Whyy workshop of the world

Philadelphia did not primarily lose manufacturing jobs in the ways familiar to other American cities and regions in the late 20th century. Its decline was not driven mostly by national corporations buying and liquidating the facilities of local firms to undo competition; nor by financiers breezily buying, breaking up and selling firms to make paper profits; nor by foreign competition.

The loss was great not just for the city and its citizens; greater awareness and respect for workmanship and quality was lost as well. Walter Licht is the Walter H.

Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. For information and registration, go to www. This is the fifth. NewsWorks will publish all the essays in the series. Sign up for our weekly newsletter. Skip to content. Share this Facebook Twitter Email. Enter your Email here. Many Philadelphia DJs became celebrities, actively engaged and influential in the local music scene.

Dox Thrash was an accomplished draftsman, printmaker, watercolorist, and painter, whose art reflected his experiences as an African American in Philadelphia. In the Philadelphia region, burial and funeral rituals have served to honor the dead and comfort the living. These practices have reflected shifting gender roles, new material and technological developments, and changing demographics. Until the mid-nineteenth century, women were the primary caretakers of the dead prior to burial, while male sextons interred bodies.

For centuries, the American military valued Philadelphia because of its size, manufacturing capability, and location. Presidents of the United States, seeing Philadelphia as the city most connected to American independence, often have turned to the city and region to campaign, advance their agendas, and commemorate the past.

Like many other towns and cities across the United States, municipalities in the Philadelphia region adopted the sanitary landfill as a primary refuse-disposal strategy in the mid- to late twentieth century. Intended to replace open dumps, landfills also promised to serve the disposal needs of a rapidly growing suburban population. Military veterans began organizing in the Philadelphia area during the waning days of the Revolutionary War.

More specifically, a soul style of black music emerged from rhythm and blues and gospel in the late s and became popular with both black and white audiences through the s. Their purpose, however, changed in important ways as the eighteenth century progressed.

Early coffeehouses primarily served the needs of traders and mariners, acting as crucial centers of commerce. In the second half of the twentieth century, a growing number of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender LGBT Americans claimed political rights as people whose same-sex desire or gender presentation challenged prevailing social mores.

Based on the life of Jane Johnson c. David Nescior, M. Melissa M. Robert J. Members contributed one shilling per month to fund programs to support their social and economic needs. Since the eighteenth century, Philadelphia-area scientific societies have promoted scholarship and innovation, increased access to scientific knowledge and played an important role in the professionalization of various disciplines. Although Philadelphia has been a premier city for medical innovation since the mid-eighteenth century, the diverse peoples of the region also have used home remedies to heal themselves.

Home remedies preserve traditional domestic healthcare practices, and they have persisted into the twenty-first century as part of alternative medicine and mainstream scientific therapies.

Elise Kammerer is a Ph. Founded in , the colony of New Sweden survived less than twenty years and at its peak numbered only about four hundred people, most of whom lived along the western bank of the Delaware River between what became Philadelphia and New Castle, Delaware.

Melissa Ziobro served as a command historian for the U. As such, the profession has been dominated by marginalized groups. In the Philadelphia region, African Americans owned and operated the majority of barber shops during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

She has published widely on topics in contemporary and historical architectural and urban planning— notably in Europe and Japan. Christina Virok is an educator and graduate student in the History Department at Villanova University. The Philadelphia region served as an important diffusion ground for log cabins in America as Swedes, Finns, and later Germans transposed their traditional building practices to the Delaware Valley, melding old-world models with the bounty of timber but adapting to the lack of tools and skilled craftsmen.

Ben Davidson is a Ph. He is working on a dissertation about the generation of children who grew up during the Civil War era. We are pleased to share the news that The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia has reached a new milestone: topics online. Thanks to the many people who are making this project possible: authors, editors, reviewers, fact-checkers and page-builders, and the archival partners who provide illustrations. The art of Thomas Eakins is more deeply entwined with the city of Philadelphia than that of any other artist of the nineteenth century.

Born in North Philadelphia in , Eakins spent nearly his entire life in the city. Susan Hanket Brandt holds a Ph. The unconventional artistic trajectory and prolific work of prominent Philadelphia-area artist and craftsman Wharton Esherick — have been claimed for and by multiple movements in the history of twentieth-century American art, from early-twentieth-century Arts and Crafts to postwar studio craft.

