Subjects Public Health

Includes activities to maintain the healthfulness of the city, and the animals (such as pigs) and diseases (such as cholera, yellow fever, and typhoid fever) that were the objects of public health efforts.

Fairmount Water Works: The Surprising History of an American Landmark

Water Bureau Newspaper Scrapbook, 1942-1952

Dobson FLP

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

Typhoid Fever and sewage tainted drinking water: An 1889 report from the Philadelphia Board of Health

CITIZENS’ BUSINESS: 1939-1946

State of the Schuylkill River in 1876: Sewage pollution and possible remedies

Birkinbine Schuylkill Hydrographical Survey 1861-66

Two reports on the state of the Schuylkill River, 1867

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’

1830 plan for the Pine Street Sewer

Plan of Pine Street Sewer, 1830

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

Mill Creek Sewer under construction, 1883

Gillette Schuylkill mud cartoon

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

Outhouse over Schuylkill near Pottstown

Outhouse over the Schuylkill near Pottstown