Philadelphia << `fihl` uh DEHL fee uh >> is the birthplace of the United States. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States both were signed in Philadelphia’s historic Independence Hall. The city was the capital of the American Colonies during most of the Revolutionary War in America (1775-1783).
Philadelphia is Pennsylvania’s largest city and one of the largest cities in the United States (see United States (table: The 50 largest cities in the United States)). It lies in southeastern Pennsylvania on the Delaware River. The river flows into the Atlantic Ocean and helps make Philadelphia one of the nation’s busiest freshwater ports. The city is also a national center of culture, education, finance, and health care. The Philadelphia area is a center of the pharmaceutical industry in the United States.
William Penn, an English Quaker, founded Philadelphia in 1682. Penn, who had been persecuted for his Quaker beliefs, planned Philadelphia as a center of religious freedom. The word philadelphia means brotherly love in Greek, and Philadelphia was nicknamed the City of Brotherly Love. It also became known as the Quaker City because many of its first settlers were Quakers. Today, the American Quakers have their headquarters in Philadelphia. During the 1700’s, Philadelphia developed into the largest and wealthiest city in the American Colonies.
Few cities in the United States can match Philadelphia’s historic attractions. Every year, millions of visitors thrill to the sight of Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. Many visitors enjoy touring Carpenters’ Hall and Congress Hall, where Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and other early leaders laid the foundations of a new nation. Philadelphians also take pride in the city’s world-famous orchestra, excellent colleges and universities, scenic parks, and outstanding museums.
Philadelphia faces problems common to many other large industrial cities. During the last half of the 1900’s, many manufacturing companies closed or moved out of the city, resulting in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs. During the same period, the population decreased by hundreds of thousands of people. The loss of jobs and people left the city’s working-class neighborhoods with numerous closed factories and block after block of abandoned homes. Jobs are available in high-technology firms that have begun operations in Philadelphia’s fast-growing suburbs. But many city residents lack the necessary education for these jobs and even the transportation to reach them.
Philadelphia’s leaders have been working to expand tourism to help revive the city’s economy. By highlighting the area’s historical significance, they have encouraged investments in such projects as new hotels and restaurants.
The city
Philadelphia lies in Philadelphia County, but the city and the county have the same boundaries. Thus, Philadelphia is both a city and a county.
The Delaware River runs east and south of Philadelphia and separates it from New Jersey. The River Schuylkill << SKOOL kihl >> flows through Philadelphia and into the Delaware at the southern edge of the city. Downtown Philadelphia, which is called Center City, lies between the two rivers. Philadelphia’s chief residential districts are north, south, and west of Center City.
Downtown Philadelphia.
Philadelphia’s huge City Hall covers about 5 acres (2 hectares) in the center of downtown. It is one of the largest city halls in the United States. A tower rises from the front part of the white granite and marble building. A bronze statue of William Penn on top of the tower ranks as the world’s largest sculpture atop a building. The statue is 37 feet (11 meters) tall and weighs 53,523 pounds (24,278 kilograms). The distance from the ground to the top of the statue is nearly 548 feet (167 meters). Philadelphia’s chief city government buildings border the streets around City Hall.
South of City Hall is a section of Broad Street called the Avenue of the Arts. This street is home to a number of the city’s arts organizations, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Opera Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania Ballet. Fashionable shops and expensive restaurants spread west of the arts district along Walnut Street and around Rittenhouse Square.
The area west of City Hall has become a district of skyscrapers. Until 1984, no building rose higher than the statue of Penn. Since 1984, however, the Philadelphia skyline has changed greatly. Several office buildings in the area west of City Hall tower 50 stories or more.
Northwest of City Hall, five of Philadelphia’s finest museums stand near the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, a beautiful treelined boulevard modeled after the Champs Élysées in Paris. These museums are the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, the Franklin Institute Science Museum, the Rodin Museum, the Barnes Foundation, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The parkway ends near the entrance to Fairmount Park. One of the nation’s largest city-owned parks, Fairmount Park stands along the Schuylkill River. The art museum neighborhood includes dozens of blocks of historic homes along narrow, treelined streets. Northeast of City Hall are Chinatown and the large Pennsylvania Convention Center.
