Topics Landscape Changes

Black-and-white photograph depicts a large brick sewer tube lying on a barren landscape

Streams, islands, and ferries of early Philadelphia

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

Fairmount Gardens, with the Schuylkill Bridge. This 1839 engraving, published in London, shows a view of the South Garden from the walkways that brought visitors up the cliffside to the overlooks at the height of the reservoirs. The fountain used the pressure of the reservoirs and was a a delightful refreshment in hot weather, and a wonder at all times. One anachronistic element of this engraving is the Upper Ferry Bridge, which burned the year before the print was published. Harding’s Hotel, a popular resort, is at the western end of the bridge.

Fairmount Gardens with the Schuylkill Bridge, 1839

Exploring the Lenapehoking Watershed on Native American Heritage Day

Black-and-white reproduction of the title page of an old periodical

19th century life in South Philadelphia’s marshland

Black-and-white image of workers in a pit with a sewer opening behind them and text

Frankford Creek: Sad History of an Urban Stream title page

Image shows a black-and-white drawing of a creek with dotted lines indicating where changes will be made

“A Snake That Will Be Straightened Out,” map of Frankford Creek with proposed changes, 1949

Second Street North from Market St. with Christ Church, Philadelphia

Birkinbine Schuylkill Hydrographical Survey 1861-66

Schuylkill River Hydrographical Survey 1861-66 by H. P. M. Birkinbine

Duplex Pumping Engine, Belmont Works

Duplex Pumping Engine, Belmont Works

Travel through the Philadelphia of a century ago, with a severely erudite guide

View of Fairmount Water Works, ca. 1827