Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia

Contents » Government and Politics

Abscam

Launched in March 1978, the FBI sting operation known as Abscam led to the conviction of a U.S. senator, six congressmen, three Philadelphia City Council members, and the mayor of Camden, New Jersey, for taking bribes from undercover agents pretending to be the Arab sheiks. The FBI secretly filmed the transactions in hotel rooms in ⇒ Read More

African American Migration

People of African descent have migrated to Philadelphia since the seventeenth century. First arriving in bondage, either directly from Africa or by way of the Caribbean, they soon developed a small but robust community that grew throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Although African Americans faced employment discrimination, disfranchisement, and periodic race riots in the ⇒ Read More

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. There was nothing assured or inevitable about this growth, however. It depended on the efforts of local political leaders, investments by the aviation companies, and state ⇒ Read More

Alien and Sedition Acts

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. They also had an immediate impact on the political life of Philadelphia as they inflamed passions in ⇒ Read More

Almshouses (Poorhouses)

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. Those who entered the Philadelphia region’s almshouses, willingly or unwillingly, rarely accepted this exchange and often protested their treatment or blatantly ⇒ Read More

Animal Protection

Moral doubt over the cruel usage of animals has a long history in Philadelphia. Public disapproval of such treatment surfaced by the late eighteenth century, but even with comprehensive laws designed to protect animals, and organizations devoted to enforcing those laws, the region has struggled to extend adequate protection to its nonhuman animals. Benjamin Franklin ⇒ Read More

Appeal of Forty Thousand Citizens

The Appeal of Forty Thousand Citizens, Threatened with Disfranchisement, to the People of Philadelphia attempted to persuade Philadelphians to vote against the ratification of a new constitution for Pennsylvania in 1838 because the word “white” had been inserted prior to “freemen” as a qualification for voting. Written by African American leader Robert Purvis (1810-98), the ⇒ Read More

Articles of Confederation

The Articles of Confederation established the Confederation Congress that governed the United States from 1781 to 1789. Meeting in Philadelphia, the Second Continental Congress appointed a committee that began drafting the Articles in 1776. However, the final draft was not complete until 1777 while the Continental Congress was ensconced in York, Pennsylvania, during the British ⇒ Read More

Bank of the United States (First)

Chartered in 1791 as part of the financial and economic reform plans of Alexander Hamilton (1755–1804), the first secretary of the Treasury, the first Bank of the United States played an instrumental role in establishing the nation’s credit. Based in Philadelphia, then the national capital, the bank drew many principal investors from the region and ⇒ Read More

Bank War

Conflict over renewing the charter of the Second Bank of the United States triggered the 1830s Bank War, waged between President Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) and bank president Nicholas Biddle (1786-1844). Operating from its Parthenon-style building on Chestnut Street between Fourth and Fifth Streets in Philadelphia, the bank served as a reliable depository for federal money ⇒ Read More

Banking

Greater Philadelphia’s banking roots go deeper than those of any region in the country. Philadelphia was the home of the first commercial bank (1782), the first national bank (1791), the first savings bank (1816), and the first savings and loan association (1831). Until the mid-1980s, celebrated local institutions such as First Pennsylvania, Girard, and Provident ⇒ Read More

Benjamin Franklin Parkway

Created in the first decades of the twentieth century, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway connected the heart of Philadelphia’s downtown to its premier park and over time became a district of cultural institutions and a commons for civic celebrations. The broad boulevard and its monumental structures reflected the European-inspired, nationwide City Beautiful Movement embraced by the ⇒ Read More

Bicentennial (1976)

Planners of Philadelphia’s Bicentennial celebration in 1976, aware of the incredible success of the 1876 Centennial as well as the flop of the 1926 Sesquicentennial, hoped to showcase the growth and ambitions of the city while also commemorating the two-hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. While the big celebrations drew crowds of Americans, the ⇒ Read More

Black Power

Black Power, a movement significant to the black freedom struggle in Philadelphia, came to prominence in the 1960s and 1970s through the combined efforts of local and national organizations including the Church of the Advocate, the Black Panther Party, the Black United Liberation front, and MOVE. Before and after Stokely Carmichael (1941-98) of the national ⇒ Read More

Bloody Fifth Ward

Philadelphia’s Fifth Ward, south of Chestnut Street near the Delaware River, became infamous in the late nineteenth century for election-day riots among the Irish, blacks, and the police, with ward boss William “Bull” McMullen (1824-1901) at the center of the violence. By the early twentieth century, the area had become known as the “Bloody Fifth,” ⇒ Read More

British Occupation of Philadelphia

On September 26, 1777, the British army marched into Philadelphia, beginning an occupation that lasted until the following spring. Its arrival led patriots to flee and Loyalists to rejoice, although wartime shortages soon led to suffering for those who remained in the city. The occupation, however, led to no concrete gains, and the British abandoned ⇒ Read More

Byberry (Philadelphia State Hospital)

From the arrival of its first patients in 1911 to 1990, when the Commonwealth formally closed it down, the Philadelphia State Hospital, popularly known as Byberry, was the home for thousands of mental patients.  In its early decades Byberry was controlled by the city, and from 1938 onward it was one of the several hundred ⇒ Read More

Capital of the United States (Selection of Philadelphia)

As the national capital from 1790 to 1800, Philadelphia was the seat of the federal government for a short but crucial time in the new nation’s history. How and why Congress selected Philadelphia as the temporary Unites States capital reflects the essential debates of the era, particularly the balance of power between North and South. ⇒ Read More

Cartoons and Cartoonists

American cartooning began in Philadelphia. Benjamin Franklin (1706–90), 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. Although New York eventually supplanted ⇒ Read More