Philadelphia’s chief historic area lies east of City Hall. It centers on the 55-acre (22-hectare) Independence National Historical Park, which includes Independence Hall. Inside this handsome red brick building on Chestnut Street, visitors may see the room where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed (see Independence Hall). The famous Liberty Bell is on display in Liberty Bell Center near Independence Hall. Nearby are Congress Hall, the home of Congress from 1790 until 1800; and Carpenters’ Hall, where the First Continental Congress met in 1774.
Other famous structures stand throughout the historic area. The Betsy Ross House on Arch Street is where the famous seamstress may have made what became the first U.S. flag in 1777. Christ Church, an Episcopal church built on Second Street between 1727 and 1744, has the pews of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and other famous Americans. About 35 brick houses built during the early 1700’s line Elfreth’s Alley, a narrow, block-long cobblestone street between Arch and Race streets. It is the nation’s oldest street of continuously occupied homes. On Fifth Street, the largest United States Mint produces hundreds of millions of dollars worth of coins yearly.
The area around Independence National Historical Park includes several historical museums. They are the African American Museum in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia History Museum, and the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History. The historical area is also the site of Old City, Philadelphia’s oldest neighborhood. Artists helped to revitalize the neighborhood, formerly an industrial area. Old City now includes many galleries, antique shops, and cafes.
Residential districts.
Society Hill, one of Philadelphia’s chief historic neighborhoods, lies south of Independence National Historical Park. Society Hill includes hundreds of restored 200-year-old homes, and many blocks look much as they did in colonial times. Historic churches there include St. Mary’s Church, a Roman Catholic church built in 1763; Old Pine Street Presbyterian Church, erected in 1768; and Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, built in 1818. Modern town houses and apartment buildings stand nearby in sharp contrast to the old structures.
Directly south of Society Hill is Southwark, the oldest section of Philadelphia. Swedish immigrants settled there during the early 1600’s. Gloria Dei (Old Swedes’) Church, Pennsylvania’s oldest church, opened in the area in the 1640’s.
The southern section of Philadelphia includes the neighborhood of South Philadelphia. People of Italian descent once made up the largest ethnic group in this neighborhood. The colorful, lively outdoor Italian Market still attracts shoppers from throughout the city and suburbs. Many people from Southeast Asia have moved here, and Italian restaurants now share the neighborhood’s narrow streets with Thai and Vietnamese restaurants. Farther south stand two stadiums and an indoor arena that make up Philadelphia’s main sports complex. Philadelphia International Airport lies southwest of the sports complex.
University City, a neighborhood across the Schuylkill River and west of Center City, has a notable complex of hospitals and universities. These facilities include Drexel University, the University of Pennsylvania, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and the internationally known Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The West Philadelphia neighborhood lies west of University City.
North Philadelphia borders Center City on the north. Many of the neighborhoods in this area have declined, and many of the residents are among the city’s poorest people. African American churches have played a large role in rebuilding these neighborhoods. Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America, one of the largest job-training organizations in the world, is in North Philadelphia. African American businesspeople own and operate Sullivan Progress Plaza, a nearby shopping center. Temple University is also in North Philadelphia.
Neighborhoods farther north include Manayunk, Germantown, and Chestnut Hill. Manayunk, along the Schuylkill River, was once a neighborhood of textile mills. It is now home to many popular shops and restaurants. Dutch and German Quakers founded Germantown in 1683. The community remained independent of Philadelphia until 1854. Germantown’s historic buildings include Cliveden, an elegant mansion built in 1767; and the Deshler-Morris House, where President George Washington lived briefly in 1793. Chestnut Hill is an area of mansions and fine shops. Attractive residential neighborhoods with wide streets and modern shopping areas spread over most of the northeastern Philadelphia area.
The metropolitan area
of Philadelphia extends over Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia counties in Pennsylvania; Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, and Salem counties in New Jersey; New Castle County in Delaware; and Cecil County in Maryland.