Land was the most valuable commodity in the Delaware Valley during the colonial period, and it had to be surveyed before it could be granted or transferred. In Pennsylvania, William Penn — relied upon surveyors to measure and map his new lands. He holds a B. Down There, a hardboiled crime novel by Philadelphia writer David Goodis published in , follows Eddie Lynn, a former concert pianist, who hides from his past until his estranged brother shows up and forces him to grapple with his ghosts.

He is author of the forthcoming book, New Immigrants and American Industry, He has also taught at Villanova University and Rowan University. He holds a Ph. He has previously published articles in Quaker History and Quaker Studies. University of PennsylvPhiladelphians embraced the study of celestial phenomena and bodies, such as stars, planets, and comets, from an early date. Michael Pospishil is a Ph. His dissertation explores the role of mid-Atlantic surveyors in cultivating a sense of order during and after the American Revolution.

Like its technological forerunner, the telegraph, radio made possible the direct, real-time transmission of information. Country clubs originated in the s as elite, family-oriented havens usually emphasizing golf, but they have never been just about golf or even sports. Clubs fostered sportsmanship, appropriate deportment, and social development while also providing opportunities for exercise. Mark L. Thompson is an American historian who teaches at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

Klein Book Prize for the best book in Pennsylvania history in Petty Island, part of Pennsauken, New Jersey, in the Delaware River opposite the Kensington section of Philadelphia, played a significant supporting role in the economic development of the region. Incorporated in and named county seat of the newly formed Camden County when it separated from Gloucester County in , Camden City long served as the heart of the South Jersey region directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia.

Written by Silas Weir Mitchell and published in , The Red City: A Historical Novel of the Second Administration of President Washington is a historical romance, a genre whose plot typically consists of a quest, followed by trials, and ending in marriage. Founded in , the Philadelphia Orchestra developed into an iconic organization for Philadelphia through its musicianship, commitment to culture and education, and service as a cultural ambassador.

Brad Windhauser is a Philadelphia-based writer whose short stories have appeared in several literary journals. Joseph C. During the s, as regional landfills closed, it became increasingly difficult for Philadelphia to find places to put its trash and the ash from burning that trash. From the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth century, almshouses offered food, shelter, clothing, and medical care to the poorest and most vulnerable, often in exchange for hard labor and forfeiture of freedom.

Levi Fox is a Ph. He teaches courses at Temple, Rutgers, and Stockton Universities. Nina M. Schreiner is a graduate student at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, where she studies the archaeology of colonial North America. Philadelphia and its nearby vicinities became important sites for entomological study by the nineteenth century due to the presence of the Academy of Natural Sciences established in and the American Entomological Society Entomological writing and illustration also flourished in this center for book production.

When the Marquis de Lafayette , a French hero of the American Revolution, returned to the United States in , Philadelphians joined in a wave of nationwide affection for the nobleman who had volunteered for service in the Continental Army at the age of Philadelphia has been a tourist destination since leisure travel emerged as a common pastime for the middle and upper classes in the nineteenth century.

David Haugaard is the director of research services at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Bookstores have long been an important part of the economic and cultural fabric of Philadelphia. As early as the eighteenth century, booksellers set up shop in the city, eager to serve a highly-educated population hungry for information.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the number of bookstores continued to rise. Mara Kaktins is a historical archaeologist who holds an M. Her graduate work focused on the changing treatment of the poor throughout the colonial period. Three hours long and a mile-and-a-half in length, the Grand Federal Procession was an ambitious act of political street theater, scripted by federalist supporters of the newly ratified U.

Constitution and performed in the streets of Philadelphia on the Fourth of July The outbreak of a mysterious pneumonia-like disease in the Philadelphia region in the summer of puzzled doctors and public health officials. John L. A co-founder of the Netter Center for Community Partnerships, he teaches academically-based community service courses at Penn, and he has been active in community organizing around schools in West Philadelphia. Philadelphia in the late nineteenth century stood shamefully high among large American cities in rates of death from typhoid fever also known as enteric fever.