Casinos

In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, casino gambling became an accepted public policy in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and other states desperate to generate tax revenue and create jobs. But the gains often came with significant social and economic costs in Atlantic City, Philadelphia, and other communities in the region. Casinos began to open ⇒ Read More

City Hall (Philadelphia)

Constructed over a thirty-year period at a cost approaching $25 million, Philadelphia City Hall stands as a monument both to the city’s grand ambitions and to the extravagance of its political culture. Controversial from the outset–for its location, its architecture, and the patronage it commanded on behalf of its construction–the structure nonetheless came to be ⇒ Read More

Civil Defense

Because of Greater Philadelphia’s position as a political, cultural, and economic hub, the region’s residents have often found their daily lives deeply affected by times of national crisis. Civil defense, generally defined as local voluntary programs designed to protect civilian life and property during times of conflict, has taken many forms: militia, home defense, civilian defense, ⇒ Read More

Civil Rights (African American)

Black Philadelphians have fought for civil rights since the nineteenth century and even before. Early demands focused on the abolition of slavery and desegregation of public accommodations. The movement gained greater power as the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth and the World War I-era Great Migration brought tens of thousands of African Americans ⇒ Read More

Civil Rights (LGBT)

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. As movements for African American, Latino American, and women’s rights gained traction and visibility, so too did movements for LGBT civil ⇒ Read More

Coffeehouses

Philadelphia’s first coffeehouse opened in 1703, and by mid-century half a dozen operated within the city limits. 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 decades following the American Revolution, however, some coffeehouse ⇒ Read More

Cold War

The period of international political and military tension known as the Cold War (1947-91) had military, political, and cultural implications for Greater Philadelphia. The region served as a first line of defense for a conflict that depended more on missiles than forts, and it provided the nation with an arsenal, a shipyard, and a source ⇒ Read More

Colonization Movement (Africa)

The African colonization movement, dedicated to resettling North American free blacks in West Africa, caused heated debates in Philadelphia in the early nineteenth century. Proposals to remove free blacks from North America date from the 1770s, but the heyday of African colonization occurred between 1818 and 1865. Often described as a “return to Africa,” the ⇒ Read More

Columbia Avenue Riot

On Friday, August 28, 1964, a scuffle with police at the busy intersection of Twenty-Second Street and Columbia Avenue sparked a three-day riot involving hundreds of North Philadelphians hurling bottles and bricks at police and looting stores. With the Columbia Avenue Riot, Philadelphia joined six other cities, including Jersey City, Paterson, and Elizabeth, New Jersey, ⇒ Read More

Common Sense

Published in Philadelphia in its first edition in January 1776, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense became one of the most widely disseminated and most often read political treatises in history. It looked forward to democratic politics and universal human rights, yet it also reflected local circumstances in Philadelphia. Common Sense was thus an overture to democracy ⇒ Read More

Community Development

During the community development movement, which arose in the 1960s in large part in response to years of disruption spurred by government-imposed urban renewal, Philadelphia became an important center of activism and institutions devoted to locally-based improvement programs. Community development programs sought to provide greater control over the future of neighborhoods at a time when ⇒ Read More

Community Development Corporations (CDCs)

Community development corporations (CDCs), initially a federal initiative intended to direct resources to beleaguered neighborhoods where local activists would take the lead in identifying and solving their most pressing problems, first formed in Philadelphia at the end of the 1960s and early 1970s. As federal funding for such efforts dried up in the Reagan era, ⇒ Read More

Consolidation Act of 1854

The Consolidation Act of 1854 extended Philadelphia’s territory from the two-square-mile “city proper” founded by William Penn to nearly 130 square miles, making the municipal borders coterminous with Philadelphia County and turning the metropolis into the largest in extent in the nation, a position it held until Chicago leapt ahead in 1889. Consolidation’s supporters believed ⇒ Read More

Constitutional Convention of 1787

The Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia from May 25 to September 17, 1787, at Independence Hall (then known as the Pennsylvania State House). The convention drafted the United States Constitution, the world’s oldest written national constitution still in use. The document, which divides power between the federal government and the states, launched a new phase ⇒ Read More

Continental Congresses

At the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, independence from the British Crown was an outlandish thought in the minds of many American colonists. They enjoyed the protections of one of the world’s most powerful empires and rights and freedoms granted to its subjects. Little more than a decade later, delegates from these ⇒ Read More

Contractor Bosses (1880s to 1930s)

As Philadelphia expanded physically after its 1854 consolidation of city and county, building contractors wielded a greater degree of political power as they paid politicians and civil servants handsomely for the rights to construct the city’s infrastructure. The late nineteenth century saw the emergence of the “contractor boss”—a construction magnate who wielded political power directly ⇒ Read More

Convention Centers

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 1920s and have since grown in size and scope. By the early twenty-first century, many of ⇒ Read More

Cordwainers Trial of 1806

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. Dissension within the trade worsened in the last decade of the eighteenth century and climaxed with the Philadelphia Cordwainers (shoemakers) Trial of 1806. This trial proved to be not only ⇒ Read More

Corrupt and Contented

In July 1903, at the height of the period of reform we have come to call the Progressive Era, crusading journalist Lincoln Steffens published the fifth in a series of articles exposing municipal corruption in the United States. His subject was Philadelphia, and to his mind it was worse than any other place he had ⇒ Read More

Crosstown Expressway

The Crosstown Expressway, a proposed limited-access highway on the southern edge of Center City, became the subject of prolonged controversy during the 1960s and 1970s as redevelopment schemes met with neighborhood resistance. The envisioned highway first appeared in redevelopment plans for Center City during the 1940s and came to play a role in regional traffic ⇒ Read More

Crowds (Colonial and Revolution Eras)

