Conflict over renewing the charter of the Second Bank of the United States triggered the 1830s Bank War, waged between President Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) and bank president Nicholas Biddle (1786-1844). Operating from its Parthenon-style building on Chestnut Street between Fourth and Fifth Streets in Philadelphia, the bank served as a reliable depository for federal money and provided a sound national currency. The expiration of its federal charter in 1836 virtually ended Philadelphia’s standing as the nation’s banking center, and New York’s Wall Street supplanted Chestnut Street as the America’s financial hub.

Congress issued a twenty-year charter for the Second Bank of the United States in 1816, with the government controlling twenty percent of the bank’s stock. Modeled after the First Bank of the United States, established in Philadelphia in the 1790s, the Second Bank handled all federal deposits and expenditures. The bank had a rocky start (overextension of loans helped trigger the Panic of 1819), but it became a dependable institution, and Biddle was generally considered a highly successful and respected leader. By the end of the 1820s, the bank had twenty-nine branches and conducted $70 million in business annually. Nevertheless, President Jackson’s first annual message to Congress in 1829 alleged corruption and condemned the bank as an unconstitutional entity. He favored hard money over bank notes, but also blamed the bank for the Panic of 1819, particularly for his personal losses.

While Jackson, a Democrat, opposed the bank, National Republicans in Congress sought to renew the institution’s charter in 1832 (four years early), believing a veto would cost Jackson reelection. The House approved by 107-85 and the Senate by 28-20. Pennsylvania’s two senators and all but one of its twenty-five congressmen were among the bill’s advocates. The New Jersey and Delaware delegations were also strongly pro-bank. During congressional debates, pro-bank petitions came in from citizens of Philadelphia and Delaware County as well as from state banks, including fifteen from Pennsylvania. Despite nationwide support across various social groups, Jackson vetoed the bill.

Jackson handily won reelection in 1832, though his veto likely cost him votes. A majority of Philadelphians voted against Jackson (he did carry Pennsylvania); New Jersey voted in an anti-Jackson state legislature, but the state’s electoral votes ended up in Old Hickory’s column. He was still personally very popular. When Jackson visited Philadelphia on the first anniversary of his charter veto in June 1833, a reception in Independence Hall–just one block from the Second Bank–became so crowded with enthusiastic supporters that some had to escape the throng through open first-floor windows.

Jackson insisted that the bank was “trying to kill me,” and he vowed to destroy it at any cost. He believed his reelection a mandate and continued to portray the bank as a corrupt tool of foreign interests that worked against Americans. In 1833, President Jackson instructed his treasury secretary to withhold federal deposits, later transferring federal money to “pet banks” (state banks with Democratic ties). Jackson dismissed two secretaries before finding a willing accomplice in Roger B. Taney (1777-1864). In response, Biddle contracted the bank’s operations by calling in loans and exchanging state notes for specie to protect the institution and its investors. The bank’s board of governors unanimously concurred.

As the Second Bank limited its operations, however, an economic depression began, businesses closed, unemployment rose, and inflation reached one of its highest rates in U.S. history. Biddle did not have the capital to make payments on the national debt. The War Department forbade the bank from carrying out its responsibility of paying Revolutionary War pensions in an attempt to turn public opinion against it. Still, the bank initially lost little support and a new political party, the Whigs, emerged to challenge Jackson’s supposed tyranny. At the height of the Bank War, 1833-34, the Senate received 243 memorials calling for the return of federal deposits and only 55 petitions supporting the president’s actions. In January 1834, the Philadelphia Board of Trade issued a statement blaming the financial panic on the Jackson administration. Other Philadelphia banks also protested the president’s actions. Tensions grew to the point that wealthy, pro-administration Philadelphians found themselves excluded or expelled from social organizations. In Congress, the Whig-controlled Senate censured Jackson for his actions against the bank. Each side blamed the other for the turmoil.

Biddle ultimately relaxed the bank’s credit policies and the economic malaise lifted. The bank thus received the brunt of the blame for the previous years’ problems. The public turned against the bank, viewing its actions as vindictive. In 1834, Election Day riots occurred in Philadelphia, and the Whigs lost seats in Congress and the state legislature. Finally, in 1836, two weeks before the U.S. charter expired, the Pennsylvania legislature granted the bank a state charter. By the time Biddle retired in 1839, the bank was in poor shape. Over the following two years, when it could not pay its debts, the bank suspended and resumed specie payments twice, closing its doors permanently in 1841.

The Bank War cost Philadelphia and the nation a central bank, shifting the nation’s financial center to New York City. Thereafter, local banks lacked any regulating authority and the resulting speculation triggered panics through the rest of the century.

Andrew Tremel is an independent researcher and public historian at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center. (Author information current at time of publication.)

By 1945, American cities suffered from neglect, aging infrastructure, and overcrowding. Yet victory in World War II fostered a sense that cities could be improved with new spaces for living, working, and recreation. Urban redevelopment programs introduced by national housing acts in 1949 and 1954 remade the landscapes of cities such as New York, Boston, and New Haven, Connecticut. In many cases, redevelopment relied on clearing slums and other blighted structures to make way for parks, commercial structures, and expressways as well as new apartment blocks. While Greater Philadelphia adhered to certain aspects of a clearance approach to renewal, the organizers of the Better Philadelphia Exhibition also incorporated historic preservation, concern for pedestrians, and the use of existing structures to complement new projects.

Along with sculpture, light shows, information about the urban planning profession, and a history of the city’s growth, an elaborate thirty-by-fourteen-foot diorama of Philadelphia served as the centerpiece of the exhibition. Spotlights focused on specific areas of the city, and portions of the diorama then mechanically flipped over to reveal their imagined future. In the years that followed, many of the diorama’s notable features became reality, including removal of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s viaduct, popularly referred to as a “Chinese Wall”; a new, three-block-long mall north of Independence Hall; a Delaware riverfront yacht basin and promenade; and new housing in the Far Northeast.

Urban planner Edmund Bacon (1910-2005) often receives credit for the exhibit’s design, but modernist architect Oskar Stonorov (1905-70) first conceived the idea and recruited Bacon’s help. Stonorov’s business partner, the famed architect Louis I. Kahn (1901-71), also contributed to the exhibition’s design as did Philadelphia City Planning Commission (PCPC) members Robert Leonard and Robert B. Mitchell (1906-93). Their model found inspiration in General Motors’ Futurama display, an attraction of New York’s 1939 World’s Fair that showed a city of modern skyscrapers, high-speed expressways, and pedestrian skyways devoid of congestion and obsolete structures. Better Philadelphia’s creators similarly hoped to stir citizens’ imaginations while overcoming public objections to urban planning.

To assure adequate funding, Stonorov enlisted prominent Philadelphians, many of whom later held posts on the exhibition committee. These included Mayor Bernard Samuel (1880-1954) as honorary president; businessman Benjamin Rush, Jr. (corporation president); Gimbels executive Arthur Kauffman (1901-86), who donated two floors of his store for the event (vice president); Allan G. Mitchell, president of the Philadelphia Electric Company (secretary); and Philadelphia Bulletin publisher George T. Eager (committee chairman). Together, they raised more than $325,000 in public and private funds for the event.

