Topics Sewers & Drainage

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

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 tray with three compartments and four small glass cylinders

Drain water from sludges obtained from sedimentation, septic and Emscher tanks

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

Typical House Drainage, Combined and Separate Systems (2008.001.0032)

Typical house drainage

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