Q: What does this house have to do with William Penn? February 23, 2007
Posted by crd2 in Letitia St. House, Uncategorized.1 comment so far
By the 1880s Philadelphia was maturing into its industrial self, its new mills and factories sprouting like sooty mushrooms amid its rows of traditional redbrick rowhomes. It was a city whose workplaces sat cheek by jowl next to the places where Philadelphians called home. For some, the industrial growth of the city signaled the arrival of Philadelphia as the nation’s premier workshop. Still others appreciated the short distance to work. Yet for others with a regressive gaze, the obliteration of the city of Penn, Franklin, Rush, and Rittenhouse was cause for alarm. The new and seemingly inexorable economic momentum of the city was destroying the sacred places, the streets, and places once inhabited by Philadelphia’s legendary First Men. In this time of uncertainty, Philadelphia’s elites’ rebelled against an increasingly incomprehensible present by connecting to a mythologized past.