Planners wanted to enlist public support for their vision by presenting their concepts in accessible terms, as indicated by the exhibition theme, “What City Planning Means to You and Your Children.” Taking cues from architect Daniel H. Burnham (1846-1912), whose 1909 Chicago plan was distributed to schoolchildren, Bacon and Stonorov visited elementary schools prior to the opening and asked students to draw their own plans for the future city; the drawings were later displayed at the exhibition.

Following the event, the Philadelphia City Planning Commission asked the 365,000 visitors their opinion about the exhibit’s proposals; nearly sixty-five per cent responded that they would pay higher city taxes to see the envisioned features come to fruition. By the time Bacon left as Planning Commission executive director in 1970, nearly all of the features, except for a crosstown expressway at South Street and a new ring highway system circling the city, had materialized or were under construction. Despite its short run, the Better Philadelphia Exhibition allowed planners to build consensus for reenvisioning central city functions for a new era.

Stephen Nepa received his M.A. from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and his Ph.D. from Temple University and has appeared in the Emmy Award-winning documentary series Philadelphia: the Great Experiment. He wrote this essay while an associate historian at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities at Rutgers University-Camden in 2015. (Author information current at time of publication.)

In the early 1960s, more than a decade in advance of the event, city planning director Edmund Bacon initiated bold plans for a Bicentennial commemoration with an additional element: a world’s fair. He wanted to use the nation’s birthday and the international profile of the world’s fair—and the federal dollars these would bring—to advance the agenda of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission. Bacon imagined a thorough redevelopment of the waterfronts in Center City, as well as a “midway” concept that would close Chestnut Street to vehicles except for open-side electric streetcars. An overhead tram would move visitors across the Schuylkill to fairgrounds in Fairmount Park, the same location as the Centennial of 1876.

In short order, however, the initial planning group and Bacon’s early vision were pushed aside by a vocal coalition of architects, planners, and reformers billing themselves as the “young professionals.” Including figures like attorney Stanhope Browne (b. 1931), editor Herbert Lipson (b. 1929), and architect Richard Saul Wurman (b. 1935), this group advocated a much grander concept, a model city built on a four-mile “megastructure” to be constructed above the Pennsylvania Railroad yard on the west bank of the Schuylkill. Meanwhile, planning also grew tense around the lack of inclusion of African Americans in the process.  In response, the Bicentennial Corporation appointed Catherine Sue Leslie, a housing reform activist, to lead the “Agenda for Action.”  This initiative aimed to include minority voices in Bicentennial planning, and Leslie developed a low-cost rival vision for the Bicentennial built around a scattered-site concept that would highlight the racial and ethnic diversity of Philadelphia.

At the national level, in 1966 the Lyndon B. Johnson administration created the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission (ARBC), which was charged with making site recommendations as well as content and funding decisions. In Philadelphia, meanwhile, a Bicentennial Corporation was chartered in 1967 and began working to raise funds, gather public support, and elaborate the theme and design elements of the Bicentennial and world’s fair. Philadelphians also sought to gain a competitive edge over Boston, a rival for the celebrations.

100 Million Visitors Anticipated

In 1969 a Philadelphia delegation presented the ARBC with its “Toward a Meaningful Bicentennial” plan, with the megastructure at the center and five different “core” areas in the city to demonstrate innovative ways to solve America’s urban problems.  Anticipating an estimated 100 million visitors, the projected costs totaled more than a billion dollars.  The ARBC rejected the plan, and in Philadelphia a bitter divide developed along racial lines over the thematic focus and the location. By 1972 progress was stalled, and Mayor Frank Rizzo (1920-91) canceled the world’s fair bid entirely, leaving only the Bicentennial commemoration to go forward. On the national level, the ARBC encouraged celebrations throughout the nation, not just in Philadelphia.

A year packed with Bicentennial-themed events began on New Year’s Eve, 1976, as thousands came to Philadelphia to witness the Liberty Bell being moved from Independence Hall to a new pavilion on Independence Mall. From January through October daily events included activities such as puppet shows, street theater, and concerts. The city hosted the NCAA Final Four tournament as well as all-star games for professional baseball, basketball, and hockey. The week leading up to July 4 was named Freedom Week and featured even more daily celebrations, street parties, parades, picnics, and concerts.  A 2076 time capsule was buried at Second and Chestnut Streets, a 50,000-pound Sara Lee birthday cake was served at Memorial Hall, and fireworks filled the sky throughout the week.

On July 4, 1976, a ceremony on Independence Mall featured President Gerald Ford, Pennsylvania Governor Milton Shapp (1912-1994), and Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo, with actor Charlton Heston as the master of ceremonies. Following the ceremony a five-hour parade featured floats from every state and 40,000 marchers. An estimated two million visitors came to Philadelphia to attend these events. On July 6, Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain visited and, with Prince Philip, presented a Bicentennial Bell made in the same foundry as the original Liberty Bell.

During the year-long celebration, Valley Forge, up to this time a state park,  became Valley Forge National Historical Park. On July 3, the winter campsite of George Washington’s Continental Army served as final destination for a commemoration of the westward wagon treks of the nineteenth century.  Six wagon trains totaling 200 wagons, which had traveled for months from all over the nation, converged in Valley Forge in front of a crowd of nearly a half a million people.

Counter-Demonstrations

Along with the patriotic events came counter-demonstrations. Two groups of Philadelphia citizens, the July 4^th Coalition and Rich Off Our Backs Coalition, staged marches and demonstrations during Freedom Week to oppose the celebration.  Their plans prompted Mayor Rizzo to request 15,000 federal troops to maintain order, a request that was denied.  Despite Mayor Rizzo’s concerns, the demonstrations in Fairmount Park and Norris Square Park were peaceful.

Philadelphia’s Bicentennial celebration concluded to mixed reviews.  The event introduced many thousands of Americans to the urban renewal and historic preservation successes of the postwar period in the city. The three blocks composing Independence Mall were added to Independence National Historical Park in 1973, and historic buildings in the park were refurbished.  The Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum, now the African American Museum in Philadelphia, and the Mummers Museum both opened in 1976. The Port of History Museum on Penn’s Landing at Walnut Street was designed as a Bicentennial gift from the state to the city, but it did not open until 1981. The Society Hill neighborhood, Elfreth’s Alley, and Penn’s Landing were all popular sites during the celebration.

While Freedom Week brought large crowds to Philadelphia, attendance at Philadelphia’s historical sites dropped quickly afterward.  The total number of visitors to Philadelphia in 1976 was estimated to be between 14 and 20 million, which fell far short of the planners’ expectations.  Much of the shortfall may be attributed to fear of violence spread by media attention to the protests and the mayor’s reaction to them. During the Bicentennial there was also an outbreak of Legionnaire’s Disease. Hundreds of members of the American Legion staying at the Bellevue Stratford Hotel contracted an infectious disease through the hotel’s air conditioning system, killing more than thirty of the Legionnaires.