Caused by a type of Salmonella bacterium, the disease had become common in Philadelphia and other cities with crowded populations, inadequate disposal of human waste, and lack of water treatment.

Matthew A. White is a Ph. In the Philadelphia region prior to European settlement and during the colonial period, the Lenapes and other Indians used their knowledge of the landscape to engineer the most efficient routes through forests, mountains, and often shallow, treacherous waterways. His doctoral thesis and scholarly work focus on the relationship of citizens to their state, national, and imperial governments in the early-modern Atlantic World.

Originally one island, then segmented by a canal in , the islands attracted early but unsuccessful proposals for bridges between Camden and Philadelphia. In colonial Philadelphia, physicians and other medical practitioners contended with a difficult disease environment. The best medical efforts of the day were often inadequate or even harmful in the face of chronic illness and epidemic disease.

The health of the colonial population varied by race and region. The grand jury, enshrined in common law and inscribed in the Fifth Amendment of the U. Constitution, has represented a force for citizen participation in the judicial process as well as for government power. The grand jury has the power to indict in felony cases and the broad right to investigate crimes.

Puerto Ricans migrated to the Philadelphia area in search of better economic opportunities. A small stream of migration prior to the twentieth century grew during the two world wars, with many more migrants arriving from the s onward. Sports card collecting, a classic American hobby, has strong ties to Philadelphia. Those three, all pioneers and innovators in the sports card industry, helped to build collecting as a popular hobby.

Robert A. Over the course of three hundred years, urbanization and habitat loss in the Philadelphia region threatened amphibians and reptiles that once fostered rich scientific discussions. Nevertheless, pioneering herpetologists influenced medical, paleontological, and ecological studies of these creatures in North America.

The vegetarian movement in the United States was born in Philadelphia, and the city was pivotal in several of its most important developments. Throughout, Philadelphia maintained an ongoing community of vegetarians, including those who became known as vegans. Predating an organized movement, individuals practiced vegetarianism and some produced vegetarian cookbooks.

The Model Cities program was the last major urban aid initiative of the Great Society domestic agenda of President Lyndon Johnson In , North Philadelphia was designated for renewal under this program. American cartooning began in Philadelphia. Benjamin Franklin —90 , who introduced cartoons to North America, used images to galvanize viewers to action on the issues of their day. As the political, economic, and cultural capital of the early United States, Philadelphia became a center for producing political cartoons and humorous caricatures.

Despite eras of suspicion and the relocation of many its members to the West during the nineteenth century, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church not only persisted in the Philadelphia region but also grew and spread, especially in the early twenty-first century. This month we passed a new milestone in the creation of The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia: our th topic published online.

Amanda Bevers Bristol is a Ph. As dentistry slowly emerged as a profession in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, innovative dentists in Philadelphia helped to shape dental care, procedures, and tools.

The Better Philadelphia Exhibition, which ran from September 8 to October 15, , at Gimbels department store in Center City, showcased new ideas for revitalizing Philadelphia after decades of depression and war. It was the first known protest of its kind in Philadelphia, and one of the earliest such demonstrations in the United States.

Rachel Moloshok is managing editor of publications and associate manager of scholarly programs at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, where she has helped to plan and execute several digital history exhibits, including Politics in Graphic Detail: Exploring History through Political Cartoons The Union League of Philadelphia, organized in as a political club for the support of the Union cause during the Civil War, developed into the premier urban social club of Philadelphia.

Philadelphia boasts the oldest and one of the largest urban park systems in the United States, comprising more than one hundred parks encompassing some ten thousand acres. For most Americans in the mids, rock and roll seemed to come out of nowhere, a raucous new musical style that suddenly burst on the scene. In reality, rock and roll had been taking shape for decades, as uniquely American vernacular musical styles such as jazz, blues, gospel, and country music cross-pollinated.

Susan Ferentinos is a public history researcher, writer, and consultant specializing in project management and using the past to build community. She holds a Ph. Martha K. For thousands of years before European settlement, Native Americans inhabited North America and left behind evidence of their lives in the form of artifacts, which archaeologists have studied and interpreted. Upon receiving his grant for Pennsylvania in March , William Penn immediately set about attracting investors and settlers.