Social and economic elites dominated formal politics in Pennsylvania and New Jersey during the colonial and revolutionary eras, but ordinary people, often those who were ineligible to vote, helped shape the political culture. To support or oppose economic conditions and policies imposed by imperial, provincial, and local legislators, they periodically engaged in public celebrations, civil ⇒ Read More

Declaration of Independence

Convening in the East Room of the Pennsylvania State House from May 1775 to July 1776, sixty-five delegates of the Second Continental Congress worked through deep political divisions to create the Declaration of Independence, which gave birth to a new nation and cemented Philadelphia’s reputation as a Cradle of Liberty. When the Second Continental Congress ⇒ Read More

Delaware River Basin Commission

The four-state compact that established the Delaware River Basin Commission was a breakthrough innovation in addressing the interrelated land and water impacts of natural resources spanning political jurisdictions. For the first time, the federal government and several states joined as equal partners in a single agency to regulate and develop the watershed of an entire ⇒ Read More

Delaware River Port Authority

The Delaware River Port Authority (DRPA) was created nearly one hundred years ago as a bi-state commission for the purpose of building a single toll bridge. By the 1930s regional leaders had started to envision a larger maritime role for their new agency, but efforts to broaden its powers to include port operations were repeatedly ⇒ Read More

Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission

The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) was founded in 1965 to coordinate planning activities within a nine-county area, which included Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, and Delaware Counties in Pennsylvania and Camden, Burlington, Gloucester, and Mercer Counties in New Jersey. In the decades since its founding, DVRPC has worked to foster economic development, direct transportation projects, ⇒ Read More

Democratic-Republican Societies

In the 1790s 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. In April 1793 in Philadelphia, then the capital of the United States, Peter Muhlenberg  (1746-1807) and Michael Leib (1760-1822) founded the first of these societies, the ⇒ Read More

Educational Reform

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. Of course, race- and class-based inequality did not disappear, but educational reform ⇒ Read More

Enterprise Zones and Empowerment Zones

Introduced in the Philadelphia area and the nation in the early 1980s, the enterprise zone was a new kind of urban policy that emphasized market-based, “supply-side” strategies for tackling urban decline, most notably in the form of tax incentives for business. A variation in the 1990s, the empowerment zone, targeted areas of high poverty and ⇒ Read More

Environmental Movement

With its industrial past and expanses of natural resources, the Greater Philadelphia region teemed with activity during the environmental movement of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. In the years following World War II, people across the United States began to demand new measures to assure their health and safety. The resulting environmental movement, ⇒ Read More

Fair Housing

Years before the United States Congress put housing discrimination law into effect with the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968, Philadelphia and its suburbs grappled with the cumulative effects of policies that severely limited African Americans’ housing options. By the mid-1960s, new laws and policy initiatives addressed the situation in the Greater Philadelphia area with ⇒ Read More

Fairmount Park Commission

The Fairmount Park Commission (FPC), constituted by the Pennsylvania state legislature in the Park Acts of 1867 and 1868, administered the city’s public park system from 1867 to 2010. Consisting of six municipal officials or their delegates and ten private citizens appointed by the courts to five-year terms, the FPC had authority to expropriate land ⇒ Read More

Fort Wilson

On October 4, 1779, the home of noted Pennsylvania lawyer and statesman James Wilson (1742-98) on the southwest corner of Third and Walnut Streets in Philadelphia became a flash point for Philadelphians divided by politics and class. The militia attack on “Fort Wilson” occurred in the wake of conflict over the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776, ⇒ Read More

Forts and Fortifications

Constructed from the seventeenth through the mid-twentieth century, defensive fortifications along the lower Delaware River and bay guarded the region during times of international and sectional upheaval. As important structures with such long histories, forts help to explain the political, economic, and social history of the Greater Philadelphia region. The earliest fortifications in the lower ⇒ Read More

Free Society of Traders

The Free Society of Traders, a joint-stock company founded by a small group of English Quakers in 1681, was organized with the intention of directing and dominating the economic life of colonial Pennsylvania.  But, from the beginning, controversy about the Society’s existence revealed fundamental political divisions within William Penn’s “Holy Experiment,” and opposition led to ⇒ Read More

French Revolution

The French Revolution of 1789 created political, social, and financial instability throughout Europe, prompting many terrified French aristocrats, businessmen, and intellectuals to flee to the United States. Philadelphia, with its cosmopolitan atmosphere, accessible port, and thriving commerce, attracted many of the French émigrés. Most settled along the Delaware River in the Mulberry district of Philadelphia ⇒ Read More

Fries Rebellion

In 1798, while Philadelphia served as capital of the United States, a new federal tax and the Alien and Sedition Acts sparked resistance in rural Bucks, Montgomery, and Northampton Counties of Pennsylvania. The reputed ringleader John Fries (1750-1818) was twice convicted of treason but received a presidential pardon. Beyond local disruption, the rebellion played a ⇒ Read More

Gayborhood

In the second half of the twentieth century, the Center City neighborhood that became known as the Gayborhood formed in the vicinity of Locust and Thirteenth Streets. The community and the geographical spaces it occupied played a vital role in the social and political struggles of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people locally and ⇒ Read More

Gentrification

Even as Philadelphia experienced deindustrialization and decline in the 1970s, a handful of neighborhoods began to experience a phenomenon known as gentrification—a process where affluent individuals settled in lower-income areas. As middle-class residents returned, formerly moribund commercial corridors came alive with restaurants and shops catering to the well-heeled. Soon, real estate prices began to creep ⇒ Read More

Grand Federal Procession

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.S. Constitution and performed in the streets of Philadelphia on the Fourth of July 1788. From its commencement at Third and South Streets to its conclusion on ⇒ Read More

