Topics City Life

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

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

Dock Creek Sewer in 1849: A report on its condition made to City Councils

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: A seven-part course

Archival Storytelling: A snowy Super Bowl Sunday at Sydenham & Dauphin

Dauphin and Sydenham car crash, Jan. 17, 1978

Receipt from privy cleaning by the Frankford Odorless Excavating Company, 1885

Privy Cleaning Receipt, 1885

Bill for Privy Cleaning, 1869

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