romance. On a visit to
England, Irving met Scott and learned that he was contemplating the
writing of a novel with Jews among the principal characters. Irving
told him about the lovely Philadelphia friend of his fiancee. After
the appearance of Ivanhoe in 1819, Scott wrote his American col-

Mikveh Israel

Cemetery

"Resting place of
Rebecca Gratz, Im
mortalized by Scott s
Ivanhoe "

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

league : "How do you like your Rebecca ? Does the Rebecca I have
pictured compare well with the pattern given ?"

Miss Gratz made important contributions to the development of
her native city s philanthropies. In her twenty-first year she was
elected secretary of the Female Association for the Relief of Women
and Children in Reduced Circumstances. In 1815 she helped found
the Philadelphia Orphans Society and in 1838 succeeded in organiz
ing the Hebrew Sunday School Society, the first organization of its
kind in the United States. Her efforts were largely instrumental in
the establishment of the Jewish Foster Home in 1855.

On the opposite side of Spruce Street is the PENNSYLVANIA
HOSPITAL (43), oldest hospital in the United States. The original
buildings offer quaint contrast to the newer, sanitary structures of
the institution.

Although the Philadelphia General Hospital, originally the Phila
delphia Almshouse, antedates the Pennsylvania Hospital as an in
stitution, the former was not used as a hospital until after the latter
was founded in 1751.

A perusal of the old records of the hospital serves as a pleasant
reminder of some of the customs of the times. The old Managers
(many of them Friends) designated the months of the year by num
ber in the minutes of their meetings. This custom was followed until
recent days, entries such as First Month or Fifth Month adding a
quaint touch to the modern records.

The prime mover in establishing the Pennsylvania Hospital was
Dr. Thomas Bond, who for years had urged the necessity of such an
institution. Until 1751, however, he received nothing more substantial
than sympathy for his cause. In that year he appealed to Benjamin
Franklin, who immediately espoused the idea and vigorously cham
pioned it with pen and voice, winning a charter from the Provincial
Assembly and support from private citizens.

An organization meeting of 36 contributors was held on May 1
in the State House, and 12 managers and a treasurer were elected.
In September a meeting was held in Widow Pratt s Royal Standard
Tavern, High (now Market) Street near Second. Here it was decided
to open the hospital in a private house on the south side of High
Street. The first patient, a Margaret Sherlock, was admitted on Feb
ruary 11, 1752 ; she was likewise the first discharged as cured. The
medical staff at that time was composed of Dr. Lloyd Zachary, Dr.
Thomas Bond, and Dr. Phineas Bond ; Joshua Crosby was president
of the board of managers, and Benjamin Franklin, clerk.

Purchase of the block now occupied by the hospital, except for the
Spruce Street front, was agreed upon by the board on September
11, 1754, and on May 28 of the year following, the cornerstone of the
first building was laid. Before the end of December 1756, all patients

418

William Penn Statue, Pennsylvania Hospital
"Where Quaker Quiet Still Prevails"

PHILADELPHIA GUIDE

and furniture from the temporary hospital on High Street had been
removed to the permanent building. The lot facing on Spruce Street
was deeded to the hospital by the Penn family on November 10, 1767.

Within the brick-walled and iron-paled enclosure, extending from
Eighth to Ninth and from Spruce to Pine Streets, an odd atmosphere
prevails ; it carries the imagination back to the time when gentle com
forters, many with faces framed in Quaker bonnets, tiptoed along the
spacious corridors of the original brick buildings, which still are
intact.

From the beginning the Pennsylvania Hospital took care of the
insane, who were housed on the ground floor of the east wing. In those
days there was n