Despite Philadelphians’ initial visions for a transformative event, the planning price tag of more than $50 million may have been too high considering the lack of long-term benefits. Features that were meant to bring lasting value, like a Living History Center or the Chestnut Street Transitway, were considered a thorn in the city’s side just five years later.  It would be hard to imagine a more challenging period of time—with civil rights struggles, the Vietnam War, and Watergate fresh in mind, and the effects of racial strife, white flight, crime, and deindustrialization apparent in American cities—to hold a patriotic celebration. Philadelphia could not alter the calendar or reshape the larger context of the Bicentennial year.

Madison Eggert-Crowe is a graduate of Drexel University (2010) and is pursuing her Master’s in Public Administration at University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Institute of Government. Scott Gabriel Knowles is associate professor of history at Drexel University. He is the author of The Disaster Experts: Mastering Risk in Modern America (2011) and Imagining Philadelphia: Edmund Bacon and the Future of the City (2009). (Authors’ information current at time of publication.)

The International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures and Products of the Soil and Mine, more simply known as “the Centennial,” opened in Fairmount Park to great fanfare on May 10, 1876, and closed with equal flourish six months later. Modeled after the Crystal Palace Great Exhibition in London in 1851, and the first in a long line of major “world’s fairs” in the United States, the Centennial exhibited national pride and belief in the importance of education and progress through industrial innovation. An additional mission of the Centennial grew from a desire to forgive and forget the Civil War.

Philadelphia had precedent for such a fair.  The Great Central Fair of 1864, one of many held throughout the Union during the Civil War, anticipated the combination of public, private, and commercial efforts that were necessary for the Centennial. The Great Central Fair, held on Logan Square, had a similar gothic appearance, the waving flags, the huge central hall, the “curiosities” and relics, handmade and industrial exhibits, and even a visit from the President and his family.

The idea for presenting a World Exposition in Philadelphia honoring the hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence was first presented to Mayor Morton McMichael (1807-79) in 1866 by Professor John Campbell of Wabash College, Indiana. In 1871, with support from prominent businessmen such as John Wanamaker (1838-1922), the Republican political machine, and the Franklin Institute, the city and state successfully petitioned Congress to authorize the Centennial and set up a commission to oversee planning and implementation.  The legislation explicitly excluded federal funding for the fair.  The commissioners, led by Joseph R. Hawley from Connecticut as chairman and Alfred T. Goshorn from Ohio as director-general, were not political appointees but leaders in business.  They were confident that the undertaking could be handled by private enterprise.

Although rich in historic associations, Philadelphia also presented problems as a site for the fair. Business sponsors and nonprofit organizations quarreled over whether to focus on commercial achievements or on American progress in the arts and sciences. Outside Pennsylvania, some suspected that the Centennial was merely an attempt to promote Philadelphia and its industries, and the nationally publicized kidnapping of 4-year-old Charley Ross from Germantown in 1874 painted the Philadelphia police force as corrupt and incompetent, raising fears for the safety of visitors.

Years of Fundraising

The Panic of 1873 dried up private financing.  Fair organizers devoted the next several years to attracting attention and money from national, state, and foreign governments; from organizations like churches and universities; and from industrial and commercial associations. They enlisted newspapers all over the country in the cause. Members of the Women’s Centennial Committee had the most success raising funds, going from door-to-door in thirty-one states, selling stock and bringing in $100,000 in contributions. Still, with insufficient capital on hand as the opening neared, and the prestige of the United States at stake, the federal government was forced to step up. The government required repayment as first creditor, thus dooming the fair corporation to financial failure.

As a popular attraction, however, the Centennial was a great success. At a time when the population of the United States was 46 million, and that of Philadelphia less than one million, almost ten million paid admissions were recorded, with most people paying fifty cents to attend. While the majority of visitors were from Pennsylvania and its neighbors, 20,000 signed in from Illinois and more than 2,000 from California. On their special state days, Pennsylvania and New York each recorded over 250,000 attendees, while New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland listed over 10,000 each.

The Centennial overlooked the Schuylkill River, with 250 pavilions and seven miles of avenues and walkways occupying a 285-acre tract of Fairmount Park’s 3,160 acres. Many visitors arrived at the temporary “centennial station” of the Pennsylvania railroad and entered through the newly invented automatic turnstile.  They found numerous fountains and statuary placed strategically throughout the grounds, prominent among them the arm and torch of the Statue of Liberty. Concessionaires, who paid up to 50 percent of their take for the privilege doing business within the fair, operated stands selling cigars, soda water, and popcorn, and theme-oriented restaurants, including French, Turkish, and Viennese.

42 Acres of Farm Exhibits

The Centennial Commission owned and managed thirty-four structures, including five central buildings that covered more than fifty acres. The largest, the Main Exhibition Hall, included exhibits on education and science but concentrated largely on the industrial arts and on selling merchandise. Machinery Hall housed the huge Corliss Engine, both the power source for the fair and perhaps its most popular attraction.  Exhibitors demonstrated their processes of manufacturing while also offering their products for sale, increasing the interest of visitors. Agricultural Hall where the latest in farm equipment was demonstrated, along with forty-two acres of farm and livestock exhibits, was of particular significance for the still largely-agricultural nation. Horticultural Hall with its Victorian gardens and Memorial Hall with its exhibit of international fine arts were smallest of the main grouping.  Other buildings run by the Commission included fire and police stations, a medical department, and seven “public comfort” stations.

The remainder of the buildings, just over two hundred, represented several interests. The United States government contributed seven structures, including a main exhibit hall housing the Smithsonian collection, which later formed the nucleus of the Smithsonian Institution museum. Of the twenty-six states that erected buildings, most were either Pennsylvania’s neighbors or from the mid- or far West. Most of the South was still smarting from its loss of the Civil War and resented the request to spend money in the North which had caused so much loss and devastation to its own region.  Only Mississippi participated from the deep South, frustrating the attempt of the Centennial Commission and the Federal government to present a picture of a country reunited. While thirty-eight foreign countries had a presence, only fifteen provided their own buildings. Forty buildings, the largest number, were either commercial enterprises like the Singer Sewing Machine Company or community service groups like the Bible Society.

The Commission advertised the main value of the Fair as educational, urging visitors to compare the contemporary strides in technology and learning with the state of the country one hundred years earlier, but the growth of a consumer society made shopping one of the most popular activities. The fair also offered frequent entertainment by musical groups from symphony orchestras to minstrel bands, special days sponsored by states and nearby businesses, and events like hot-air balloon ascensions and fireworks displays.  Huge crowds turned out for the music, speeches, and celebrations that marked the opening and closing of the fair and the Fourth of July.  “Curiosities” such as a full-sized Liberty Bell made of soap, “Liberty accompanying Washington” done in human hair, and a Centennial medallion carved in butter attracted attention.

