Topics Streams & Rivers

Imagine a Day Without Water

Black-and-white aerial photo of a creek bend with industrial buildings surrounding it

The Sad History of Frankford Creek

Birkinbine Schuylkill Hydrographical Survey 1861-66

Two reports on the state of the Schuylkill River, 1867

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

Streams, islands, and ferries of early Philadelphia

Schuylkill Navigation Company Scrapbook

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: The Clean Water Act, 1972-2022

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 a brick sewer outlet that drains into a creek with trees and a hill behind it

Thomas Run sewer outlet at Cobbs Creek

Birkinbine Schuylkill Hydrographical Survey 1861-66

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

69th St. Sewer and Culvert across Lansdowne

69th St. Sewer and Culvert across Lansdowne AVe.

Duplex Pumping Engine, Belmont Works

Duplex Pumping Engine, Belmont Works