To pay expenses and realize a profit from his enterprise, Penn had to sell land. Army, and federal arsenals played a considerable role in the economic life of the city. Superior in comfort to the horse-drawn omnibuses of the nineteenth century and with more range and versatility than electric trolleys, autobuses offered passengers easier means to traverse the metropolitan area.

He also covered energy issues for the Denver Post. Like other major American cities in the s and s, Philadelphia was an epicenter for the exuberant strain of architecture and design activity that came to be known as Art Deco. Brant W. Ellsworth earned a Ph. He recently published a chapter examining Mormon soldier enlistment motivation during the Civil War in Ken Alford, ed.

Jack McCarthy is an archivist and historian who specializes in three areas of Philadelphia history: music, business and industry, and Northeast Philadelphia. He regularly writes, lectures, and gives tours on these subjects. The colonies that became the state of Delaware lay in the middle of the North American Atlantic coast, extending about miles north from the Atlantic Ocean along the southwestern shore of the Delaware South Bay and River to within 10 miles of Philadelphia.

Vagrancy, generally defined as the act of continuous geographical movement by the poor, often has been interpreted to signify idleness, unemployment, and homelessness. Since the colonial era, it has been a driving social concern in the Mid-Atlantic region, where urban centers, including Philadelphia, attracted poor migrants seeking new economic prospects. Her work focuses on American women and scientific practice between and Matthew B. Tormey is a political science student at Westfield State University in Massachusetts.

Christina Afia Harris is a Ph. Admiral Wilson Boulevard, a two-and-a-half-mile section of U. In the s and s, nearly thirty co-working spaces opened in the Philadelphia area. Co-working offered flexible, shared office facilities to freelancers, technology start-ups, entrepreneurs, and nascent businesses that did not require or could not afford private workplaces. These spaces were designed to foster a collaborative atmosphere, where clients could share innovations and resources.

Linda Myrsiades is professor emerita of English and comparative literature at West Chester University of Pennsylvania and the author of several books. He specializes in the history of medicine, especially as it pertains to Pennsylvania. His manuscript, which analyzes four urban outbreaks in Pennsylvania during the —19 influenza pandemic, is with the University of Rochester Press.

Philadelphia has a long, distinguished history as a center of American painting. Zimmerman earned his Ph. Opened to the public in , the Commercial Museum was the foremost source of international trade knowledge for American manufacturers at the turn of the twentieth century.

In it, Peale intended the works of man and nature to coexist for the edification of all. Businessman, chemist, educator, and art collector Dr. Albert C. Barnes established the Barnes Foundation in as a center for art education organized around his growing collection of paintings, sculpture, and furniture.

The institution earned international renown, less for its pedagogy than for its art collection, which by mid-century was world-class. Liberia; Or, Mr. The work argued that free blacks could not prosper in North America but had opportunities for advancement and self-determination in Liberia, a black Christian republic.

A culmination of political battles between Democratic-Republicans and Federalists while Philadelphia served as capital of the United States, the federal Alien and Sedition Acts imposed stringent new rules governing political speech and writings, immigration rights, and non-naturalized immigrants.

Before Disneyland, Atlantic City was the first great middle-class resort in the nation, especially the Philadelphia region. From its founding in the s through the early decades of the twenty-first century, Atlantic City succeeded and failed based on its ability to make itself in the image of the American middle class. Since the early nineteenth century, several reform efforts have aimed to improve Philadelphia-area public schools.

While the historical context and the individual actors changed over time, a firm belief that basic education for all could foster social equality animated reform in every era. The Articles of Confederation established the Confederation Congress that governed the United States from to Meeting in Philadelphia, the Second Continental Congress appointed a committee that began drafting the Articles in Railroad stations in Greater Philadelphia evolved with the railway industry into a wide variety of forms and functions.

For most passengers and casual observers, railroad stations are buildings, but for the railways, these locations are also key operating points for loading and unloading passengers and freight.

Formed in , the board filled unmet needs for economic development and became the largest organization of its type in the nation. She is writing a dissertation on the social history of indigent transiency in the early American republic. Andrew Tremel is an independent researcher and public historian at the U. Capitol Visitor Center. Lu Ann De Cunzo holds a Ph. Her research has addressed diverse themes and topics of lower Delaware Valley history and cultures between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries.

