Topics Sewers & Drainage

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

Three reports on Philadelphia’s Sewage Treatment Project, 1911-1914

Oak Lane Reservoir pipeline, 1904

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

Down Under!

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

Streams, islands, and ferries of early Philadelphia

Dauphin and Sydenham car crash, Jan. 17, 1978

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

Black-and-white image of a brick sewer outlet that drains into a creek with trees and a hill behind it

Thomas Run sewer outlet at Cobbs Creek

69th St. Sewer and Culvert across Lansdowne

69th St. Sewer and Culvert across Lansdowne AVe.

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