Grand Juries

The grand jury, enshrined in common law and inscribed in the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. 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. Although Delaware, Pennsylvania, ⇒ Read More

Great Depression

The Great Depression, which lasted from 1929 to 1941, 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. Many people lost their life savings and their homes. Untold thousands went hungry; some starved. It led ⇒ Read More

Greater Philadelphia Movement

The reform wave that swept through City Hall in the mid-twentieth century owed much of its power to the Greater Philadelphia Movement (GPM), a volunteer group of corporate leaders who believed the city’s scandalous political corruption threatened its economic future. Formed in 1948, they called themselves “practical men” who wanted Philadelphia to work more effectively ⇒ Read More

Greeks and Greece (Modern)

Philadelphia’s encounter with Modern Greece dates from the Greek War of Independence in 1821, and thousands of Greek immigrants arrived in the region beginning at the turn of the twentieth century. In the post-World War era, the upward social mobility of the children of the Greek immigrants ensured a continued strong relationship between Philadelphia’s region ⇒ Read More

Haitian Revolution

The Haitian Revolution, the most successful slave revolt in the history of the modern world, caused large numbers of both blacks and whites to flee the Caribbean, with many relocating to the United States. In 1793 Philadelphia received hundreds of these refugees, including white slaveholders and their black slaves. Foreign policy decisions also were made ⇒ Read More

Hog Island

Hog Island, at the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, exemplifies many broad trends in the environmental history of the region.  Once improved for agriculture, the natural landscape ultimately deteriorated through overexploitation, leading to its conversion for industrial, commercial, and other forms of development.  No longer productive in the early twentieth century, the island ⇒ Read More

I-95

Interstate 95—known as the Delaware Expressway in the Philadelphia area—is one of the region’s key transportation conduits. Running alongside the western bank of the Delaware River, it links central Philadelphia with Mercer County in New Jersey and Bucks and Delaware Counties in Pennsylvania. Conceived and built in an era when planners promoted automobile traffic above ⇒ Read More

Immigration (1790-1860)

The revival of immigration to Philadelphia and its surrounding region in the early nineteenth century provided one of the most powerful elements in reshaping the city’s society. After a decline in immigration during the wars of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era, the growing industrialization of the Philadelphia region began to attract streams of ⇒ Read More

Indian Rights Associations

The Women’s National Indian Association and the Indian Rights Association, both founded in Philadelphia in the late nineteenth century, led the way in setting a national agenda concerning the plight of Native Americans. They continued a local tradition of reform movements promoting rights and freedom. Founded in 1879, the Women’s National Indian Association organized by ⇒ Read More

Knights of Labor

The Knights of Labor, the first national industrial union in the United States, was founded in Philadelphia on December 9, 1869, by Uriah Stephens (1821-82) and eight other Philadelphia garment cutters. Intended to overcome the limitations of craft unions, the organization was designed to include all those who toiled with their hands. By mid-1886 nearly ⇒ Read More

Ladies Association of Philadelphia

Philadelphia was a center of patriotic fervor and activity during the American Revolution. Many of its residents, including women, participated in the war for independence by providing material and moral support for the “patriot” cause. On June 12, 1780, one such Philadelphian, Esther De Berdt Reed (1746-80), penned a broadside entitled “Sentiments of an American ⇒ Read More

Law and Lawyers

From its earliest days as an English colony, Pennsylvania needed lawyers to run the government, settle disputes, and keep the peace. As Philadelphia became a large city and important commercial, insurance, banking, and shipping center on the eve of the American Revolution, its lawyers were crucial to every civic endeavor, including the making of a ⇒ Read More

Lotteries

Lotteries have a long and controversial history in the Philadelphia region. Since the early eighteenth century, random drawings of numbers have funded charities and clubs, paid for roads and schools, settled estates, distributed land, and promoted various private and state-run initiatives. Lotteries have drawn multitudes of customers seeking cash and other prizes, but over three ⇒ Read More

Loyalists

During the American Revolution, Loyalists, or “Tories” as Patriots called them, included prominent Pennsylvania political and religious leaders as well as many less affluent individuals from the state’s Quaker and German pacifist communities. A large number of “neutrals” also struggled with increasing difficulty to remain uninvolved in the conflict. Religion, ethnicity, economic status, and local ⇒ Read More

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Philadelphia has had a greater influence on Martin Luther King Jr. holiday traditions than any city other than King’s birthplace, Atlanta. Observed on the third Monday in January since 1986, the federal holiday commemorates King (1929-68) and his civil rights activism. Ceremonies at the Liberty Bell and a focus on community service are among Philadelphia’s ⇒ Read More

Mason-Dixon Line

The Mason-Dixon Line, which settled a border dispute dating back to the founding of Philadelphia, is the southern boundary of Pennsylvania. Originally surveyed by Englishmen Charles Mason (1728-86) and Jeremiah Dixon (1733-79), the line separates Pennsylvania from Maryland and West Virginia along the 39º43ˊ N. parallel and bounds Delaware along an arc that extends from ⇒ Read More

Mexican-American War

Despite taking place in the American Southwest and Central America, the Mexican-American War (1845-48) had significant ties to the Philadelphia area. As one of the most populous urban centers in the country, the Delaware Valley became a hotbed of activity for one of the most controversial wars in American history.     War between the United States ⇒ Read More

Military Bases

For centuries, the American military valued Philadelphia because of its size, manufacturing capability, and location. Bases and other military facilities in the region contributed to the United States’ national defense while also serving as economic engines for surrounding areas, creating jobs not just on the installations but also in surrounding communities. Closures, conversely, led to ⇒ Read More