Cody Dodge Ewert is a Ph. His dissertation examines the relationship among school reform, patriotism, and political culture during the Progressive Era. Which topics were our most-visited during ? Our statistics reveal some patterns: The political season seems to have had an impact on readership of topics related to immigration and nativism.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, dissection and study of human corpses became the primary method for medical students to gain intimate visual and tactile knowledge of the body and prepare to perform surgery on the living. Gregory D. Lattanzi, Ph. Lattanzi specializes in ancient copper working and pottery analysis in the Middle Atlantic region. First designated by the U. For more than a century, manufacturers generated vast amounts of waste and runoff.

After industry declined between the s and the s, acres of abandoned structures and soiled land remained. The Mid-Atlantic gunpowder industry flourished in the nineteenth century along the Brandywine River in Delaware and spread into Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and other states. As Pennsylvania and other northern states became havens for enslaved people who sought to escape bondage, free blacks and sympathetic whites organized Vigilance Associations, which operated Vigilance Committees sometimes called Vigilant Committees to protect fugitives and potential kidnap victims.

Published in London in , Frank J. While eighteenth-century Philadelphians looked almost exclusively to the east and the Delaware River to connect them to the wider world, by the turn of the nineteenth century they looked increasingly to the Schuylkill River and the west.

Jean-Pierre Beugoms is a Ph. He is working on a dissertation about the logistics of the U. Army during the War of He also teaches U. From the arrival of Europeans in the seventeenth century through the era of the early republic, treaties were an important tool in diplomacy between native nations and colonial Pennsylvania and later the nascent federal government.

Treaties followed indigenous modes of diplomacy, into which colonists introduced, and imposed, the signing of treaty documents. From its earliest days as an English colony, Pennsylvania needed lawyers to run the government, settle disputes, and keep the peace. The term Philadelphia lawyer originated in the eighteenth century as a description of members of the Philadelphia bar, then widely considered the best trained in the American colonies and exceptionally skilled in the law and rhetoric.

In the s the Democratic-Republican Societies emerged and helped to establish the precedent in the United States for political organization and government opposition at the local and regional level. The Crosstown Expressway, a proposed limited-access highway on the southern edge of Center City, became the subject of prolonged controversy during the s and s as redevelopment schemes met with neighborhood resistance.

The Stamp Act of , the first direct tax ever imposed by the British government on colonial Americans, inadvertently provoked a ten-year clash of wills between Britain and the colonies that led to the American Revolutionary War. Providing massive numbers of customers with food, clothing, and other goods while allowing many working people an occupational foothold in the region, vending also sparked controversies regarding taxes, regulation, public health, and uses of space.

Once clustered in cities and later spreading to suburbs throughout the metropolitan area, office buildings have mirrored changing architectural styles and economic patterns.

Outside the urban core of Philadelphia, the picturesque rural landscape proved a significant draw to many artists in search of the purportedly simple, wholesome, and moral quality of countryside living. More than three centuries of private and public efforts have given the Philadelphia area the highest concentration of public gardens in the United States.

Although William Penn originally envisioned five squares dotting his metropolis, the energies of private citizens initially cultivated the plants, gardens, and landscapes of Philadelphia. Her publications have focused on nineteenth-century American painting and photography. Inspired by patriotic fervor during the Quasi-War with France, the people of Philadelphia raised money in one week during June to build the USS Philadelphia to help increase American naval power to protect commerce.

Philadelphia has a rich ballet history that spans centuries. Although inspired by a feast shared by Pilgrims and Native Americans in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Thanksgiving traditions emerged from more than two centuries of celebrations influenced by social classes, ethnic groups, and the rise of consumer culture. Some of the most popular practices of Thanksgiving by the twenty-first century originated in Philadelphia.

The Avenue was conceived in by a coalition of public and private entities to attract visitors to Center City. The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts was designed as the centerpiece of the Avenue of the Arts, a rebranded stretch of Broad Street devoted to performing arts venues. Mikaela Maria is a public historian who has worked as programs manager for the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities and an editorial, research, and digital publishing assistant for The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia.

Mikaela lives in Philadelphia and works in Camden, NJ. Although the federal government under the U. Constitution went into operation in New York City in April , the capital moved to Philadelphia late in and remained until This decade encompassed formative years for the U. Similar grand houses once graced the Delaware Valley, especially upriver from Philadelphia and along the Schuylkill.