Sideshows Arose Nearby

Outside the gates, a small, temporary city grew up along what later became Parkside Avenue. Flimsy, wooden structures housed dubious hotels, low-end restaurants, ice cream saloons, beer gardens, and “shows,” and were sandwiched two or three deep on narrow lots.  They stretched a mile in each direction from the main gate and provided entertainment the Commissioners deemed inappropriate on the grounds proper. Profits trumped morality, however, and when attendance flagged at the fair, the organizers allowed the sale of wine and beer.  However, they resisted opening on Sundays, and amusement-park rides and “hoochie koochie dancers” had to await the Chicago Fair of 1893.

Other values of the times were also on display, although not intentionally. Contempt and dislike of African Americans, laborers, and non-Anglo-Saxon foreigners often found expression in crude humor, such as exaggerated dialect, cartoons and stories found in books written about the Centennial. Victorian sensibilities demoted the graphic painting “The Gross Clinic” (1875) by Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) to the Army medical hall and banned all works by women from the Memorial Hall Art Exhibit.

A patronizing attitude toward women also pervaded the Centennial. Women responded with their own pavilion, built with funds completely raised by women, with all exhibits created and operated by them. Many labor-saving devices for domestic use, invented by women, formed part of the exhibit. While traditional forms of women’s work in needlework and china painting and achievements in the fine arts were not ignored, women also acted as engineers, wood workers, and printers, turning out newspapers and furniture and operating fabric-producing machinery. The chair of the Women’s Centennial Committee, Elizabeth Duane Gillespie (1821- 1901), a descendant of Benjamin Franklin, was seated on the platform for the fair’s closing ceremonies, but when rain curtailed the number of invited guests, admission was “refused to ladies’ tickets.”

Almost immediately after the Centennial closed, most physical remains were removed, either taken elsewhere or broken down and sold for parts. Much of the statuary and many of the fountains remained, as did the Ohio State building and two small, brick buildings used as “comfort stations.”

Sanitary fairs were civilian-organized bazaars and expositions dedicated to raising funds on behalf of the United States Sanitary Commission (USSC) and other charitable relief organizations. Over the course of the Civil War, they became one of the most popular means of fundraising for the Union cause. For Philadelphians, who had responded to the outbreak of Civil War in April 1861 with a surge of pro-Union patriotism, sanitary fairs provided a means of supporting soldiers and their families. While young men flocked to enlist, many of those not eligible for active duty because of gender, age, or other circumstances drew upon the traditions of antebellum benevolent societies to organize various soldiers’ relief agencies and to raise funds and collect food, clothing, bandages, and other supplies to be distributed to the troops.

The USSC was founded in the summer of 1861 when observers’ reports and soldiers’ uncensored letters to friends and family disclosed that many, if not most, federal recruits were subjected to decidedly unsanitary living conditions. While the mechanisms of infection were not understood in this pre-germ theory era, it became evident that a correlation existed between outbreaks of epidemic illness in the camps and the degree of filth and poor diets. As a flood of state-organized volunteer regiments swamped the administrative capacities of the Federal army, it also became evident that the U.S. government was poorly prepared to take care of its defenders. Thus some prominent citizens banded together to form the U.S. Sanitary Commission, which channeled volunteer contributions of money and materiel to improve living conditions and medical care for Union soldiers in the field and in the growing number of military hospitals.

Philadelphia Organization

Soon after the founding of the USSC, a cadre of local leading male citizens headed by Horace Binney Jr. (1809-70) formed the Philadelphia Branch of the USSC, which served as a regional executive center and depot to receive donated goods and monies. Women formed their own subsidiary, the Women’s Pennsylvania Branch of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, which served as a conduit for receiving donations from hundreds of smaller, local aid societies.

Many of the local aid societies were subgroups of religious congregations and communities, such as the Ladies Aid Society of Philadelphia organized by members of the Tenth Presbyterian Church, the Hebrew Women’s Aid Society, the predominantly Quaker Penn Relief Association, and the Soldiers’ Relief Association of the Episcopal Church. Because African Americans generally were excluded from participating in USSC activities, Black congregations such as St. Thomas African Episcopal Church formed their own sanitary committees, which raised funds and channeled supplies to the U.S. Colored Troops and other Union soldiers.

Whether local or national in scope, these organizations required vast, steady sources of funding to sustain their operations.  In addition to soliciting donations from private citizens, merchants, and manufacturers, they staged fundraising events in Philadelphia throughout the war, including floral fairs, concerts, lectures, and plays.

By far the largest and most successful of these events in Philadelphia was the Great Central Fair held at Logan Square (now Circle) from June 7 to June 28, 1864, to raise money for the Sanitary Commission. The fair was six months in the planning. Its Executive Committee, chaired by John Welsh (1805-1886), had oversight over myriad smaller committees in charge of soliciting contributions of goods, money, and services from members of every trade, profession, and commercial enterprise in the Philadelphia area. In final form the fair had close to a hundred departments and booths offering a broad range of appeal: Arms and Trophies, Children’s Clothing, Horse Shoe Machine, Fancy Articles (homemade), Turkish Divan for Smokers, Fine Arts, Brewers, Wax Fruit, Trimmings and Lingerie, Button-Riveter, Horticulture, Art Gallery, Umbrellas and Canes, Curiosities and Relics, and Steam Glass Blower. The Great Central Fair represented a successful amalgamation of the traditional ladies’ “fancy” and “floral fairs” and the more masculine industrial exhibitions that had become popular in the nineteenth century.

Spectacular Structures

The structures housing these wonders were no less spectacular than the contents. Built in just forty working days by volunteer craftsmen, the 200,000- square-foot complex featured Union Avenue, a 540-foot-long, flag-festooned central hall over which soared Gothic arches. The Avenue was flanked by rotundas to the south and north and other outbuildings, all interconnected by bustling exhibit corridors. Presiding over the entire Fair site was the Stars and Stripes, unfurled on a 216-foot flagpole.

President Abraham Lincoln, accompanied by wife Mary and son Todd, visited the Great Central Fair on June 16, 1864.  Even though the cost of admission was doubled for that day, attendees mobbed the Fair to see the President.  Lincoln contributed forty-eight signed copies of the Emancipation Proclamation, which were sold for $10 each.  Ultimately, the Great Central Fair raised over a million dollars for the USSC through admissions, concessions, and the sales of goods and mementos.  Of the many Northern cities that hosted major sanitary fairs between 1863 and 1865, Philadelphia was second only to New York City in money raised.

But Philadelphia was second to none in terms of patriotic pride and communal synergy, as demonstrated by its successful Civil War sanitary fairs and other volunteer efforts.  These phenomena may still be viewed as representing Philadelphia at its finest.

Kerry L. Bryan holds a Master’s of Education from Chestnut Hill College and received training in historical research as a candidate for a Master of Liberal Arts degree at the University of Pennsylvania. As a historical consultant, she contributed to developing the “Philadelphia 1862: A City at War” exhibit at the Heritage Center at the Union League of Philadelphia.  Her research focuses on benevolent agencies in Philadelphia during the nineteenth century, including the Civil War years. (Author information current at time of publication.)

