Items

Historic resources from our archives - images, maps, documents, and more.

Laboratory Alkalinity test, ca. 1943

Making It Safe to Drink: Water History Video 2

Rebirth of the Rivers: Water History Video 3

Dauphin and Sydenham car crash, Jan. 17, 1978

Receipt from privy cleaning by the Frankford Odorless Excavating Company, 1885

Privy Cleaning Receipt, 1885

William Penn balks at drinking the "mixed drink" offered him: Schuylkill water, mixed with pollution from the upstream sources named. Editorial cartoon by Fred Morgan, Philadelphia Inquirer, April 6, 1899. One of a series of cartoons drawn by Morgan protesting the state of the city's drinking water and trying to encourage the passage of legislation authorizing the construction of a water filtration system.

“A Decidedly Mixed Drink,” April 6, 1899

Bill for Privy Cleaning, 1869

Gillette Schuylkill mud cartoon

‘Gillette, All By Himself, Gets Fine New Idea On Germ Slaying’

Pegg's Run

Pegg’s Run, Northern Liberties (Watson’s Annals)

Photo of a woman looking at a jar of raw, untreated sewage

Jar of raw sewage before treatment, 2000

Black and white image of Philadelphia civic and business leaders watching the start of operations at the new Northeast Sewage Treatment Plant, April 6, 1951

Northeast Sewage Plant opening, 1951

Swimmers at Pier 126, Delaware River July 15, 1918

Swimmers at Pier 126, Delaware River, July 15, 1918

Photo of Allegheny Avenue Sewer, Pier 126, Delaware River, July 15, 1918

Allegheny Avenue Sewer at Pier 126, 1918