Chartered May 26, , by the Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation, this enterprise was the first national and truly commercial bank in the United States. Philadelphia-area residents and visitors have required places for large assemblies since the colonial era, and a variety of temporary and permanent facilities served this purpose in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Modern, multipurpose convention centers appeared in the late s and have since grown in size and scope.

Between and , Philadelphia became the center for book printing and publishing in the United States, surpassing New York and Boston. Although Philadelphia lost that primacy in the nineteenth century, firms specializing in medical and religious publishing continued to do well. Richard Veit, Ph. He teaches courses on archaeology, New Jersey history, Native Americans, and historic preservation.

Student radio has been democratizing and distinct. New streetcar-centric suburban developments combined the allure of pastoral living with fast access to work and commerce in central Philadelphia.

Tara M. She has been one of four eco-feminist bloggers writing for From the Ground Up, a blog on Shalereporter. Shannon E. Duffy received her B.

Sheppard Lee, a novel published in by Philadelphian author, playwright, and physician Robert Montgomery Bird , is a narrative of the wandering soul of an indolent, down-on-his-luck farmer. From the early nineteenth century onward, Philadelphia spawned an abundance of mysterious tales starring shadowy strangers, fantastic happenings, and deadly conspiracies. Snaking its way through parts of North and Northeast Philadelphia, the Roosevelt Boulevard, formally known as the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Boulevard, has become one of the most heavily traveled thoroughfares in the Philadelphia metropolitan region.

Three young artists who took up residence at the old Red Rose Inn in Villanova, Pennsylvania, in the first decade of the twentieth century helped make Philadelphia a national leader in book and magazine illustration.

On May 18, , four hundred British officers and elite Philadelphians embarked on a regatta down the Delaware River. This aquatic procession kicked off the Meschianza, an extravagant fete to honor General William Howe and his brother, Admiral Richard Howe , on their departure from North America. Alexandra W. Lough holds a Ph. Christian DuComb, Ph. Kim Burdick earned her M. She later served as a joint Hagley-Winterthur Research Fellow. She also holds an M.

Emily T. Cooperman is an architectural and landscape historian and historic preservation consultant. Christopher Willoughby is a Ph. In the s and s, as social and economic tensions arose from early industrialization and from a population that was at once growing rapidly and becoming more racially and religiously diverse, Philadelphia experienced a sharp increase in disorder that it was unprepared to handle.

Jeffrey A. Davis, Ph. Sharon Skeel is a Philadelphia-based dance writer and lecturer currently working on a biography of Catherine Littlefield. Suzanne Lashner Dayanim holds a Ph. The Vine Street Expressway Interstate , a 1. Philadelphia, like many cities throughout the Atlantic world, encountered a new threat in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries from pirates who raided the numerous merchant vessels in the region.

Several historians have labeled this era as the golden age of piracy. Ann K. Billiards, the traditional name for games played on a table with balls and a cue stick, of which there are a number of variations, has been played in Philadelphia since at least the late s.

Rachael A. Beyer is a Ph. She recently completed a year as the David Sarnoff Library collection processing intern in manuscripts and archives at the Hagley Library and Museum in Wilmington, Delaware.

Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Philadelphia became a leading center of printmaking in the United States. While publishing companies had operated in the city since the eighteenth century, the technological innovations of the firm of Peter S. Along its east-west course, South Street has been a space where different types of Philadelphians—white and black, poor and wealthy, parochial and urbane, straight and gay—have met and mingled.

In his dissertation he compared protest movements against urban redevelopment in Philadelphia and Cologne. Bootleg liquor, produced illegally during Prohibition , flowed into the Philadelphia region from a variety of sources, including overseas shipments, small home stills, large stills in urban factories and country barns, beer breweries, and manufacturers of industrial alcohol.

Popes use their visits to encourage faith, emphasize their priorities, and fulfill their role as pastors. The places visited use these trips to highlight their successes, history, and culture on an international stage.