Militia

As the social and political center of colonial Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and the surrounding region served as a microcosm for the complex and often convoluted history of the colonial and early national militia. The role of Philadelphia militia also illustrates the nature of militia units during the American Revolutionary War. The first militia in the region ⇒ Read More

Model Cities

The Model Cities program was the last major urban aid initiative of the Great Society domestic agenda of President Lyndon Johnson (1908-73). The legislation called for the coordination of federal services to redevelop the nation’s poorest and least-served urban communities. In 1967, North Philadelphia was designated for renewal under this program.  Rather than serving to ⇒ Read More

Murder of Octavius Catto

A tumultuous, racially polarized Election Day in Philadelphia set the stage for the October 10, 1871, murder and martyrdom of Octavius V. Catto (b. 1839), an African American leader who struggled against segregation and discrimination in transportation, sports, politics, and society. Election Day in 1871, just one year after the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. ⇒ Read More

National Parks

National parks figure prominently in Greater Philadelphia’s cultural, economic, and natural landscapes.  Morristown (1933), Independence (1948), Valley Forge (1976), and First State (2015) National Historical Parks all preserve and provide access to sites associated with the American Revolution and early American history. Together they welcome nearly six million visitors each year and create more than ⇒ Read More

Native American-Pennsylvania Relations 1681-1753

Indian-brokered alliances more than Quaker pacifism anchored the “long peace” in the decades that followed Pennsylvania’s founding in 1681. The Iroquois Covenant Chain and the Lenapes’ treaties with William Penn (1644-1718) established the diplomatic parameters that made the long peace possible and allowed Pennsylvania to avoid the kind of destructive frontier warfare that engulfed the ⇒ Read More

Native American-Pennsylvania Relations, 1754-89

Relations between Pennsylvania’s Native American and European peoples underwent cataclysmic change during the second half of the eighteenth century. Despite the reputation for peaceful intercultural relations that Pennsylvania had enjoyed since its founding in 1681, a series of wars engulfed its frontiers after 1754, leading to the dispossession and exile of the colony’s native peoples. ⇒ Read More

Native and Colonial Go-Betweens

During the colonial period, the diversity of the region that became southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and northern Delaware made trade and diplomacy difficult. The many cultural, especially linguistic, barriers between various Native American and European groups required go-betweens, or intermediaries. The intermediaries who were called upon to interpret across cultures and help maintain the ⇒ Read More

Nativism

While Philadelphia has not been alone in experiencing sharp undercurrents of nativism, virulent rhetoric and periodic waves of violence aimed at the foreign-born have often wracked the city. Clashes between nativists and immigrants between the 1720s and the 1920s helped to set the boundaries of the city as well as define the limits of American ⇒ Read More

Nativist Riots of 1844

In May and July 1844, Philadelphia suffered some of the bloodiest rioting of the antebellum period, as anti-immigrant mobs attacked Irish-American homes and Roman Catholic churches before being suppressed by the militia. The violence was part of a wave of riots that convulsed American cities starting in the 1830s. Yet even amid this tumult, they ⇒ Read More

New Sweden

Founded in 1638, 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. As small and short-lived as it proved to be, New Sweden had ⇒ Read More

PATCO

The Port Authority Transit Corporation (PATCO) Speedline combined two sets of underutilized transit infrastructure to create a groundbreaking model for regional passenger transportation when it opened in 1969. It was one of Greater Philadelphia’s major public transportation successes of the mid twentieth century. In the early twentieth-first century, however, PATCO struggled to maintain both the ⇒ Read More

Pennhurst State School and Hospital

During eight decades of continuous operation (1908-87), Pennhurst evolved from a model facility into the subject of tremendous public scandal and controversy before the federal courts ordered it closed and the remaining residents moved elsewhere. Twenty years after its closure, the Pennhurst campus was recognized as an International Site of Conscience and its history became ⇒ Read More

Pennsylvania (Founding)

In March of 1681, King Charles II of England (1630-85) granted William Penn (1644-1718), gentleman and Quaker, the charter for a proprietary colony on the North American continent. Although both English colonial policy and the organization of the Society of Friends, known as Quakers, were works in progress between the years 1682 and 1701, in ⇒ Read More

Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges

The Charter of Privileges, effective October 28, 1701, and sometimes known as the Charter of Liberties, functioned as Pennsylvania’s constitution until the American Revolution. It replaced several attempts since the colony’s 1681 establishment to create a viable frame of government. Among the more permissive of colonial constitutions in British North America, the document guaranteed religious ⇒ Read More

Pennsylvania Emancipation Exposition (1913)

Held in 1913 in South Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Emancipation Exposition marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation with events and exhibits celebrating African American progress. At a time when the African American population in Philadelphia was growing and gaining in political influence, the event’s organizers also experienced a backlash of criticism as they secured ⇒ Read More

Pennsylvania Hall

Pennsylvania gained a reputation as the birthplace of American abolition soon after the American Revolution, but that status caused unrest as debates over slavery grew contentious in the antebellum years. The tension led to a number of riots, one of the most notable being the 1838 destruction of Pennsylvania Hall, a meeting place for antislavery ⇒ Read More

Philadelphia (Warship)

Inspired by patriotic fervor during the Quasi-War with France, the people of Philadelphia raised money in one week during June 1798 to build the USS Philadelphia to help increase American naval power to protect commerce. Completed in 1799, the Philadelphia served in both the West Indies and the Mediterranean Sea, where it was captured in ⇒ Read More

Philadelphia Campaign

During the War for Independence, in 1777, the British moved to seize Philadelphia in a series of battles that contributed to a turning point in the war. While the Philadelphia campaign strained British resources and exposed serious leadership issues with General Sir William Howe (1729-1814), the effectiveness of American forces led by General George Washington (1732-99) ⇒ Read More

Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania

Dating to 1682, Philadelphia County’s founding coincided with the origin of the city. Although the county faded from view after its consolidation with the city in 1854, it remained important for understanding Philadelphia’s urban development, local government, and long battles for political reform. When founding Pennsylvania, William Penn (1644-1718) followed long-established precedent by dividing his ⇒ Read More

Philadelphia Gas Works

The Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW), founded in 1836, was in 2015 the largest municipal-owned utility in the United States. While supplying residents with fuel for heating and cooking, PGW also became a flashpoint of controversy over whether such a utility should be owned by the city or operated by a private corporation. Although a number of ⇒ Read More

Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC)

The Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC), a nonprofit corporation controlled jointly by the city government and the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, formed in 1958 to support existing businesses and attract new ones by offering land and low-cost financing for both for-profit and nonprofit enterprises.  To accomplish this mission, PIDC manages the oldest municipal land ⇒ Read More

Philadelphia Navy Yard

The history of the Philadelphia Navy Yard has been one of constant struggle, repeatedly staring down imminent closure only to be saved at the last second by stalwart local politicians or a timely military conflict. Fondly remembered as the outfitter of the first American fleet, builder of the first warship under the Constitution, launcher of ⇒ Read More

Philadelphia Plan

Even as it underwent a painful process of economic restructuring in the years after World War II, Philadelphia garnered national attention from efforts to integrate historically white building trades. Dubbed the “Philadelphia Plan,” the program requiring federal contractors to practice nondiscrimination in hiring tested the liberal coalition formed in the aftermath of the New Deal ⇒ Read More

Point Breeze (Bonaparte Estate)

Joseph Bonaparte’s Point Breeze estate was one of the finest country houses in the Delaware Valley. Similar grand houses once graced the Delaware Valley, especially upriver from Philadelphia and along the Schuylkill. The first was likely Pennsbury Manor, the American home of William Penn (1644-1718). Many of these country houses still stand, including the Woodlands, ⇒ Read More

Police Department (Philadelphia)

Created by state law in 1854 to maintain public order, prevent riots, and apprehend criminals, the Philadelphia Police Department operated for its first hundred years under direct control of politicians and served the reigning party’s interests by collecting graft as well as apprehending vagrants and solving crimes. During the twentieth century, especially in the latter ⇒ Read More

Political Conventions

Philadelphia has hosted national political conventions from the time of the Revolution to the modern era. The Pennsylvania State House, later known as Independence Hall, was the site of both the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Constitutional Convention in 1787. In the mid-nineteenth century, as national party conventions became the ⇒ Read More

Political Parties (Origins, 1790s)

Philadelphia, long considered the “cradle of liberty” in America, was also the “cradle of political parties” that emerged in American politics during the 1790s, when the city was also the fledgling nation’s capital. A decade that began with the unanimously-chosen George Washington (1732-99) as the first President of the United States ended with partisan rancor, ⇒ Read More

Pontiac’s War and the Paxton Boys

Pontiac’s War (1763-66), a conflict between Native Americans and the British Empire, began in the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley regions but had important ramifications for Philadelphians as panic in the Pennsylvania backcountry sent refugees to the city. The arrival of the “Paxton Boys,” who were determined to seek revenge against Indians, sparked a political ⇒ Read More

Presidents of the United States (Presence in Region)

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. In the city where the nation’s first two presidents established the executive branch of government, presidential legacies have spurred commemoration as well as ⇒ Read More

Prisons and Jails

In the late 1700s, on the heels of the American Revolution, Philadelphia emerged as a national and international leader in prison reform and the transformation of criminal justice practices. More than any other community in early America, Philadelphia invested heavily in the intellectual and physical reconstruction of penal philosophies, and the region’s jails and prisons ⇒ Read More

Privateering

As one of the largest British ports in North America, during the eighteenth century Philadelphia held a prominent place in privateering, the practice of privately financed warships attacking enemy shipping during wartime. These vessels, either converted merchant vessels or purpose-built commerce raiders, were often investments of wealthy or enterprising merchants. In order to operate legally, ⇒ Read More

Proclamation Line of 1763

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 created an imaginary line along the Appalachian Mountains that prohibited European settlement beyond the crest of the mountains, approximately two hundred miles west of Philadelphia. It thus established the region from the eastern seaboard to the mountains as the extent of British North America. In Pennsylvania the proclamation heightened racial, ⇒ Read More

Prohibition

Despite the national prohibition of alcohol from 1920 to 1933, Philadelphia earned a reputation rivaling Chicago, Detroit, and New York City as a liquor-saturated municipality. The Literary Digest described Pennsylvania as a “bootlegger’s Elysium,” with every city as “wet as the Atlantic Ocean.” The Quaker City in particular was singled out, by newspapers from New ⇒ Read More

Public Education: Suburbs

In the second half of the twentieth century, many parents moved their families out of Philadelphia, Camden, or Wilmington so that their children could enroll in suburban public schools because they perceived them to be better than their urban counterparts.  Before then, many believed that the best public schools were urban and that rural schools ⇒ Read More

Public Education: The School District of Philadelphia

In 1837 the Philadelphia Board of Education—then known as the Board of Controllers—embraced “universal education” and opened the city’s publicly supported and publicly controlled schools to all school-age children, free of tuition.  The board proudly proclaimed: “the stigma of poverty, once the only title of admission to our public schools, has . . . been ⇒ Read More

Public Health

From the moment Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans came together in the Delaware Valley, they confronted a host of health threats. Philadelphia’s earliest public health efforts reflected the lack of scientific understanding of infectious diseases, and usually began only after an outbreak commenced. After the terrible 1793 yellow fever epidemic, Philadelphia’s leaders founded a permanent ⇒ Read More

