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Philadelphia County, PA
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One of the three original counties created by William
Penn in November 1682, and its name to him signified
“brotherly love,” although the original Philadelphia in
Asia Minor was actually “the city of Philadelphus.”
Philadelphia was laid out in 1682 as the county seat and
the capital of the Province; it was chartered as a city
on October 25, 1701, and rechartered on March 11, 1789.
On February 2, 1854, all municipalities within the
county were consolidated with the city. The county
offices were merged with the city government in 1952.
 Swedes
and Finns first settled within the county in 1638. Dutch
seized the area in 1655, but permanently lost control to
England in 1674. Penn’s charter for Pennsylvania was
received from the English king in 1681, and was followed
by Penn’s November 1682 division of Pennsylvania into
three counties. The City of Philadelphia merged (and
became synonymous) with Philadelphia County in 1854.
Thomas Holme made the physical plan for the City, and
the Northern Liberties were designated to give urban
lots to all who purchased 5,000 rural acres in
Pennsylvania. The City had eighty families in 1683,
4,500 inhabitants in 1699, 10,000 in 1720, 23,700 in
1774. Philadelphia was economically the strongest city
in America until surpassed by New York City in
population in 1820 and in commerce by about 1830,
although Philadelphia was strongest in manufacturing
until the early twentieth century. It led the nation in
textiles, shoes, shipbuilding, locomotives, and
machinery. Leadership in transportation, both as a depot
and a center for capital funding, was another
Philadelphia attribute. This was readily apparent as the
Pennsylvania Railroad grew to be a nationwide system.
Quaker leadership, which had shaped the
pre-Revolutionary culture, gradually gave way. Both the
numbers and the wealth of the Society of Friends shrank.
Before the Civil War, race riots and nativists’
anti-Catholicism erupted. A strong African American
community existed by the early nineteenth century, but
abolitionists met stiff popular resistance. After the
Civil War, the central business district of today
emerged. Large retail sales stores arose in center city,
and suburbs grew, delineated by race, income, and
ethnicity. Three decades of urban renewal occurred after
World War II. Reform mayors Joseph Clark and Richardson
Dilworth allied themselves with the urban renewal cause.
The Federal Housing Act of 1954 used Philadelphia’s
system as a model for low-income housing. In 1953 the
Broad Street Railroad Station and the elevated “Chinese
Wall” were torn down to be replaced by John F. Kennedy
Boulevard and the Penn Center.
The Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation was
initiated in 1958. Much restoration of the oldest areas,
especially east of City Hall, was accomplished.
Philadelphia once had a reputation as the “private
city,” in the sense that activities of the family and in
the home had a social priority. There is a noticeably
strong African American culture. The city has a large
medical complex that rivals Boston and New York. It also
has an old professional baseball tradition. The
venerable University of Pennsylvania’s folk “gladly
learn and gladly teach,” and art, music, and museums
flourish. |
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