Philadelphia’s best-known suburbs include old, elegant communities called Main Line towns. They lie west of the city along what was once the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad. These communities include Ardmore, Devon, Paoli, and the college towns of Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Villanova.
The metropolitan area includes three famous sites from the American Revolution. At Brandywine Battlefield, southwest of Philadelphia, the British defeated American forces in September 1777 and went on to capture Philadelphia. Valley Forge National Historical Park, west of the city, occupies the site where the colonial army camped during the difficult winter of 1777. Washington Crossing Historic Park, north of Philadelphia, marks the site where General George Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River by night to make a surprise attack on the Hessians at Trenton, New Jersey, in 1776.
People
Ethnic groups.
English and Welsh Quakers who accompanied William Penn were the first settlers in Philadelphia (see Quakers). Other Europeans followed in three major waves of immigration. Many English people arrived throughout the 1700’s. In the second wave, from the 1830’s to the 1880’s, large numbers of families came from England, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. In the third wave, in the early 1900’s, many immigrants came from Austria, Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Russia.
Black people began to come to Philadelphia during the 1600’s because of the Quaker belief in racial equality. African Americans from the Southern States started to migrate to the city in large numbers during and after World War I (1914-1918).
Today, African Americans account for about 40 percent and people of European ancestry about 35 percent of Philadelphia’s population. Other residents include people of Hispanic or Asian backgrounds.
Education.
Philadelphia has both traditional public schools and charter schools, which operate with more freedom than other public schools. The city’s private and parochial schools include Catholic, Jewish, and Quaker schools.
Philadelphia has many colleges and universities. The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, founded in Philadelphia in 1805, is the oldest art school in the United States. The Moore College of Art & Design, the nation’s oldest art school for women, opened in the city in 1844. The first U.S. medical school that admitted only women was the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, established in Philadelphia in 1850. It began to admit men in 1969 and is now part of Drexel University. Philadelphia also has a number of other medical schools and ranks among the country’s leading medical centers.
The University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, was founded in 1740 and began granting bachelor’s degrees in 1757. It is the sixth oldest university in the United States. Temple University is Philadelphia’s largest institution of higher learning, and it is a major research institution. Other colleges and universities in the city include Drexel, La Salle, and St. Joseph’s universities.
Many colleges and universities are near Philadelphia. One of them, Bryn Mawr College, was one of the first U.S. colleges for women. It was established in 1885. Other schools near the city include Haverford and Swarthmore colleges and Villanova University.
Housing.
About half of Philadelphia’s families own their homes. Most of the rest rent apartments. Brick town houses called row houses are the most common type of housing in the city. These homes line entire streets in parts of Philadelphia. Each has two, three, or four stories and shares at least one wall with the house next door. Many of Philadelphia’s most expensive homes are in Chestnut Hill, in the northwestern part of the city, and in Society Hill, a part of Center City. Center City has a number of high-rise apartment buildings.
Thousands of Philadelphians with low incomes lack decent housing. Many of them live in decaying apartment buildings and row houses in North Philadelphia, South Philadelphia, and West Philadelphia. Thousands of housing units in run-down buildings are vacant. A number of the owners have died. Other owners have moved away and abandoned houses in declining neighborhoods that they could not sell. Philadelphia has a program that offers certain abandoned buildings at no cost to people who promise to repair and occupy them.
Social problems.
Philadelphia, like other large cities, faces many problems, including poverty, crime, and illegal drug use. It struggles with an inadequate public education system. Most of the city’s poor people suffer from discrimination or lack education and job skills. They live in run-down dwellings. Large numbers have no jobs, and many others work long hours for low wages. Such poor living conditions contribute to the city’s crime rate. In addition, the buying and selling of illegal drugs increases the number of violent crimes in the city.
City officials have tried to solve these social problems by improving the public schools, upgrading the police department, and encouraging economic development. Crime has fallen, but many residents of poor neighborhoods still face limited opportunities.
Cultural life and recreation
The arts.
