Topics City Life

Water History: Rebirth of the Rivers

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

MEET YOUR ENEMY: THE RAT

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

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

Black-and-white image of a creek with people around it and a large building behind it

Dock Creek Sewer in 1849

Drainage and Sewerage Report, 1853

Dealing with the city’s wastes in the mid-19th century

Oak Lane Reservoir pipeline, 1904

The Water and Drainage History of Philadelphia

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

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

Chart of deaths from typhoid fever in Philadelphia from 1860 to 1936

Typhoid fever deaths, 1860-1936

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