Greater Philadelphia

Essay

Civic boosters in the late nineteenth century adopted “Greater Philadelphia” as a phrase denoting aspirations for progress as well as way of describing the region including Philadelphia and extending beyond its boundaries. For more than a century since, numerous businesses and other organizations, including The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, have signaled their regional scope by adopting this phrase. This layer of the Encyclopedia emphasizes topics that cross the region of Philadelphia, southeastern Pennsylvania, South Jersey, and Delaware, including governance, geography and settlement patterns, infrastructure, transportation, and social issues.

Related Topics: Regional Connections and Impact

Locations

Essays

Map

Timeline

Related Reading

Adams, Carolyn, et. al. Philadelphia: Neighborhoods, Division, and Conflict in a Postindustrial City. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991.

Adams, Carolyn, et. al. Restructuring the Philadelphia Region: Metropolitan Divisions and Inequality. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2008.

Black, Brian C., and Michael J. Chiarappa. Nature’s Entrepot: Philadelphia’s Urban Sphere and Its Environmental Thresholds. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012.

Cammarota, Ann Marie T. Pavements in the Garden: The Suburbanization of Southern New Jersey, Adjacent to the City of Philadelphia, 1769 to the Present. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2001.

Conn, Steven. Metropolitan Philadelphia: Living With the Presence of the Past. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.

Landsman, Ned C. Crossroads of Empire: The Middle Colonies in British North America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010.

Lanier, Gabrielle M. The Delaware Valley in the Early Republic: Architecture, Landscape, and Regional Identity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.

Lindstrom, Diane. Economic Development in the Philadelphia Region, 1810-1850. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978.

Related Collections

Philadelphia

Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1300 Locust Street, Philadelphia.

Philadelphia City Archives, 3101 Market Street, Philadelphia.

Urban Archives, Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, 1900 N. Thirteenth Street, Philadelphia.

Southeastern Pennsylvania

Bucks County Historical Society, 84 S. Pine Street, Doylestown, Pa.

Chester County Archives, 601 Westtown Road, West Chester, Pa.

Chester County Historical Society, 225 N. High Street, West Chester, Pa.

Delaware County Archives, 340 N. Middletown Road, Lima, Pa.

Delaware County Historical Society, 408 Avenue of the States, Chester, Pa.

Montgomery County Archival Records, 2000 Old Arch Road, Norristown, Pa.

Historical Society of Montgomery County, 1654 DeKalb Street, Norristown, Pa.

South Jersey

Burlington County Historical Society, 451 High Street, Burlington, N.J.

Camden County Historical Society, 1900 Park Boulevard, Camden, N.J.

Gloucester County Historical Society, 17 Hunter Street, Woodbury, N.J.

Salem County Historical Society, 83 Market Street, Salem, N.J.

Delaware

Delaware Public Archives, 121 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard North, Dover, Del.

Links

Connecting the Past with the Present, Building Community, Creating a Legacy