Topics City Life

Rebirth of the Rivers: Water History Video 3

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

Newspaper Clipping Scrapbooks of Frederick Graff Jr., Chief Engineer of the Philadelphia Water Department. Part 2: 1858-1871

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

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

Oak Lane Reservoir pipeline, 1904

The Water and Drainage History of Philadelphia: A seven-part course

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

Pegg's Run

Pegg’s Run, Northern Liberties (Watson’s Annals)

Swimmers at Pier 126, Delaware River July 15, 1918

Swimmers at Pier 126, Delaware River, July 15, 1918

Henry Disston's Keystone Saw Works was located along the Delaware riverfront in Tacony. The black-and-white lithograph shows the factory's many smokestacks emitting smoke into the atmosphere.

Keystone Saw Works

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