In The Cradle of Industry and Liberty

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@ Above: Southeast Prospect of the City of Philadelphia, by Peter Cooper, 1720. This view of Philadelphia’s Delaware riverfront shows that the city had become a bustling mercantile center by 1720. This is the oldest surviving painting of a North American city. LIBRARY COMPANY OF PHILADELPHIA. Below: Elfreth’s Alley, a one-block lane between Front and Second Streets in the northern part of Old City Philadelphia, is America’s oldest continuously inhabited residential street. It was home to a variety of artisans and craftsmen in the colonial period. PHOTO BY TIM MCCUSKER, 2015. While many items of routine necessity were made in the city, most finished products were imported rather than manufactured locally. It would not be until the nineteenth century that Philadelphia shipped locally made goods out to the world more than it imported foreign-made products. ARTISANS AND CRAFTSMEN The typical Philadelphia manufacturer in the colonial period was the individual craftsman or artisan who labored in his shop, perhaps assisted by an apprentice or helper or two, often an indentured servant or sometimes an enslaved African American. The craftsman fashioned raw materials into products that he sold there in the shop. Usually, his shop was the front room of the house, with the back rooms and second story serving as family living quarters. Most manufacturing in colonial Philadelphia took place in such small settings. Blacksmiths, shoemakers, candle makers, and other artisans fashioned the everyday products that were needed in colonial Philadelphia. Women were also involved, engaged primarily in needlework, but also selling finished products or doing occasional piece work for craftsmen. Perhaps America’s best surviving example of the physical landscape of such craftsmen shops and dwellings is Elfreth’s Alley, the narrow one-block lane from Front to Second Street in the northern section of Old City. Lined with modest mostly two-story houses, many dating from the 1720s, Elfreth’s Alley was home to silver and pewter smiths, glassblowers, ship wrights, and furniture makers. In the later colonial period, one-third of Elfreth’s Alley households were headed by women. One such household was the home and shop of dressmakers Mary Smith and Sarah Milton. It now serves as the Elfreth’s Alley Museum. Like much of Philadelphia, Elfreth’s Alley was an ethnically diverse place, home over the years to a free African American tailor, a Jewish furniture maker, and German shoemakers and bakers, among others. EARLY SHIPBUILDING While most manufacturing in colonial Philadelphia took place in such small shops, there were a few industries that operated on a larger scale, employing sometimes dozens of workers and taking up large amounts of space. Chief among these was ship building, a key industry in early Philadelphia. William Penn stipulated early on that in clearing land for the new city the best oak trees be reserved for shipbuilding. “Some vessels have been built here,” Penn reported in 1685, IN THE CRADLE OF INDUSTRY AND LIBERTY 24
“and many boats, which are useful for passage of people and goods.” The Philadelphia merchants who developed the city into the preeminent trans-Atlantic trading center of early America needed ships of all sizes, from large ocean going vessels to smaller boats to ply the local rivers and coastal waters. By 1700 there were at least three shipyards along the Delaware River in and around Philadelphia; twenty years later there were about a dozen. Related manufacturers such as sail lofts, ropewalks (long narrow buildings where rope was made), and lumber yards were part of the city’s ship building industry as well. These industries, together with the busy wharves and warehouses of the merchants, the nearby workers’ housing, and the taverns and shops that serviced the maritime community, made the riverfront a vibrant, bustling part of colonial Philadelphia. The earliest known ship builder in Philadelphia was James West, who established his business around 1676. West’s shipyard, located on the northern edge of the city near present day Vine Street and Columbus Boulevard, was in front of the Pennypot Tavern, where beer was sold “for a penny a pot.” In 1690 West petitioned to expand his original sixty-foot wide riverfront property by an additional forty feet “for a conveniency to build Ships and Vessels upon, he having bought the penny pot House of the Widdow.” (It is reported that West often paid his workers in drink.) When James West died in 1701 his son Charles carried on the business; between them they ran one of the most highly respected shipyards in Philadelphia for over sixty years. Another early ship building enterprise that passed from father to son was that of Bartholomew and Thomas Penrose. Bartholomew Penrose arrived in Pennsylvania around 1700 and set up a wharf and shipyard on the Delaware River at the foot of Market Street. In 1707 he built and was part owner of a vessel with William Penn. Later, the family re-located to Southwark, just below the city, where Thomas Penrose and his sons operated one of the region’s most prosperous shipyards through the late eighteenth century. A number of other shipbuilders established themselves in early Philadelphia and the city became renowned for this industry. Orders for vessels from local merchants in the overseas trade kept the shipyards busy, but many English traders also arranged to have their ships built in Philadelphia. “What a great advantage…to us a Trading Country,” wrote Benjamin Franklin in 1729, “that has Workmen and all the Materials proper…to have Ship- Building as much as possible advanced.” It is estimated that over 400 vessels were built in the city in the 1720s and 1730s. By the 1750s and 1760s the number had risen to over 800, with the average size of the ships being built increasing substantially also. As the shipbuilding industry grew, it became too large for the riverfront area within the city itself, which had become crowded with merchant wharves and warehouses, and in the later colonial period began to be concentrated in areas either just north of the city, such as Northern Liberties and Kensington, or just to the south in Southwark. (The latter neighborhood was named after the famed Southwark shipbuilding section of London.) Like Germantown, these neighborhoods are now part of the city but were then outlying districts. Emanuel Eyre was a prominent ship builder in Kensington in the mid-eighteenth @ Above: A c. 1830 depiction of the Pennypot Tavern in the early eighteenth century, showing a vessel under construction at James West’s shipyard. Established c. 1676 at what is now Vine Street and Columbus Boulevard, West’s was the earliest shipyard in Philadelphia. PRINT DEPARTMENT, LIBRARY COMPANY OF PHILADELPHIA. Below: Detail from Scull & Heap’s 1756 East Prospect of the City of Philadelphia, showing a crowded Delaware riverfront and densely populated city. The tall spire in the center is Christ Church, then the tallest building in America. The tower at mid left is the Pennsylvania State House, now Independence Hall. HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA. CHAPTER TWO 25