Public Parks (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. With origins in William Penn’s innovative city plan, Philadelphia’s public green spaces range in size and type from small neighborhood squares to extensive watershed and estuary parks along ⇒ Read More

Quasi-War

Philadelphia, as capital of the United States during the 1790s, played a central role in the conflict called the Quasi-War, an undeclared war, between the United States and France during the years 1798 to 1800. Philadelphia became a hotbed of public displays for and against the Federalists’ response to this conflict and served as a ⇒ Read More

Redlining

Redlining, the practice of basing access to capital and financial services on neighborhood characteristics such as race and ethnicity, had destructive effects on older, nonwhite areas of Philadelphia. Especially in areas of South, West, and Lower North Philadelphia that form a ring around downtown, banks and other lending institutions issued proportionally fewer mortgages than in ⇒ Read More

Revolutionary Crisis (American Revolution)

The Stamp Act of 1765, 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. During this Revolutionary Crisis period (1765-75), colonists resisted imperial taxes and other Parliamentary innovations with protests and with ⇒ Read More

Roosevelt Boulevard

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. Initially conceived amid political maelstroms during the “corrupt and contented” phase of Progressive Era Philadelphia, “the Boulevard,” as it became ⇒ Read More

Salt Making

Colonial Americans depended on Great Britain for many necessities. Primary among them was salt, the essential ingredient in curing meats and preserving foods through the winter. At the start of the American Revolution, the British Navy blockaded American ports and largely shut off the supply of imported salt. In Philadelphia, salt prices shot upward. Starting ⇒ Read More

SEPTA

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (better known by its acronym SEPTA) is a state authority charged with funding and operating public transportation in the city of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania counties of Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery. Created in 1963, SEPTA often struggled with management issues, employee morale, strikes, aging equipment, inadequate funding, and poor public ⇒ Read More

Seven Years’ War

Philadelphia and the surrounding area played a significant role in the Seven Years’ War (1756-63), also known as the French and Indian War and the Great War for Empire. Beginning in North America and spreading to Europe, India, and the West Indies, the war was a struggle for colonial dominance between France and Great Britain ⇒ Read More

Shirtwaist Strike (1909-10)

On December 20, 1909, more than 7,000 of Philadelphia’s 12,000 shirtwaist workers walked out on their jobs, one month after the “uprising of 20,000” commenced in New York City’s shirtwaist industry. The strike lasted until February 6, 1910, when manufacturers agreed to comply with workers’ demands (though ultimately refused union recognition). Occurring in an era ⇒ Read More

Single Tax Movement

During the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, Philadelphia helped give birth to the single tax movement, one of the country’s more influential, if less well-remembered, reform movements. The idea of a “single tax” on the unimproved value of land, rather than on productive activities, was popularized by Henry George (1839-97), a native of Philadelphia. The ⇒ Read More

Smoking and Smoking Regulations

The origins of smoking tobacco in the Philadelphia region can be traced to the era before European colonization and evolved from pipes and cigars to the commercialization of cigarettes beginning in the late nineteenth century. Philadelphia-area farmers grew tobacco, local manufacturers produced cigars and cigarettes, and the N.W. Ayer advertising agency helped Camel cigarettes become ⇒ Read More

Spanish-American Revolutions

As a port with longstanding commercial, cultural, and political connections with Spanish America, Philadelphia played a significant role in the era of Spanish-American revolutions in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The City of Brotherly Love welcomed individuals escaping Spanish domination and helped to support their ideas about liberty, equality and independence.   Philadelphia’s ⇒ Read More

Spanish-American War

Although often regarded as a minor conflict, the Spanish-American War (1898) made a major impact on Greater Philadelphia. As a populous urban center, Philadelphia and its immediate environs contributed a substantial number of troops to the United States’ volunteer army but also provided an outlet for those dissenters who decried warfare. In addition, the war ⇒ Read More

Subways and Elevated Lines

Philadelphia’s subway and elevated network consists of four lines that connect with other transportation options to serve much of the region. Although the network is relatively simple compared with systems in other cities, its history is complex. It took over eight decades to plan and to build, and its construction required a variety of public-private ⇒ Read More

Taverns

From small operations in the colonial era to elaborate social spaces in the twenty-first century, taverns in and around Philadelphia have been vital institutions, offering respite, nourishment, and camaraderie to travelers and patrons. Over time, attitudes and laws regarding the consumption of alcohol altered the character of the tavern and gave rise to modern hotels, ⇒ Read More

Trade Unions (1820s and 1830s)

As industrialization began changing the nature of work and society in the United States during the 1820s and 1830s, 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. During this period, Philadelphia workers organized trade ⇒ Read More

Treaty Negotiations with Native Americans

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. However, treaty councils ⇒ Read More

Treaty of Shackamaxon

The Treaty of Shackamaxon, otherwise known as William Penn’s Treaty with the Indians or “Great Treaty,” is Pennsylvania’s most longstanding historical tradition, a counterpart to the foundation stories of Virginia (John Smith and Pocahontas) and New England (the first Thanksgiving). According to the tradition, soon after William Penn (1644-1718) arrived in Pennsylvania in late October ⇒ Read More

Tun Tavern

For nearly a hundred years from 1693 to 1781, Tun Tavern served residents and visitors of Philadelphia near the Delaware River waterfront with food, spirits, and sociability. Also a meeting place for social and military organizations, Tun Tavern is best remembered as the “birthplace” of the United States Marine Corps. Its patrons included such noteworthy ⇒ Read More

Typhoid Fever and Filtered Water

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. ⇒ Read More

U.S. Congress (1790-1800)