On Friday, August 28, 1964, a scuffle with police at the busy intersection of Twenty-Second Street and Columbia Avenue sparked a three-day riot involving hundreds of North Philadelphians hurling bottles and bricks at police and looting stores. With the Columbia Avenue Riot, Philadelphia joined six other cities, including Jersey City, Paterson, and Elizabeth, New Jersey, that erupted in African American protest during July and August 1964. Similar actions in hundreds of other cities followed by 1968. In Philadelphia, as across the country, urban unrest fractured liberal interracial coalitions and gave rise to law-and-order politics.

At 9:20 on that August night in 1964, two Philadelphia police officers ordered a married couple to move their car from the intersection at Twenty-Second and Columbia Avenue (the street later renamed for civil rights leader Cecil B. Moore). The ensuing scuffle touched off a rumor that the police had beaten and possibly killed a pregnant African American woman. Rioting spread through an area of North Philadelphia that the local press and the police establishment since the mid-1950s had designated “the Jungle” for its entrenched poverty and high crime rates. Like other “ghettos,” the area of Poplar, Lehigh, Tenth, and Thirty-Third Streets also was racially segregated; by 1960, it was 69 percent African American.

The riot reflected longstanding popular anger at the Philadelphia Police Department and growing divisions among African Americans over a recent shift to more confrontational street protests. On the first night, crowds of young men and women ran along Columbia Avenue, smashing the windows and taking the merchandise almost exclusively from white-owned stores. The busy commercial strip in the heart of North Philadelphia was lined with taprooms and small shops, the vast majority owned by Jewish merchants who sold groceries, appliances, and furniture. One group tossed a garbage can through a squad car window. Crowds pulled prisoners out of police wagons. An activist with the National Muslim Improvement Association led chants of  “We want freedom, we want justice!” Directing the crowd’s anger at Cecil B. Moore (1915-79) for failing to deliver promised reforms despite militant mass protests, one local resident declared, “We don’t need Cecil Moore. We can take care of ourselves.” Members of the crowd also turned their anger on more moderate civil rights leaders who, like Moore, tried to restore calm.

1,800 Police Converge

By the second and third nights, police presence swelled to 1,800 officers. Commissioner Howard Leary (1912-94) instructed police to use minimal force. On Saturday, Mayor James H. J. Tate (1910-83) imposed a curfew in the riot area. By Monday morning, the Columbia Avenue Riot was over. Hundreds had been arrested and injured, and two died. Seven hundred twenty-six buildings had been affected. Property damage and police overtime pay totaled $3.2 million.

In the next few years, the civil rights movement embraced racial militancy and distanced itself from former white allies. Protests increasingly confronted a police force, led by then-Deputy Commissioner Frank J. Rizzo (1920-91), which proudly embraced racial partisanship. After the uprising, the Fraternal Order of Police escalated its campaign against the civilian-led Police Advisory Board. The Police Department countered the rise of Black Power with a siege mentality that treated Black protest as a threat to the city. By 1969, the Police Advisory Board was gone. Three years later, Rizzo was mayor.

Many local businesses never recovered from the August 1964 uprising. Although the flight of white residents and industrial jobs played a greater role in long-term neighborhood decline, the Columbia Avenue Riot accelerated these trends and contributed to the sense already possessed by Rizzo and many white Philadelphians that “the Jungle” was a violent place to be contained by force. Still, the unrest generated key momentum for local activists that arguably culminated in the election of the city’s first African American mayor, Wilson Goode (b. 1938), in 1983.

Alex Elkins is a Ph.D. Candidate at Temple University, writing a dissertation on the 1960s riots and “get-tough” policing. His article, “‘At Once Judge, Jury, and Executioner’: Rioting and Policing in Philadelphia, 1838-1964,” appears in the Spring 2014 issue of the Bulletin of the German Historical Institute. (Author information current at time of publication.)

As a cause for commemoration, the signing of the U.S. Constitution historically has struggled to compete with the Declaration of Independence for national recognition and ardor.  In contrast to the dramatic act of independence, the framing of the national government is a more sober and complex narrative not easily celebrated with barbecues and fireworks. In Philadelphia, the site of the Constitutional Convention, commemoration of the document’s major anniversaries also has been complex and has reflected how regard for the Constitution and its connections to the city have evolved over time.

For Philadelphia and the nation, the Constitution’s major anniversaries often occurred in times of conflict that notably inspired and informed the celebrations. While the Golden Jubilee in 1837 passed largely unobserved, September 17, the date on which the Convention signed the Constitution, was recognized occasionally throughout the early 1800s. Such commemorations often served political purposes; in the 1850s, for example, Philadelphia’s Democratic Party staged commemorations as a counterpoint to the anti-immigrant nativist politicians who dominated city government. Similar tributes also cropped up during the strife of the Civil War.

In contrast to these limited observances, the Constitution’s 100^th anniversary in 1887 was treated as an opportunity to demonstrate national progress in a three-day spectacle reminiscent of the 1876 Centennial International Exhibition. A lack of Congressional interest and funding effectively ceded responsibility for the festivities to Philadelphia, which organizers styled the “Mecca of America,” much to the chagrin of rival cities such as New York. In an era of rising immigration and agitation from groups including laborers, suffragettes, and African Americans, proclamations of national unity and reverence for the storied Revolutionary past dominated the proceedings, which began on September 15 with a Civic and Industrial Procession on Broad Street. The procession featured 21,029 representatives from the city’s trade and commercial organizations, as well as 2,106 musicians and 497 massive floats depicting key moments in American history. A military parade, the largest in the nation’s history, followed the next day and celebrations concluded on September 17 at Independence Square. Attended by President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908), the ceremonies included a Marine band led by John Philip Sousa (1854-1932) and speeches that venerated Constitutional principles while overlooking any conflict regarding the document’s drafting and ratification.

Centennial Draws 500,000 Visitors

Approximately 500,000 visitors and one million local residents observed the Centennial proceedings, which emphasized mass participation even though the contributions of African Americans, women, and ethnic groups were largely scripted or overlooked. Despite resistance from Black and tribal leaders, participation by both African Americans and American Indians was limited to a series of “object-lessons” that celebrated progress towards the Anglo-Saxon ideal. The Carlisle Industrial Indian School, which removed Indian youth from reservations and sought to assimilate them into American society, was a centerpiece of the Civic and Industrial Procession, and a series of floats glorified the African American journey from slavery to emancipation. In both instances, organizers downplayed social conflict and stressed national harmony and unity, themes echoed in the Sesquicentennial celebrations fifty years later.

Amidst the tumult of the Great Depression, anxiety about the strength and endurance of national principles colored the Constitution’s 150^th anniversary, and the festivities captured a prevailing nostalgia for early American traditions and culture. Compared to the Centennial, the 1937 commemoration was a more national affair that, in the wake of the New Deal, reflected the federal government’s activist role in national life. Under the leadership of Congressman Sol Bloom (1870-1949), the U.S. Constitution Sesquicentennial Commission gave scant attention to Philadelphia, choosing to highlight the Constitution’s history and meaning rather than the place it was crafted. Centered in Washington, D.C., festivities were to begin on September 17, 1937, with commemorations of key dates and events following throughout the country until April 30, 1939, the anniversary of President Washington’s inauguration.

