A Book by Jane Mork Gibson and A. Leonard Pundt III
Introduction by Adam Levine
Historical Consultant, Philadelphia Water Department
In 1978 Jane Mork Gibson, a historian of technology, worked on the history of the Fairmount Water Works for the Historic American Engineering Record of the Department of Interior. She became fascinated by this iconic building, and in 1986 she helped mount an exhibit about Fairmount at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, for which a beautiful catalog was produced. Jane was later hired by the Philadelphia Water Department to help them interpret the building’s history as it was being resurrected from its abandonment and transformed into the Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center.
Jane had a dream of expanding her earlier efforts into a much more detailed and accurate history of Fairmount, which served as an integral part of the city’s water supply from 1815 until 1909. She completed a first draft of this work before she died in 2016. PWD then hired A. Leonard Pundt III to complete the manuscript and provide the footnotes that Jane had not had the chance to insert. Between 2017 to 2024, Len was also asked to expand the narrative to include some of the broader context in which Jane was not interested: cultural background, organizational environment, political atmosphere, personal anecdotes that illustrate the personalities of the people involved, and connections between these elements—in short, the things that explain not just the what and when, but also the why.” Among his most valuable additions were coverage of the post-water-supply history of Fairmount, including the Aquarium decades and a detailed history of the building’s restoration, based on interviews he conducted with many of the people responsible for the work.
Len realizes that his mammoth working draft is too long to ever make it into a print edition, but he considers this an important document in itself, as a compendium of all of his and Jane’s research. He hopes that it will prove valuable to other historians for its coverage of:
- technological history, in particular the steam engine, water wheel and water turbine technology used to pump water at Fairmount
- architectural history, as it relates to a working water works that was added to and altered over its more than 200 year history
- political history, because while water is something we all need to live, not even this necessity was above the fray of party politics
- art history, since the building has been the subject of innumerable depictions in picture, prose, and verse, especially when in operation.
- historic preservation and restoration, as the last sections of the book get behind the scenes and into the heads of participants in this long process, which took more than 25 years.
- and much more…
There are literally hundreds of photographs, prints, and drawings of Fairmount in the Philadelphia Water Department Collection alone, and both Jane and Len dreamed of illustrating this work with some of those many images. For now, though, the words will have to be enough.
The entire manuscript is posted on the Internet Archive, where you can use that site’s built-in book reader to leaf through it page by page. You can also search the entire book by keyword. To whet your appetite, the Table of Contents is shared below, with links to each section.
Chapter 1. CRISIS AND RESPONSE
Chapter 2. A BETTER SOLUTION: STEAM ENGINES AT FAIRMOUNT
Chapter 3. WATER POWER AT FAIRMOUNT
Chapter 4. EARLY OPERATIONS
Chapter 5. CELEBRATED SYMBOL OF THE YOUNG REPUBLIC
Chapter 6. EXPANSION AND CONSOLIDATION
Chapter 7. RECONSTRUCTION OF THE OLD MILL HOUSE
(Link goes to 2nd page of chapter)
Chapter 8. FAIRMOUNT WATER WORKS AT ITS ZENITH
Chapter 9. TROUBLE ON THE HORIZON
Chapter 10. DISEASE, ART, AND THE END OF AN ERA
Chapter 11. CREATION OF THE AQUAIRUM
Chapter 12. DECLINE OF THE AQUARIUM
Chapter 13. UNCERTAINTY AND RESTORATION
Chapter 14. RENAISSANCE
