In The Cradle of Industry and Liberty

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wheelwrights, potters, and jewelers. It was in a Frankford jewelry shop in 1811 that a sixteen year old apprentice named Matthias Baldwin began his professional career. Twentysome years later he would found Baldwin Locomotive Works and become arguably the greatest manufacturer in Philadelphia history. Further downstream in Bridesburg, on the north bank of Frankford Creek, work began in 1816 on the Frankford Arsenal. President James Madison laid the cornerstone in 1817. The Frankford Arsenal grew into a large industrial complex and gave Philadelphia yet another federal military production facility, one that would make arms and serve as a munitions research and development center until it closed in 1977. Across Frankford Creek from the Arsenal were the Jenks and Lenning Companies in Bridesburg. Alfred Jenks established a textile complex in 1819 in Bridesburg and later with his son founded the Bridesburg Manufacturing Company, which, among other products, made textile manufacturing machinery. Nicholas Lenning and his son Charles established a chemical works just south of Bridesburg in Port Richmond in 1819. In 1842 Charles moved the operation to Bridesburg, to the key location where Frankford Creek empties into the Delaware River. In 1921 the Rohm & Haas Company, then just twelve years old in America, acquired the Lenning company and set up chemical manufacturing there. Similar concentrations of industrial activity could be found along Philadelphia’s other major creeks and their tributaries in the early nineteenth century, particularly Wissahickon Creek in the northwest part of the city and Pennypack Creek in the northeast. Pennypack Creek was home in the 1820s and 1830s to a shovel works, a silk factory, several cotton factories, and various print and dye works. In the Wissahickon Valley, the Rittenhouse family, founders of America’s first paper mill in 1690, were still making paper near the original mill site on Paper Mill Run, a tributary of the Wissahickon. Historic Rittenhouse Town, the complex of eighteenthand nineteenth-century buildings in which the family lived and worked for some 200 years, is now a National Historic Landmark. IN THE CRADLE OF INDUSTRY AND LIBERTY 40
@ Opposite: Detail from 1849 map showing the course of the Tacony/Frankford Creek, beginning at Whitaker’s Cotton Factory at Cedar Grove (top), passing through Rowlandville, then Frankford (center), and finally emptying into the Delaware River at Bridesburg (bottom). In Bridesburg, the United States (Frankford) Arsenal is on the north (right) side of the creek, Lenning Chemical Works is on the south side, and Jenks Machine Works is to the left of Lenning. Map of the Township of Oxford, Boroughs of Frankford & Bridesburg, M. Dripps. 1849. MAP COLLECTION, FREE LIBRARY OF PHILADELPHIA. Top: Early twentieth-century view of Frankford Creek where it empties into the Delaware River, looking west towards Bridesburg. On the left is the Lenning Chemical Company, which was taken over by Rohm & Haas in 1921; on the right is the southern edge of the Frankford Arsenal. Philadelphia was a major center of both chemical and military equipment manufacturing for most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. BRUCE CONNER COLLECTION, FRIENDS OF NORTHEAST PHILADELPHIA HISTORY. Center: Spinning Mill on Pennypack Creek in Northeast Philadelphia, 1815, unidentified artist. GEORGE H. PATTISON GLASS SLIDE COLLECTION, HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF FRANKFORD. Bottom: This c. 1870 photograph looks west across the Falls Bridge over the Schuylkill River to the William Simpson print and dye works at the Falls of Schuylkill. Simpson tried to keep his business, but eventually sold it in the mid-1870s to the Fairmount Park Commission, which at that time was acquiring and demolishing industrial properties along the Schuylkill River and Wissahickon Creek to protect Philadelphia’s water supply. FAIRMOUNT PARK HISTORIC RESOURCE ARCHIVES, PHILADELPHIA PARKS AND RECREATION. CHAPTER THREE 41
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 and 26: Philadelphians lived in the city’
Page 27 and 28: “and many boats, which are useful
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: The Globe Mill on the Cohocksink Cr
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
Page 77 and 78: she writes of the sad circumstances
Page 79 and 80: @ Clockwise, starting from the top:
Page 81 and 82: BEER AND TOBACCO Beer making contin
Page 83 and 84: MILK AND ICE CREAM Like any major c
Page 85 and 86: the Philadelphia Phillies. Located
Page 87 and 88: and a half later from a city of man
Page 89 and 90: After major cutbacks in the auto in
Page 91 and 92: into countless lunchboxes throughou
Page 93 and 94:
hangar space in 1980 at Northeast P
Page 95 and 96:
is the nation’s largest manufactu
Page 97 and 98:
fuel for local industries, current
Page 99 and 100:
centralize operations in the buildi
Page 101 and 102:
BOOKS AND ARTICLES Bridenbaugh, Car
Page 103 and 104:
Sutcliffe, Andrea J. Steam: The Unt
Page 105 and 106:
Penrose, Bartholomew & Thomas shipy
Page 107 and 108:
PARTNERS IN BUILDING PHILADELPHIA H
Page 109 and 110:
@ Left: An early Kingsbury advertis
Page 111 and 112:
PARTNERS IN BUILDING PHILADELPHIA 1
Page 113 and 114:
Aerodynamics. The name DeVal was a
Page 115 and 116:
packaging and shipping; and nondest
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Another step in product advancement
Page 119 and 120:
PHILLY CASE From the basement of a
Page 121 and 122:
Under Yost’s direction, The Rowla
Page 123 and 124:
The story of Tioga Pipe is a classi
Page 125 and 126:
neighborhood. The increased product
Page 127 and 128:
Humphrys is one of the oldest manuf
Page 129 and 130:
The Doherty brothers realized, to s
Page 131 and 132:
Centrally located off the Pennsylva
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Jersey and Delaware. Outgrowing the
Page 135 and 136:
Philadelphia is famous for its appr
Page 137 and 138:
injection molded plastic to enter t
Page 139 and 140:
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
Page 155:
LEADERSHIP SPONSORS Historical Publ
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