Prior to the visit of Pope Francis b. William Madges, Ph. Robert F. Smith is assistant dean of humanities and social sciences at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

She earned her M. Her research interests include community development, community health and literacy, and educational issues in immigrant communities. As industrialization began changing the nature of work and society in the United States during the s and s, workers concerned with their low wages, long hours, and the growing power of employers organized to fight for what they believed to be the true ideals of the republic. The state capital of New Jersey and the seat of Mercer County, Trenton parlayed its strategic location on the Delaware River into becoming one of the most productive industrial sites in the Greater Philadelphia region.

A small city of only 7. Like many neighborhoods in Philadelphia, Harrowgate, located just northwest of Kensington, experienced dramatic changes as a result of the industrial boom in the nineteenth century. Industrialization, however, transformed Harrowgate. Located on the Woodbury Creek in the northwestern part of Gloucester County, Woodbury formed as a result of the first Quaker family to settle the area, in World War II, which created change for industries, populations, and politics in many urban areas in the United States, had a transforming effect on the Philadelphia region.

Already industrialized, the region gained new impetus from government orders for supplies, armaments, transportation, and more. Heinrich, Thomas R. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, Licht, Walter.

Getting Work: Philadelphia, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, McKee, Guian A. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Silcox, Harry C. University Park: Penn State Press, Scranton, Philip. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Scranton, Philip and Water Licht. Work Sights: Industrial Philadelphia, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, Sidorick, Daniel.

Ithaca, N. Share This Page:. Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. Workshop of the World. Toy dromedary camel, c. Schoenhut Company. By Walter Licht How will they know? Diversity, Specialization, Skill During World War II, a Philadelphia worker gauges a ship propeller on a lathe at Baldwin Locomotive Works, which also produced tanks and locomotives for the war effort.

Topics: Work, Commerce, and the Economy. Aeronautics and Aerospace Industry From the aeronauts of the early republic to the jets, missiles, and rockets of the Cold War era, the growth and development of the aeronautical and aerospace industry in the Philadelphia region has exemplified a gradual shift from amateur pursuits to a more formalized industry and infrastructure. African American Migration People of African descent have migrated to Philadelphia since the seventeenth century.

Airports Commercial aviation grew dramatically in the United States in the twentieth century, and a number of airports in the Philadelphia area grew to become regional centers of the industry. Art of Dox Thrash Dox Thrash was an accomplished draftsman, printmaker, watercolorist, and painter, whose art reflected his experiences as an African American in Philadelphia.

Bakeries and Bakers Baking, one of the earliest businesses in Philadelphia, did not become a major part of the local economy until the late nineteenth century. Bank of North America Chartered May 26, , by the Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation, this enterprise was the first national and truly commercial bank in the United States.

Book Publishing and Publishers Between and , Philadelphia became the center for book printing and publishing in the United States, surpassing New York and Boston. Bookselling Bookstores have long been an important part of the economic and cultural fabric of Philadelphia. Brickmaking and Brickmakers The city of Philadelphia was built with bricks, giving it an appearance many neighborhoods retained into the twenty-first century.

Bridgeton, New Jersey Bridgeton, the governmental seat of Cumberland County, originated in the late seventeenth century as a fording place at the upper tidal reach of the Cohansey River, a tributary of the Delaware Bay.

Brownfields Redevelopment First designated by the U. Canals Canals transformed the economic and geographic scope of Greater Philadelphia in the first half of the nineteenth century. Cast Iron Architecture Over a period of four decades, from through , a commercial district of distinctive cast iron buildings developed in Center City Philadelphia.

Chemical Industry Since the eighteenth century, chemical or chemical processing industries have been an important part of the economy of Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley region and have reflected larger trends in the industry. Chemistry Philadelphians used chemistry to enhance manufacturing, household practice, and artisan trades, mixing scholarly with practical aims from the outset.

Chester, Pennsylvania Located 30 miles down the Delaware River from Philadelphia, the small but once industrially mighty city of Chester emerged in the latter part of the twentieth century as but a shadow of its former prominence in the county and the region. Clocks and Clockmakers Clockmaking in colonial and early republican Philadelphia and its environs was considered an intellectual profession requiring great artisanal skill and scientific knowledge.

Co-Working Spaces In the s and s, nearly thirty co-working spaces opened in the Philadelphia area. Commercial Museum Opened to the public in , the Commercial Museum was the foremost source of international trade knowledge for American manufacturers at the turn of the twentieth century.

