Items

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

Birch’s Views of Philadelphia, 1800

Colored print showin all the booths, restaurants and other amenities of the fair

Ground Plan, Great Central Sanitary Fair, Philadelphia

“Fairmount Waterworks. From the forebay.” (From nature & on stone G. Lehman; Published by C.G. Childs & G. Lehman, 1833. Free Library of Philadelphia, Print & Picture Collection)

Fairmount Water Works from the forebay, 1833

This 1838 view of the Fairmount Water Works with the Schuylkill River in the distance, by John T. Bowen, “captures the pleasures of Fairmount in its heyday,” writes historian Jane Mork Gibson. “The neat beauty of the works set into a gentle landscape, steep paths and steps that offered an exhilirating contrast to the general flatness of Philadelphia, as well as the excitement of boat races on the river and refreshments offered in the former Engine House, all prompted the admiring comments of visitors.”

Fairmount Water Works and the Schuylkill River, 1838

Fourth of July in Centre Square, John Lewis Krimmel, ca. 1812. The wooden statue in the fountain, “Allegory of the Schuylkill River (Water Nymph and Bittern)”, was carved in 1809 by Philadelphia sculptor William Rush.

Fourth of July, Centre Square, ca. 1812

A section of wooden water pipe, long out of service, removed from a Philadelphia street in 1901. It had been installed about 1801.

Wooden Water Pipe, removed from Market Street, December 6, 1901

Yellow Fever, Philadelphia, 1793

Yellow Fever in Philadelphia, 1793

This Philadelphia street scene, with dogs facing off with pigs for a pile of tasty garbage, was captured by artist Augustus Kollner in 1844, but would have been very familiar to 18th-century Philadelphians.

“Town street scavengers from life,” Kollner, 1844

Southeast Corner of Third and Market Streets, Philadelphia

Southeast Corner of Third and Market, Philadelphia

Map of London after the Great Fire of 1666 (Museum of London)

London after the Great Fire, 1666

William Penn’s treaty with the Indians when he founded the Province of Pennsylvania in North America. Painting by Benjamin West, 1771.

Treaty of Penn with Indians

Black-and-white reproduction of the title page of an old periodical

Images from “A Day in the Ma’sh” by Maurice F. Egan, Scribner’s Monthly, July 1881