Page 1 and 2: IN THE CRADLE OF INDUSTRY AND LIBER
Page 3 and 4: IN THE CRADLE OF INDUSTRY AND LIBER
Page 5 and 6: CONTENTS 4 FOREWORD 6 ACKNOWLEDGEME
Page 7 and 8: @ Michael A. Nutter, Former Mayor,
Page 9 and 10: For the historical images that enli
Page 11 and 12: This is a history of manufacturing
Page 13 and 14: While other manufacturing centers w
Page 15 and 16: @ Above: Workers at Midvale Steel p
Page 17 and 18: aircraft that dates to the earliest
Page 19 and 20: would hold into the early nineteent
Page 21 and 22: technology, transportation, and com
Page 23 and 24: age had joined the Religious Societ
Page 25: Philadelphians lived in the city’
Page 29 and 30: Quaker merchant Thomas Masters purc
Page 31 and 32: INDUSTRY INVENTORS Manufacturers in
Page 33 and 34: Quaker upbringing. Known as the “
Page 35 and 36: MAKING A CASE FOR AMERICAN MANUFACT
Page 37 and 38: up cotton manufacturing operations
Page 39 and 40: After receiving a patent for the en
Page 41 and 42: The Globe Mill on the Cohocksink Cr
Page 43 and 44: @ Opposite: Detail from 1849 map sh
Page 45 and 46: of the town’s total population. S
Page 47 and 48: On a positive note, a group of Fran
Page 49 and 50: factories with a powerful energy so
Page 51 and 52: and flagship for Commodore Matthew
Page 53 and 54: @ Left: Penn Steam Engine & Boiler
Page 55 and 56: Garrett & Eastwick Locomotive Works
Page 57 and 58: seen. The episode brought Hagner co
Page 59 and 60: United States, the nation’s de-fa
Page 61 and 62: The turn of the twentieth century p
Page 63 and 64: in various categories at the Centen
Page 65 and 66: makers, 20 stove manufacturers, 12
Page 67 and 68: and lace, in which Kensington manuf
Page 69 and 70: through exploitation of their worke
Page 71 and 72: @ Left: Yard locomotives at Midvale
Page 73 and 74: among the largest in the world at t
Page 75 and 76: factory nearby. This became the lar
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she writes of the sad circumstances
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@ Clockwise, starting from the top:
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BEER AND TOBACCO Beer making contin
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MILK AND ICE CREAM Like any major c
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the Philadelphia Phillies. Located
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and a half later from a city of man
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After major cutbacks in the auto in
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into countless lunchboxes throughou
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hangar space in 1980 at Northeast P
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is the nation’s largest manufactu
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fuel for local industries, current
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centralize operations in the buildi
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BOOKS AND ARTICLES Bridenbaugh, Car
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Sutcliffe, Andrea J. Steam: The Unt
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Penrose, Bartholomew & Thomas shipy
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PARTNERS IN BUILDING PHILADELPHIA H
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@ Left: An early Kingsbury advertis
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PARTNERS IN BUILDING PHILADELPHIA 1
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Aerodynamics. The name DeVal was a
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packaging and shipping; and nondest
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Another step in product advancement
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PHILLY CASE From the basement of a
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Under Yost’s direction, The Rowla
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The story of Tioga Pipe is a classi
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neighborhood. The increased product
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Humphrys is one of the oldest manuf
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The Doherty brothers realized, to s
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Centrally located off the Pennsylva
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Jersey and Delaware. Outgrowing the
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Philadelphia is famous for its appr
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injection molded plastic to enter t
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had expanded from smaller pieces fo
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for many years and they know the fi
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furnace as well as a custom flame h
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and Salmon Streets. The company wou
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The company capitalized on the stra
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discharges. The supercapacitors are
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products that are custom designed t
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Today manufacturing matters, now mo
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LEADERSHIP SPONSORS Historical Publ
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