Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia

The Convention and Visitors Bureau touts Philadelphia as “a city of firsts.”  The Independence Hall Association lists five pages of “Philadelphia Firsts” on its website.  A walking tour of the city links “Philadelphia Firsts” to its home page.  George Morgan may have been the first to title a book on Philadelphia The City of Firsts, in 1926, but even that far back he acknowledged the research of others who had been tracking those firsts for “many years past.”   Although Philadelphia lost its rank as first city in the nineteenth century, it claimed for itself the title of city of firsts.