The Walnut Street Theatre, one of several professional theaters in downtown Philadelphia, is the oldest active theater in the United States. It presented its first play in 1809. The city’s strong theatrical tradition is evident in such professional companies as the Wilma Theater and the Arden Theatre Company and in the experimental plays presented at the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University. The Freedom Theatre is an important part of the city’s African American cultural scene. The People’s Light & Theatre Company, in suburban Malvern, has won national recognition.
Philadelphia’s magnificent Academy of Music, which opened in 1857, is the oldest opera house in the United States still in use. It is the home of Opera Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania Ballet performs there and at the Miller Theater nearby. The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, which includes Marian Anderson Hall, is the home of the Philadelphia Orchestra and such arts groups as the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. During the summer, the Philadelphia Orchestra and other musical groups present free outdoor concerts at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Fairmount Park.
The Mummers String Bands, which together form one of Philadelphia’s top performing groups, have won fame for their elaborate costumes. The festive Mummers Parade takes place every New Year’s Day.
Libraries and museums.
The Library Company of Philadelphia, which Benjamin Franklin helped establish in 1731, became the nation’s first library to circulate books for a membership fee. Members of the company paid dues to buy books for the company, which members then could borrow free of charge. Today, the library still owns volumes that once belonged to Thomas Jefferson, William Penn, and George Washington. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, next door to the library, has one of the finest collections of books on United States history. The American Philosophical Society houses an outstanding research library in Library Hall.
Philadelphia’s public library system is called the Free Library of Philadelphia. It has a number of branches and owns a fine collection of rare books.
The museums near the Benjamin Franklin Parkway rank among the finest in the world. The collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art includes many superb paintings by French masters. The Rodin Museum exhibits works by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. The Barnes Foundation’s collection includes Impressionist art, African sculpture, and textiles and metalwork. The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, founded in 1812, is the oldest natural-science museum in the United States. It has a world-famous display of stuffed birds and a large dinosaur exhibit. The Franklin Institute Science Museum features exhibits on communication, computers, nuclear energy, and space travel. The museum also includes a large-screen theater and a planetarium. The museum is part of the Franklin Institute, an organization to promote science education that was established in 1824 as the Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts.
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is the oldest art museum in the United States. This museum opened in 1805 and has many paintings from colonial times. Well-known art galleries in the city include the Philadelphia Art Alliance and the Rosenbach Museum & Library.
The Philadelphia History Museum specializes in the history of the city. Other notable Philadelphia museums include the African American Museum in Philadelphia, the Mummers Museum, the Museum of the American Revolution, the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, the Independence Seaport Museum, and the Please Touch Museum, which features exhibits and activities for children ages 1 to 7. The Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia has exhibits on human anatomy and pathology and antique medical equipment.
Recreation.
Philadelphia’s park system includes numerous parks and playgrounds. Fairmount Park is the chief recreational area. In summer, people stroll or ride bicycles along its cool, shaded trails. Park visitors also may tour several historic mansions that have been restored to their original elegance or sip tea in a Japanese teahouse. The Philadelphia Zoo forms part of the park.
Philadelphia has several professional sports teams. They include the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League, the Philadelphia Flyers of the National Hockey League, the Philadelphia Phillies of baseball’s National League, and the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association.
Economy
Service industries.
Most of the city’s workers are employed in service industries. Philadelphia’s most important service industries are education, finance, health care, and trade.
Educational institutions provide jobs for many of Philadelphia’s workers. The city and its surrounding area have dozens of colleges and universities.
Important financial institutions have their headquarters in the city, including the Third Federal Reserve District Bank. The U.S. Mint at Philadelphia is one of the two mints that make most of the coins intended for general circulation in the United States. The other mint is in Denver. Philadelphia’s commercial banks and insurance companies employ many workers.
Philadelphia’s thriving health care industry is based on the many hospitals and medical schools in the city. Major hospitals include Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and the Albert Einstein Medical Center. Medical schools include the Drexel University College of Medicine, Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, and Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
The wholesale trade industry in Philadelphia relies heavily on the city’s port, which is one of the busiest freshwater ports in the United States. The major products shipped through the port are chemicals, food products, and petroleum. The large numbers of tourists that visit each year strengthen the city’s retail trade.
