Subjects Landscape

Maps, etchings, newspaper clippings and other images and documents covering the natural landscape of Philadelphia and surrounding areas throughout more than 300 years of history.

The ecology of Center City, Philadelphia (in case you didn’t know there was any)

Color image of a grassy field with trees and buildings surrounding it and white lines drawn on the grass mimicking the path of a creek.

Drawing Dock Creek

Smith’s and Windmill Islands

Black-and-white photograph depicts a large brick sewer tube lying on a barren landscape

Streams, islands, and ferries of early 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

Black-and-white image of a body of water with trees and shoreline in the far distance

Delaware River at Arch Street from the New Jersey side, 1914

State House Garden, Philadelphia, 1800

The City and Port of Philadelphia on the River Delaware from Kensington, 1800

Birkinbine Schuylkill Hydrographical Survey 1861-66

Schuylkill River Hydrographical Survey 1861-66 by H. P. M. Birkinbine

Fairmount, bird's eye view from Lemon Hill (detail)

Fairmount Park, bird’s eye view from Lemon Hill, detail

Race Bridge, Fair Mount Water Works, 1834 (Graff05.63)

Race Bridge, Fairmount Water Works, 1834

View of Fairmount Water Works, ca. 1827