Subjects Pollution

Includes pollution caused by the direct dumping of factory or industrial wastes into rivers and streams, the dumping of industrial wastes and sewage through the city's sewer system, combined sewer overflows during wet weather, and polluted stormwater carried into streams by the city's stormwater drainage pipes.

Dobson FLP

You would not have wanted to drink it: Philadelphia’s water supply in 1884

Black-and-white diagram showing streets and the Little Tacony Creek

Frankford Creek Watershed: A historical overview of the Philadelphia section

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

Newspaper Clipping Scrapbooks of Frederic Graff Jr.,Chief Engineer of the Philadelphia Water Department: Part 1, 1854-1857

Board of Health Newspaper Clipping Scrapbooks at City Archives of Philadelphia, 1891-1908

Kensington Water Supply in 1883

Sewers, Pollution, and Public Health in 19th Century Philadelphia

Petition of manufacturers along the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia for a new upstream water supply, 1868

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.

Half a Century of Clean Water: The Clean Water Act, 1972-2022

Outhouse over Schuylkill near Pottstown

Outhouse over the Schuylkill near Pottstown

Two bottles of water from a river, one dark with pollution and one clear after filtration

Water Before and After Roxborough

A list of rules governing the sanitary maintenance of privy vaults in Philadelphia in 1915

Be Thankful You Don’t Live in Pre-Flush Philly