Manufacturing
Philadelphia ranks high in clothing production among U.S. cities. The city’s clothing industry specializes in finishing expensive products from international factories.
Philadelphia also manufactures chemicals, fabricated metal products, and processed foods. Pharmaceuticals are the city’s most valuable type of chemical product. Other leading chemical products include industrial chemicals and pesticides. The chief processed foods produced in Philadelphia include bakery products, beverages, and candy. The most important fabricated metal products are metal containers and sheet metal.
Transportation.
Philadelphia International Airport handles national and international flights. Local and regional airlines use the smaller Northeast Philadelphia Airport. CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern Railway provide freight service to Philadelphia. Passenger trains link Philadelphia and cities throughout the country. Four bridges link Philadelphia with New Jersey.
The publicly owned Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority provides most local transportation in the city. It operates buses, elevated and subway trains, streetcars, and trolley cars, and it administers commuter railroad service.
Communication.
Benjamin Franklin helped Philadelphia become a leading communication center of the American Colonies. He published the Pennsylvania Gazette, a newspaper, from 1729 to 1766. Franklin also published Poor Richard’s Almanac, a witty journal, every year from 1733 to 1758 (see Poor Richard’s Almanac). The first magazine in America, The American Magazine, was published in Philadelphia in 1741. The nation’s first daily newspaper, the Philadelphia Evening Post and Daily Advertiser, began publishing in the city in 1783. Today, Philadelphia has two major daily papers, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News.
Government
Until 1952, the city government of Philadelphia needed the approval of the Pennsylvania General Assembly to levy taxes and to act on many other local matters. That year, under a new charter granted by the state, the city gained home rule (self-government).
Philadelphia has a mayor-council form of government. The voters elect the mayor and the 17 members of the City Council to four-year terms. The mayor may serve any number of terms, but not more than two in a row.
Philadelphia’s mayor has broad powers. The mayor appoints most of the city’s chief administrative officials, plans improvement projects, prepares the city budget, and can veto laws passed by the council.
The council’s chief duty is to make the city’s laws. The council also decides how the city government spends its money. Any bill vetoed by the mayor becomes law if the council repasses it by a two-thirds vote.
Most of the city’s income comes from taxes on property and wages. The city taxes the wages of everyone who either works or lives in Philadelphia. But taxes and other local sources of revenue do not meet all the city government’s expenses. As a result, Philadelphia relies on grants from the state and federal governments to pay for many major improvements.
History
The Delaware (Lenape) people lived on the site of what is now Philadelphia long before Europeans arrived. British and Dutch sailors visited the area in the early 1600’s. In the 1640’s, Swedish families established the first permanent settlement there. The Dutch, English, and Swedes fought over the area, and England finally won control of it in 1674.
Early colonial days.
In 1681, King Charles II of England granted William Penn a charter to establish what became the Pennsylvania Colony. Penn chose the site of Philadelphia for the capital, which he visualized as a “greene countrie towne.” He arrived there in 1682, and the town became the capital of Pennsylvania in 1683. See Penn, William.
Penn had advertised his guarantee of religious liberty before he left Europe, and thousands of persecuted people came to Philadelphia. The town also quickly acquired a reputation for offering economic opportunity. As a result, Philadelphia attracted thousands of other Europeans who were fleeing famine, poverty, or war. The Philadelphia area had a population of about 4,500 by 1700. Philadelphia was incorporated as a city in 1701.
Philadelphia’s location near important land and water trading routes helped it become a prosperous manufacturing and shipping center. During the early 1700’s, the city developed into the leading industrial center and busiest port in the American Colonies.
In 1723, a 17-year-old apprentice printer named Benjamin Franklin moved to Philadelphia from Boston. Within a few years, he had become Philadelphia’s most famous civic leader. His newspaper and almanac helped make the city a major publishing center. By 1760, the Philadelphia area had a population of about 20,000. It was the largest city in the colonies. See Franklin, Benjamin.