To the Commission’s dismay, Philadelphia disregarded the national plan and began its festivities on May 14, the date the Constitutional Convention convened in the city. The proceedings commenced at Independence Hall, where teachers gathered dressed as the fifty-five delegates and Mayor S. Davis Wilson (1881-1939) struck the Liberty Bell thirteen times with a wooden gavel made from a tree at Valley Forge. Over the next four months, local interest and pride in Philadelphia’s Constitutional legacy was evident in festivities staged throughout the city, including a Mummers parade on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and a water carnival on the Schuylkill featuring speedboat races, fireworks, and a floating reenactment of the signing of the Constitution. The Pennsylvania Constitution Commemoration Committee also organized school programs and essay contests that stressed Independence Hall’s connection to the Constitution, a bond reinforced by ceremonies held there on June 20, 1938, to mark Pennsylvania’s ratification of the document.

Building Toward Bicentennial

Like the Sesquicentennial, the Constitution’s Bicentennial anniversary in 1987 was also a nationwide, ongoing celebration in which Philadelphia’s festivities were one among many.  Once again, a lack of national planning and funding plagued the proceedings, which nonetheless featured a calendar of observances that built momentum to the Bicentennial itself.  In Philadelphia, the coordinating committee “We the People-200” identified key themes for programming, including the Constitution’s evolution, Philadelphia’s legacy as the first national city, and the growth of the nation.  Through exhibitions, tours, and historic dramas, organizers sought to underscore how historic sites like Independence Hall and the Second Bank of the United States created an enduring connection between Philadelphia and Constitutional history.

Philadelphia’s Bicentennial celebrations officially commenced on Memorial Day weekend 1987 with a festival of events titled “All Roads Lead to Philadelphia.”  At Independence Hall, descendants of the Constitution’s signers greeted representatives from the original thirteen states and attendees included Vice President George H.W. Bush (1924-2018), Chief Justice Warren Burger (1907-1995), and Pennsylvania Governor Bob Casey (1932-2000).  Commemorations continued throughout the summer, and on September 17 President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) addressed the nation from Independence Hall following a re-enactment of the 1788 Grand Federal Procession celebrating ratification.  The parade, which marched to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, also included a 40-foot float modeled after a parchment scroll.  A massive public picnic and fireworks at Penn’s Landing concluded the day’s events.

In comparison to earlier anniversaries, the Bicentennial celebrations placed greater emphasis on the Constitution’s evolution, including the progress of African Americans and women. In Philadelphia, however, the Constitutional Convention remained at the forefront, allowing the city to briefly reclaim its mantle as the preeminent American city. The Constitution Heritage Act of 1988 likewise affirmed the city’s Constitutional legacy, authorizing creation of a National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. The Center, which broke ground at 525 Arch Street on September 17, 2000, and opened to the public on July 4, 2003, aspires to increase public understanding of the history and ideas of the Constitution, a purpose that likewise pervaded each commemoration of the Constitution’s major anniversaries.

Hillary S. Kativa received her B.A. in History and English from Dickinson College ’05 and her M.A. in History from Villanova University ’08.  Her research interests include American political history and presidential campaigns, public history, and digital humanities. (Author information current at time of publication.)

By the mid-1780s, several problems had arisen under the Articles of Confederation, which went into effect in 1781. In particular, Congress needed the authority to tax and to regulate commerce. It also needed the means to solve foreign policy problems, such as opening the Mississippi River to American navigation and expelling British troops from several forts in the Northwest Territory. The Confederation Congress called the Constitutional Convention on February 21, 1787, legitimizing a call issued by an earlier convention that met in Annapolis, Maryland, in September 1786 to discuss giving Congress control of commerce. Congress tasked the 1787 convention with revising the Articles to render the federal government “adequate to the exigencies of the union.” All agreed that the convention must strengthen the federal government at the expense of the states. The new constitution needed separate, coequal executive, legislative, and judicial branches restrained by checks and balances so that it could avoid repeating what many regarded as the injustices of the state governments, where, according to conservatives, popular majorities acting through unchecked legislatures often trampled the rights of religious or propertied minorities.

Fifty-five delegates, representing all of the states except Rhode Island, attended the convention in Philadelphia, a geographically central location. The biggest city in the United States, this metropolis of about 40,000 people featured boardinghouses, such as the Indian Queen Tavern and the City Tavern, where the delegates could reside, caucus, and dine. In addition to shops, theaters, and other cosmopolitan amenities, Philadelphia offered a religiously and ethnically diverse and tolerant atmosphere, where men of varying cultures felt comfortable. Many of the delegates found Philadelphia, the former national capital, a familiar place. Southerners, however, considered the antislavery views of the Quakers and like-minded residents troubling. With the windows of Independence Hall’s Assembly Room sealed shut to prevent eavesdropping, the delegates spent the humid summer months deliberating in sweltering conditions.

George Washington, Convention President

The convention, scheduled to open on May 14, did not achieve a quorum until May 25. On the first day, Robert Morris (1734-1806) of Pennsylvania nominated George Washington to be the convention president, to which the delegates unanimously assented. After agreeing to meet from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. six days a week and settling on rules (including keeping the proceedings secret, allowing one vote per state, and requiring at least two delegates to make an official delegation), the convention took up a proposal for the structure of the government. The Virginia Plan, drafted by the Virginians and supported by the Pennsylvanians in the preconvention days, proposed a bicameral legislature with representation in both houses based on either each state’s free population or federal taxes paid, along with executive and judicial branches. John Rutledge (1739-1800) pledged South Carolina’s backing of the Virginia Plan, even though he considered it favorable to the wealthiest and most populous states. In return, James Wilson (1742-98) promised Pennsylvania’s support for counting three-fifths of slaves towards representation in Congress.

The small states, led by William Paterson (1745-1806) of New Jersey, countered with the New Jersey Plan in opposition to the sweeping changes proposed by the Virginia Plan, especially the elimination of the Confederation’s one-vote-per-state system. The New Jersey Plan would essentially add executive and judicial branches to the existing Confederation and grant Congress power over taxation and commerce. At stake were not just the interests of large versus small states, but whether the new framework would be a national government of people, or whether it would continue a confederation of states. Upon reaching an impasse and nearly dissolving, the convention turned the divisive matter over to a grand committee composed of a member from each state. The committee, which included Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) of Pennsylvania, devised the Great Compromise (or the Connecticut Compromise) in which each state’s representation in the House of Representatives would be based on population (including three-fifths the number of slaves), and each state would receive two seats in the Senate. Appropriations bills could only originate in the House. This breakthrough created what James Madison (1751-1836) of Virginia called a partly national, partly federal “compound republic.”

