In The Cradle of Industry and Liberty

Garrett & Eastwick Locomotive Works
was founded in 1835 and focused specifically
on the use of anthracite coal rather than the
more commonly used wood as a fuel source.
This attracted the interest of Josiah White and
Erskine Hazard’s Lehigh Coal & Navigation
Company, which reported in 1838 that
“the experience of Garrett & Eastwick, of
Philadelphia, in successfully using anthracite
coal in their locomotive engines, has received
additional confirmation during the past year,
[several Pennsylvania railroad companies]
have their locomotives in use all burning
anthracite coal exclusively.” Garrett &
Eastwick became Eastwick & Harrison in
1839 after Garrett retired and Joseph
Harrison, who had been working at the company
since 1835 (and who would later found
the aforementioned Harrison Safety Boiler
Works), was made a partner. Eastwick &
Harrison closed their Philadelphia operations
in 1843 and moved to Russia to undertake a
massive railroad project for the Czar. Joseph
Harrison had invented an equalizing lever
in 1837 that allowed a locomotive to be propelled
by four wheels instead of two, a major
mechanical improvement. Before leaving for
Russia he sold the patent for the device to
Matthias Baldwin, who then employed it on
all his locomotives.
THE RAILROAD LANDSCAPE
The railroad fundamentally changed the
Philadelphia manufacturing landscape in the
mid-nineteenth century, altering everything
from how raw materials and finished products
were delivered to where companies were
located. With the coming of the railroad,
manufacturers no longer had to rely on slow,
inconvenient modes of transportation such as
canals or horse-drawn carriages to transport
their goods, but could send them far and wide
via the new mode of transportation. Heavy
industries began to situate themselves along
rail lines or have tracks brought to their
factories in order to move raw materials and
finished products in and out more efficiently.
Industries no longer needed access to waterways
for this purpose and could be located
away from the rivers and creeks that had once
been their lifeblood.
The growing network of railroads crisscrossing
the city also drastically changed the
communal landscape of factories and their
workers. Access between neighborhoods was
often cut off and physical divisions created
within communities, some of whom were
relegated to “the wrong side of the tracks.”
The overall pace of life quickened and the city
became a noisy, more dangerous place with
locomotives speeding about. At the same
time, passenger rail lines allowed industrialists
to live farther away from their businesses.
Many began to commute to work from estates
in the suburbs, particularly in the western
suburbs along the “Main Line” of the
Pennsylvania Railroad. The latter company
became the behemoth of American industry.
Based in Philadelphia (although its manufacturing
was done elsewhere) from its formation
in 1846 until it was broken up in the 1970s,
the Pennsylvania Railroad was for a time the
world’s largest publicly traded corporation,
@
Above: Painting of the Baldwin factory and
other industries at Broad and Willow Streets
(near present day Broad and Spring Garden
Streets), 1861. The Baldwin Locomotive
Works would grow to be a sprawling
200-acre complex at this site, eventually
employing over 18,000 workers.
DAVID KENNEDY WATERCOLOR COLLECTION,
HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
Below: Advertisement for William
Norris Locomotive Works in McElroy’s
Philadelphia City Directory, 1842.
Founded in 1832, Norris was the largest
locomotive works in the United States before
being overtaken by its neighbor, Baldwin.
CHAPTER THREE
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