The Revolutionary War period.
Philadelphia became a center of colonial protest during the mid-1700’s, when the United Kingdom adopted taxes and trade policies that angered the Americans. In 1774, the First Continental Congress met in Carpenters’ Hall. Its delegates criticized British laws that they thought violated the colonists’ rights. In May 1775, after the opening battles of the Revolutionary War, the Second Continental Congress assembled in the Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall). It adopted the Declaration of Independence there on July 4, 1776. Thomas Jefferson had written the Declaration in Philadelphia in June of that year. Congress met in the city during most of the war.
British troops captured Philadelphia on Sept. 26, 1777, shortly after winning the Battle of Brandywine. American forces tried to recapture the city, but the British defeated them in the Battle of Germantown on Oct. 4, 1777. In 1778, France joined the Americans in the war and sent a fleet to aid the colonists. On June 18, 1778, the British withdrew from Philadelphia to avoid being trapped there by the French fleet. Congress met in the city again from July 1778 until June 1783. Two Philadelphia financiers, Robert Morris and Haym Salomon, raised great amounts of money to aid the American effort in the Revolutionary War.
In 1787, delegates to the Constitutional Convention signed the Constitution of the United States in Independence Hall. Philadelphia served as capital of the United States from 1790 until 1800, when Washington, D.C., became the capital. By 1790, the population of the Philadelphia area had risen to about 42,000, the largest in the nation. In 1793, Philadelphia suffered one of its greatest disasters when a yellow fever epidemic killed almost 5,000 of its people. In 1799, the Pennsylvania legislature moved the state capital from Philadelphia to Lancaster, which served as the capital until Harrisburg was named the capital in 1812. See Continental Congress.
Industrial beginnings.
During the early 1800’s, the development of coal mines northwest of Philadelphia provided a huge fuel supply and helped attract many industries to the city. The construction of canals, railroads, and roads increased trade between Philadelphia and the Midwest. Philadelphia industries produced clothing, iron, locomotives, machinery, ships, shoes, and textiles.
The city’s rapid industrialization drew thousands of German and Irish immigrants to Philadelphia during the mid-1800’s. Competition for jobs among the newcomers and those already in the city caused tension. In 1844, riots between native-born Protestants and Catholic immigrants from Ireland caused about 30 deaths. Many Black Philadelphians were also killed in riots.
Eleven nearby towns became part of Philadelphia in 1854, when the state legislature merged the city and Philadelphia County. By 1860, the city had a population of 565,529.
During the mid-1800’s, Philadelphia became a center of the antislavery movement. In 1833, the abolitionist reformer Lucretia C. Mott and other Philadelphians formed the American Anti-Slavery Society (see Mott, Lucretia Coffin). Two Black Philadelphia businessmen, James Forten and Robert Purvis, became abolitionist leaders (see Forten, James). During the American Civil War (1861-1865), a Philadelphia banker, Jay Cooke, was the Union’s chief financial agent. The city’s industries boomed with the production of war materials.
A growing city.
In 1876, Philadelphia held the Centennial Exposition, a world’s fair that marked the 100th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. The exposition was the first successful world’s fair in the United States.
Industry and commerce continued to expand in Philadelphia during the late 1800’s. Leading Philadelphia businessmen, including the financier Anthony J. Drexel and the merchant John Wanamaker, helped develop a downtown shopping district on Market Street. In the 1890’s, a system of electric trolley cars enabled many Philadelphians to move far from the downtown area.
During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, an increasing demand for factory workers attracted thousands of Eastern European Jews and Italians to Philadelphia. African Americans from the Southern States began to migrate to the city in large numbers at the time of World War I (1914-1918). Philadelphia’s population soared from about 850,000 in 1880 to more than 1,800,000 in 1920. Thousands of African Americans settled in Philadelphia during and after World War II (1939-1945) in hope of finding jobs and escaping racial violence. The city’s population peaked at more than 2 million in 1950.
Urban renewal.