At the end of July the convention recessed for ten days while a five-man Committee of Detail incorporated the agreed-upon resolutions into a draft Constitution. The committee, dominated by Rutledge and Wilson, replaced a blanket grant of power to Congress with a list of enumerated powers. At the same time, however, the draft included blank checks that undermined the concept of enumerated powers, such as the “necessary and proper,” “general welfare,” and “supremacy” clauses. In addition to the three-fifths compromise already agreed upon by the convention, the committee inserted a number of provisions favorable to the South, including a ban on export taxes, and requiring a supermajority of two-thirds of Congress rather than a bare majority to pass commercial legislation. Nor could Congress prohibit the African slave trade.

Struggle Over Slavery Issue

In August, the entire convention struggled with the slavery issue. Several northerners, led by Gouverneur Morris (1752-1816) of Pennsylvania, eloquently attacked the South’s peculiar institution as a moral abomination. The debate led to compromises in which the North traded a fugitive slave provision in return for the South’s abandonment of the supermajority requirement for commercial legislation. The convention prohibited Congress from banning the international slave trade for twenty years, but allowed a ten dollar tax on slave imports. The delegates also decided to use the word “persons” instead of “slaves.” By threatening disunion if slavery were not adequately protected, the South, especially Georgia and South Carolina, got the better of these compromises. The three-fifths compromise in particular secured enough additional seats in Congress to enable the “Slave Power” eventually to enact proslavery legislation such as the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, which overturned the ban on slavery imposed in those territories by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Thanks to the Electoral College, moreover, the three-fifths compromise also made it easier to elect southern presidents, who in turn often nominated pro-slavery Supreme Court justices.

The draft constitution called for a president to be elected by Congress for one seven-year term. After considering myriad alternative arrangements, the delegates, at the beginning of September, turned the disposition of the presidency over to the “Committee on Postponed Parts.” Chaired by David Brearly (1745-90) of New Jersey, this committee redesigned the office, giving the executive a four-year term to be elected without a term limit by an electoral college. In accepting this change, the convention created a truly independent executive, coequal with the federal government’s other branches. The convention’s expectation that Washington, the likely first president, would not abuse his power convinced the delegates to take this bold step.

With all of the Constitution’s major provisions decided upon, the convention on September 10 appointed a Committee of Style to prepare the final draft. Gouverneur Morris, an eloquent writer, finalized the preamble and organized the document into its various articles and sections. Not knowing which states would ratify, Morris changed the preamble’s opening from a list of the thirteen states to, “We the People of the United States.”

On September 17, the convention met one last time to sign the embellished manuscript of the Constitution.  Benjamin Franklin called on the forty-two delegates still present to add their signatures to the document. George Mason (1725-92) of Virginia, Edmund Randolph (1753-1813) of Virginia, and Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814) of Massachusetts remained unwavering in their opposition. As the delegates one by one affixed their names, Franklin pointed to the half sun carved into the backrest of Washington’s chair. The Pennsylvanian remarked that after wondering all summer whether it was a rising or setting sun, he now knew that it was in fact a rising sun.

The States Decide

The convention forwarded the Constitution to Congress with resolutions specifying that the ratification decision be made by conventions “chosen in each state by the people.” Congress voted unanimously, not to endorse but merely to transmit the document to the states for ratification. Article VII provided that the Constitution would take effect when ratified by nine states. Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey became the first three states to ratify the Constitution, all by lopsided margins. The Delaware ratification convention, meeting in Dover, happy with the Great Compromise and not wishing to see such a little state become a separate nation, ratified on December 7 by a vote of 30-0. The Pennsylvania convention, held in Independence Hall, approved the Constitution on December 12 by a vote of 46-23, rejecting the Antifederalists’ request to postpone ratification until they had time to propose amendments. The bitter response of Pennsylvania’s unreconciled Antifederalists to the Federalists’ heavy-handed approach caused remaining states to conduct a more thorough and sincere ratification debate. New Jersey’s convention in Trenton, eager for commerce (and import duties) to be controlled by the federal government because of the state’s dependence on out-of-state ports in New York City and Philadelphia, ratified on December 18 by a 38-0 vote. Philadelphians celebrated the Constitution’s ratification on July 4, 1788, with a “Grand Federal Procession” to the Bush Hill estate of William Hamilton (1745-1813), three miles outside of town, where James Wilson delivered a spirited address to a crowd of 17,000. Toasts and a sumptuous feast followed.

Visitors to Independence Hall can see the Assembly Room where the convention met and the Rising Sun Chair where Washington sat. The building, part of Independence National Historical Park, was designated a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for its role in the spread of republican government (representative democracy).

Stuart Leibiger is a Professor and History Department Chair at La Salle University. He is the author of Founding Friendship: George Washington, James Madison, and the Creation of the American Republic (University of Virginia Press, 1999), and editor of a Companion to James Madison and James Monroe (Wiley-Blackwell Publishers, 2013).

Tensions between the British Crown and the American colonies had simmered since the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765. The Coercive Acts, passed by the British Parliament in 1774 to punish the city of Boston for the Boston Tea Party, put the Massachusetts government under direct British control, closed the port of Boston, and increased British troops there. While the Acts were designed to bring only the Massachusetts colony under tight control, the highly punitive legislation drew concern from all thirteen colonies. Many outside of Massachusetts viewed the acts as a violation of their valued rights under the English constitution; the outrage demanded a unified response from the colonies.

But what response? Only the most radical among the colonists advocated for independence. Many others, including Pennsylvania political leaders John Dickinson (1732-1808) and Joseph Galloway (1731-1803), acknowledged the need for political unity but also encouraged caution, non-violent action, and a desire to reconcile their differences with the British government.

Representatives of twelve colonies assembled in Philadelphia in September 1774 at Carpenters’ Hall, then and since the meeting hall for the Carpenters’ Company of the City and County of Philadelphia. (Georgia, in dire need of the services of British regulars to fend off incursions of Creek Indians on its borders, did not send a delegation.)  The choice of Carpenters’ Hall, rather than the Pennsylvania State House, reflected the complex politics surrounding the independence movement. The State House was the seat of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, which in the fall of 1774 was not only against independence but was viewed by many in Philadelphia as highly sympathetic to the British Crown. Galloway had served as Speaker of the Assembly since 1766, and he was clear in his belief that the colonies needed to reconcile their differences with Britain (later, in 1788, he moved to England). Carpenters’ Hall also housed the collections of the Library Company of Philadelphia, established in 1731 by Pennsylvania delegate Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), of which the delegates were made subscribing members.

Largest Port City

Then the largest port city in the colonies, Philadelphia was well situated to play a critical role in the slow march to independence. Its strategic location, wealth, population, industrial and commercial capacity, and professional and business classes were unsurpassed in America. On a more practical level, the city’s public buildings—including the State House, the “British Barracks” in Northern Liberties, the Pennsylvania Hospital, and Walnut Street Prison—could accommodate any of the needs of both Congresses.

Philadelphia also contained more than enough diversions to entertain its distinguished visitors. Massachusetts’ John Adams (1735-1826) and Connecticut’s Silas Deane (1737-1789) both noted the nearly unparalleled luxury found in the Second Street home of John Cadwalader (1742-1786), with whom they both dined. Delegates also were entertained in the many exclusive clubs of Philadelphia’s elite, including the Schuylkill Fishing Company, which was founded in 1732 and still exists as State on Schuylkill, one of the oldest private clubs in the United States.

