Topics Technology & Engineering

Fairmount Water Works: The Surprising History of an American Landmark

Water Bureau Newspaper Scrapbook, 1942-1952

Annual reports and other documents relating to Philadelphia’s water supply system, 1796-1992

Newspaper Clipping Scrapbooks of Frederick Graff Jr., Chief Engineer of the Philadelphia Water Department. Part 2: 1858-1871

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 photo of a man wearing a hat and standing on a bridge with his arm on a post

Wood truss drawbridge, Orthodox Street over Frankford Creek, 1899 [Detail]

Tinted image of a single-arch bridge over a river with landscape in the distance

Lancaster/Schuylkill Bridge (Upper Ferry Bridge)

View of Fairmount Water Works, ca. 1827

Henry Disston's Keystone Saw Works was located along the Delaware riverfront in Tacony. The black-and-white lithograph shows the factory's many smokestacks emitting smoke into the atmosphere.

Keystone Saw Works