Topics Technology & Engineering

Black-and-white image of an ornate white building on a riverbank with trees behind it

A new book, more than 40 years in the making, about an iconic Philadelphia building

Fairmount Water Works: The Surprising History of an American Landmark

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 image of a refinery with smokestacks emitting smoke

A Day in the Ma’sh – Oil Refinery

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]

New Mill House at Fairmount (2008.001.0046)

New Mill House at Fairmount

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