At the First Continental Congress, little consensus existed as whether to declare independence. When Galloway proposed a “plan of union” with Great Britain, the delegates voted it down, but narrowly. After seven weeks of debate, the first Congress ended with the delegates agreeing only to form an “Association” to boycott British goods and to meet again in May 1775. By the time the Second Continental Congress assembled, this time in the Pennsylvania State House (later Independence Hall), events had moved forward rapidly. The delegates were not dealing solely with philosophical and political questions related to their rights as Englishmen, but were responding to the hostilities that began between British regulars and Massachusetts militiamen at the Battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. This Congress, now joined by Franklin and Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) and presided over by John Hancock (1737-1793), appointed George Washington (1732-1799) as commander of the Continental forces, managed the loosely organized colonial war effort, and debated whether to declare independence.

Initially, many of the delegates favored Dickinson’s long-held position—reconciliation with Great Britain. Jefferson, later the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, also wrote the first version of the Olive Branch Petition, which in July 1775 affirmed the colonists’ loyalty to the British king in an attempt to avoid further bloodshed. When the petition was rejected by King George III (1738-1820), who viewed the Second Congress as an illegal assembly and insincere in its intentions, members of the Congress who favored independence saw their opportunity and pushed for independence.

Congress Flees Philadelphia

After formally declaring independence on July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress became the government of the United States, and Philadelphia became the nation’s capital city. This location did not last long as the British army took control of Philadelphia in the fall of 1777, forcing the Congress to flee and conduct its business from a variety of locations, including York, Pennsylvania; Princeton, New Jersey; Baltimore, Maryland; and New York City. When the British army left Philadelphia after nine months of occupation, the national government returned its capital to Philadelphia, where it remained until 1781.

Regardless of its location, the weak powers of this first national government nearly caused its failure. To fight the American Revolution, the thirteen American colonies cautiously entered the “firm league of friendship” established by the Articles of Confederation. Indicating its weakness as a frame of a unified national government, the document was not fully ratified by all of the colonies until 1781—four years after its initial creation in 1777. Fighting the war with borrowed money and little power to collect revenue from the states through taxes, the Continental Congress was bankrupt at the conclusion of the War for Independence. When the states, addressing this and other problems facing the new nation, ratified a new United States Constitution in September 1788, the Continental Congress began its slow fade into history. The end came on March 2, 1789, in New York when the Congress was adjourned by its lone member, New York’s Philip Pell (1753-1811), for the last time.

Michael Karpyn teaches History, Economics, and Advanced Placement U.S. Government and Politics at Marple Newtown Senior High School in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania. He has served as a Summer Teaching Fellow at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, where he is a member of the Teacher Advisory Group. (Author information current at time of publication.)

Contention between journeymen shoemakers and their masters grew in the last decade of the nineteenth century, as in-migrating master craftsmen began promoting price competition, proposed higher pay rates, and lowered product quality. Both masters and journeymen fought the practice of underselling (marketing cheap goods), as it not only affected profits, but also wages. However, each side did so independently and with its own interests at stake, which foreshadowed the divergence that would take place between them.

By 1792 journeymen societies grew throughout the city. In 1794 the Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers of Philadelphia organized to protect wages, but more significantly to protect journeymen workers from “scab labor,” workers who agreed to work for lower wages. These societies proved effective, as workers received a wage increase in 1798, before a failed 1799 strike led to a general reduction. Soon, masters began to take orders for boots and shoes for the South. However, once orders flowed in, journeymen laid down their tools, demanding a wage increase for “export” products. This strike not only halted production, but ultimately forced masters to default on a number of orders.

Over the next five years, calm settled over the industry. Journeymen ultimately agreed to a reduction in piece work for export orders, as they initially viewed this as an opportunity for more work and believed the agreement to be temporary. However, by 1805 export work became regular and journeymen demanded not only that the reduced wages for export work be reversed, but also demanded higher rates for customized boots. The masters immediately declined, and in the fall of 1805 journeymen shoemakers initiated a strike that lasted nearly seven weeks. Master shoemakers took the matter to court, and on November 1, 1805, a Philadelphia grand jury indicted eight journeymen on charges of combination and criminal conspiracy to increase wages, bringing the strike to an abrupt end.

The trial, officially known as The Commonwealth v. George Pullis, began March 2, 1806, in the Mayor’s Court and became a political contest between Federalist aristocracy and Jeffersonian democracy. Prosecutors, led by Federalists Jared Ingersoll (1749-1822) and Joseph Hopkinson (1770-1842), argued that journeymen societies not only hampered the shoemaking industry, but threatened the entire economy of the city. They cited English common law forbidding workers’ collusion in order to control the price of labor. They advised the jurors that allowing these societies to exist would set an example for other trades that might foment hostilities, violence, and potential civil war. The prosecution retorted that these societies were a menace to social stability and the public welfare.

The defense, led by Democratic-Republicans Caesar Augustus Rodney (1772-1824) and Walter Franklin (1773-1836), argued that workers had the right to organize and receive wages comparable to those of journeymen shoemakers in Baltimore and New York City. They contested the prosecution’s use of English common law, claiming that it no longer applied to Pennsylvania. Furthermore, they argued that no law existed in Pennsylvania that prohibited journeymen from organizing for wage increases. Using rhetoric drawn from the American Revolution, Rodney and Franklin asserted that the masters’ control over their laborers as a form of wage slavery comparable to the tyranny colonists had fought against.

After both sides presented their case, Federalist Judge Moses Levy (1757-1826) used his charge to the jury to extol the ideals of a laissez-faire market and its ability to determine both prices and wages. He denounced the existence of journeymen societies, their use of strikes, and the artificial regulation this put on the market. Lastly, he instructed the jury to understand that a combination of workers, formed into a society in order to raise their wages, was illegal under common law. The next day the jury found the eight journeymen guilty and fined them eight dollars each.

The Philadelphia Cordwainers Trial, or Conspiracy Trial, of 1806 as it was popularly known, had far-reaching implications for antebellum society and labor. It upheld the Federalist ideals of protecting property and legitimizing growth of American industry unrestrained by workers’ organizations. As for labor, the trial ultimately made any workers’ societies, or trade unions designed to control prices or wages, illegal in America. This decision held until the 1842 Massachusetts Supreme Court trial of Commonwealth vs. Hunt permitted labor unions to operate lawfully. The Pullis decision was the first of many court rulings against labor in Philadelphia in the first two decades of the nineteenth-century, a fact not lost on labor leaders of the city. Unfavorable courts became one of the primary reasons labor turned towards politics to solve their problems during the Jacksonian Era.

Patrick Grubbs is a Ph.D. candidate at Lehigh University who is writing his dissertation, titled “The Duty of the State: Policing the State of Pennsylvania from the Coal and Iron Police to the Establishment of the Pennsylvania State Police Force, 1866–1905.” He has been employed at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, since 2009 and has taught Pennsylvania history there since 2011. (Author information current at time of publication.)