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

Black-and-white image of an ornately lettered document with a decorative border

Images from ‘The Water Supply of the City of Philadelphia by a proposed Aqueduct from Norristown Dam’

Pen and ink drawing of the proposed Delaware Seventh Street Sewer

Plan and profile of proposed Delaware Seventh St. Sewer, 1850

1830 plan for the Pine Street Sewer

Plan of Pine Street Sewer, 1830

Diagram showing the Philadelphia Water Department's water treatment process

PWD Drinking Water Treatment diagram

Cartoon depicting William Penn toasting the Devil with a glass of filtered water

“Speeding the Parting Guest,” Feb. 25, 1909

Diagram and description of the typhoid bacteria

Typhoid bacteria diagram, 1905

Mill Creek Sewer under construction. Several men standing beside a giant partially constructed sewer pipe.

Mill Creek Sewer under construction, 1883

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

Sewer Demand Taken to City Hall, 7/25/32