During the 1790s, while Philadelphia served as the nation’s temporary capital, the U.S. Congress met problems and threats to the nation that tested the endurance of the Constitution and the republic it framed. Domestic issues of finance, taxation, sectionalism, Indian affairs, and slavery divided the delegates into bitter political camps, and international relations fomented disagreements ⇒ Read More

U.S. Presidency (1790-1800)

Although the federal government under the U.S. Constitution went into operation in New York City in April 1789, the capital moved to Philadelphia late in 1790 and remained until 1800. This decade encompassed formative years for the U.S. presidency, including nearly seven years of the administration of George Washington (1732-99) and more than three years ⇒ Read More

Union League of Philadelphia

The Union League of Philadelphia, organized in 1862 as a political club for the support of the Union cause during the Civil War, developed into the premier urban social club of Philadelphia. Over time, it also became an important supporter of Republican political candidates and policies locally and nationally, acquired a significant collection of art ⇒ Read More

United States Colored Troops

During the American Civil War (1861-65), Philadelphians raised eleven regiments of the United States Colored Troops (USCT). This division of the United States Army, consisting of black soldiers led by white officers, provided much-needed manpower for federal forces in the final two years of the war. When the Civil War began, many African Americans across ⇒ Read More

United States Mint (Philadelphia)

Coins have been minted in Philadelphia as long as the federal government has produced legal tender coins. First authorized by Congress in 1792, the U.S. Mint’s Philadelphia facility (commonly known as the Philadelphia mint) in the early twenty-first century remained the nation’s largest producer of coins. Its history has been intertwined with the complicated history ⇒ Read More

Urban Renewal

Urban renewal was a nationwide program aimed at maintaining the dominant position of central cities in the face of the urban crisis and suburban growth that marked the decades following World War II. Philadelphia was a leader in this revitalization practice, reserving more federal urban renewal grant funding ($209 million), by the end of 1965, ⇒ Read More

Valley Forge

In 1777 the Continental Army, unable to prevent the British forces from taking Philadelphia, retreated to Valley Forge for the winter of 1777-78. Selected for its strategic location between Philadelphia and York, along the Schuylkill River, Valley Forge had natural defensive positions, access to water, enough land to support the army, and was far enough ⇒ Read More

Vine Street Expressway

The Vine Street Expressway (Interstate 676), a 1.75-mile depressed limited-access highway traveling east-west across the northern edge of Philadelphia’s central business district, resulted from more than sixty years of effort to connect I-95 and I-76 and move traffic more easily between and through the city to surrounding counties in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Its route ⇒ Read More

Walking Purchase

With the Walking Purchase of 1737, Pennsylvania officials defrauded the Delaware Indians out of a vast amount of land, perhaps over one million acres, in the Delaware and Lehigh Valleys. John Penn (1700-46) and Thomas Penn (1702-75), the sons of William Penn (1644-1718), with James Logan (1674-1751), the provincial secretary of Pennsylvania, devised the land ⇒ Read More

War of 1812

Philadelphia was pivotal in supporting America’s war effort during the War of 1812, the final war in which the United States and Britain fought on opposing sides. The city functioned as a major supply center for the army, and its revitalized port outfitted vessels for the navy. People from the Philadelphia area operated war-related businesses, ⇒ Read More

West Chester, Pennsylvania

Boosted by its strategic location some twenty-five miles from Philadelphia, West Chester, Pennsylvania, grew and prospered for most of its history as the county seat of Chester County. Pressured by mid-twentieth-century suburbanization, the borough lost its commercial and residential dominance and even its role as county seat somewhat diminished as the growth of the surrounding ⇒ Read More

West New Jersey

Between 1674 and 1702, New Jersey was divided in half: The proprietary West New Jersey colony faced the Delaware River while East New Jersey looked toward the Hudson. Although this political division lasted less than three decades, it represented long-standing geographical orientations of the Lenape and Munsee native inhabitants and European colonists. Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) ⇒ Read More

Whig Party

The Whig Party thrived in the Philadelphia region from its founding in 1834 through its demise twenty years later. The party, which emerged from the National Republicans in opposition to Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) and his Democratic Party, claimed the Whig name from the patriots of the American Revolution. Whigs controlled Philadelphia government through electoral victories ⇒ Read More

Whiskey Rebellion Trials

The first two convictions of Americans for federal treason in United States history occurred in Philadelphia in the aftermath of the Whiskey Rebellion, an uprising against the federal excise tax on whiskey that took place primarily in western Pennsylvania in 1791-94. Philadelphia served as the nation’s capital during this period and therefore was the city ⇒ Read More

Woman Suffrage

While the Philadelphia region often led the way on progressive reforms, by the twentieth century, woman suffrage was not among them. The region boasted a number of early woman suffrage advocates, and women in New Jersey had the right to vote during the early years of the republic, but by the late nineteenth century, Pennsylvania ⇒ Read More

Working Men’s Party

The Working Men’s Party of Philadelphia emerged in 1828 out of discontent with societal and workplace changes since the turn of the century. It formed out of the workingmen’s movement of the late 1820s and sought broad reforms. Although short-lived, the effort contributed significantly to injecting politics with working-class issues, many of which became prominent ⇒ Read More

Works Progress Administration (WPA)

In response to the rising tide of unemployment nationally, and after the short-lived Civil Works Administration (CWA) failed to stem that tide, Congress in May 1935 created the Works Progress Administration (WPA), one of the “alphabet soup” of economic recovery programs enacted as part of the New Deal of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945). Later ⇒ Read More

Zoning (Philadelphia)

From its inception, zoning became a fraught subject. By empowering neighborhood groups and local politicians with power over land use in their communities, zoning brought such groups in Philadelphia and elsewhere into contest with developers, industrial concerns, and sometimes with other people who wanted to move into their neighborhoods. The policy generated results both noble, ⇒ Read More

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