Cordwainers Trial of Shoemaking, one of the most lucrative trades in Philadelphia during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, also proved to be one of the most contentious. Delaware Avenue Columbus Boulevard Delaware Avenue, the north-south thoroughfare closest to the Delaware River in Philadelphia, owes its existence to the richest man in America, who wanted a grand avenue along the central waterfront.

Dentistry and Dentists As dentistry slowly emerged as a profession in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, innovative dentists in Philadelphia helped to shape dental care, procedures, and tools.

Fabric Row A textile and garment district emerged during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries on South Fourth Street, between Catharine and Bainbridge Streets in South Philadelphia, as immigrants transformed the neighborhood into a Jewish Quarter. Fire Escapes Introduced in the nineteenth century, fire escapes supplemented interior stairways to allow people on the upper floors of buildings to escape in case of fire.

Flaxseed and Linen In the colonial era linen and flaxseed were fundamental to the mercantile life of Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley. Flour Milling At the time the first European colonists settled in the Delaware Valley, few places in the world were as well-suited to the cultivation of grains. Food Processing The food industry has always held a special place in Philadelphia and its surrounding region, though it never became a center of a massive industry like meatpacking in Chicago.

Furnituremaking From the founding of Philadelphia in until the late s, a vibrant community of cabinetmakers plied their skills alongside specialists in carving, chair making, and turning. Gas Stations The widespread adoption of the passenger automobile during the twentieth century altered the physical landscape of Greater Philadelphia and the United States.

Great Depression The Great Depression, which lasted from to , was characterized in both the Philadelphia region and the nation by a severe contraction in all levels of economic activity, massive unemployment, widespread bank failures, and sharp price deflation.

Grocery Stores and Supermarkets Local grocery stores, along with churches, elementary schools, and often saloons, have defined and anchored urban and suburban neighborhoods. Gunpowder Industry The Mid-Atlantic gunpowder industry flourished in the nineteenth century along the Brandywine River in Delaware and spread into Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and other states. Hospitals Economic Development As the twenty-first century began, hospitals and academic medical centers played a central role in the economies of many major U.

Immigration During the national explosion of immigration that took place between and the s, the Philadelphia region became more diverse and cosmopolitan as it was energized by immigrants who indelibly changed the character of the places where they settled. Industrial Neighborhoods The growth and decline of industry in the Philadelphia region in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries also shaped the character of many of its neighborhoods.

Iron Production Long before western Pennsylvania dominated the American iron and steel industries, southeastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey became the epicenter of colonial iron production.

Jewelers Row Jewelers Row in Center City Philadelphia emerged in the s and over time became home to more than two hundred jewelry retailers, wholesalers, and craftsmen. Knights of Labor The Knights of Labor, the first national industrial union in the United States, was founded in Philadelphia on December 9, , by Uriah Stephens and eight other Philadelphia garment cutters.

Korean War Although active hostilities during the Korean War lasted for little more than three years , the conflict had a lasting impact on the Philadelphia area. Labor Day Labor Day, celebrated the first Monday of September, has been observed in the Philadelphia region since the s, before it became a nationwide holiday. Locomotive Manufacturing For over one hundred and twenty years, railway locomotives were built in Greater Philadelphia. Musical Instrument Making Philadelphia became the leading center of musical instrument making in colonial America and the early republic, reflecting the importance of music in everyday life.

Norristown, Pennsylvania Founded in as the county seat of Montgomery County, Norristown sits on three hills that slope down to the Schuylkill River fifteen miles northwest of Center City Philadelphia. Opportunities Industrialization Center OIC In the s, after leading protest campaigns to expose discriminatory hiring and open thousands of jobs to African Americans, the Reverend Leon Sullivan founded the Opportunities Industrialization Center OIC , a vocational, educational, and life skills training program designed to prepare young men and women for full-time employment.

Paints and Varnishes From colonial times to the nationwide deindustrialization trend starting in the s, Philadelphia played a leading role in providing American and overseas markets with quality paints and varnishes. Petty Island Petty Island, part of Pennsauken, New Jersey, in the Delaware River opposite the Kensington section of Philadelphia, played a significant supporting role in the economic development of the region.