Philadelphia launched a vast urban renewal program in the late 1940’s. The city cleared hundreds of acres of residential and industrial structures. The Penn Center, an office complex, rose west of City Hall in an area where there had once been railroad tracks. In the mid-1950’s, the program was expanded to clear space for hospitals, universities, and other institutions. With the help of the federal and state governments, the city tore down three entire blocks of old buildings north of Independence Hall and replaced them with a spacious landscaped area. The city built public housing projects to house the tens of thousands of poor Philadelphians who lost their neighborhoods during these urban renewal efforts. Beginning in 1959, the city began to rejuvenate the Society Hill neighborhood, south of Independence Hall. Developers restored many elegant homes that dated from the 1700’s and tore down a number of run-down factories and warehouses.
African American Philadelphians led by Leon H. Sullivan, minister of Philadelphia’s Zion Baptist Church, began to develop a number of major economic self-help projects in the 1950’s. In 1964, Sullivan founded the Opportunities Industrialization Center (now Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America) to help train African Americans for jobs. See Sullivan, Leon Howard.
Continued growth.
During the 1970’s, developers launched several major projects in Center City. The city restored a historic area near Independence Hall in preparation for the 1976 American Bicentennial celebration, which honored the 200th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. A number of new hotels and restaurants opened in the years before the celebration, which drew an estimated 1 million visitors to the city. In 1978, an enclosed shopping mall known as Gallery I opened as part of the Market Street East development near City Hall. A second mall, Gallery II, opened in the early 1980’s. The Market Street East project also includes the massive Pennsylvania Convention Center, which opened in 1993. In 1986, a marina and a marine trade center were completed as part of the Penn’s Landing complex on the Delaware River. In 1991, the city created the Center City District, where businesses supported a successful effort to clean up downtown.
In 1983, Philadelphia voters elected the city’s first African American mayor, W. Wilson Goode. On May 13, 1985, one of the city’s worst disasters took place during a confrontation between city police and the members of a radical group called MOVE, which described itself as an anti-authority, back-to-nature movement. The group’s members fired at police trying to evict them from their West Philadelphia house, and a police helicopter dropped a bomb on the roof in an attempt to destroy a defensive fortification there. The bomb set off a fire that damaged or destroyed more than 140 houses, left about 250 people homeless, and killed 11 members of MOVE, including 5 children. A commission appointed by Goode to investigate the incident severely criticized the mayor and other top officials for the bombing. Goode was reelected in 1987 and served as mayor until 1992.
Recent developments.
The end of the 1900’s brought a reevaluation of the massive urban renewal that had taken place in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Critics pointed out that it had been wrong to move the poor into unattractive public housing projects. The city began tearing down most of the public housing high-rises.
Philadelphia turned to tourism to improve its economy. The city focused on promoting its matchless historical sites and institutions and encouraging new restaurants and hotels. Philadelphia became known for fine dining. Several new hotels opened for the Republican National Convention of 2000, which the city hosted. However, most of the area’s highest paying jobs remained in the suburbs.
In 2001, the state of Pennsylvania took over Philadelphia’s public school system. Governor Mark S. Schweiker said the move was necessary because more than half of the city’s students had failed state reading and math tests. Through the 1990’s, Philadelphia’s school system had become increasingly troubled by decreased funding, teacher shortages, and low test scores. Under the new plan, the state pledged to provide millions of dollars to improve the school system. The plan called for a five-member commission controlled by the state to oversee the schools and to appoint a chief executive to manage the system. In 2002, the commission transferred control of more than 40 Philadelphia schools to nongovernment managers, including universities and private companies with school-administration experience.
In 2008, the 57-story Comcast Center opened downtown. The skyscraper, which rises 975 feet (297 meters), was Philadelphia’s tallest building for 10 years. In 2010, the city’s first casino, SugarHouse Casino, started operating. In 2018, the 60-story, 1,121-foot (342-meter) Comcast Technology Center opened near the Comcast Center downtown.
City Council member Cherelle Parker won the city’s mayoral election in November 2023. Parker became the city’s first woman mayor upon her inauguration in January 2024.
