The Middle-Class City - John Henry Hepp, IV

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mix. The old “city” terminals of the 1870s were simply too far from the business district to be of much use to daily commuters. As the combination of new stations and an expanded commercial core rectified this problem, the steam roads increased services, cut fares, and added stations to build ridership. In 1875, the Philadelphia & Reading introduced “workmen’s trains” on some of its branches that reduced the fares (on specified trips) to nearly that of the streetcars (for example, between stations in the city and the downtown termini the railroad charged between seven and ten cents compared to the six-cent horsecar fare). The competition between the Philadelphia & Reading and the Pennsylvania Railroads also helped to spur service improvements in the city and both the Pennsylvania and New Jersey suburbs. New areas in the city and its hinterland were opened for residential use as steam commuter trains radically altered time and space relationships in the region. For example, to go from Center City to German-town by streetcar could take one hour and forty minutes while it required just thirty minutes on a Philadelphia & Reading train. Overbrook, located at the city limits in far West Philadelphia, underwent rapid development in the late nineteenth century because it was only fifteen minutes from Center City by train, significantly closer (in time) than much of the intervening area that was linked to downtown solely by trolley. The wealthy “suburb in the city” of Chestnut Hill and its bourgeois neighbors of Mount Airy and Germantown also underwent massive growth in the late nineteenth century largely because steam railroads made them convenient to Center City. Germantown and Chestnut Hill were particularly well served by frequent trains of both the Pennsylvania and Reading systems.18

      One regular Germantown commuter was Edwin C. Jellett. His first job outside of the neighborhood in 1886 was as a clerk at a steel mill. Initially, he usually walked from his home to the works and only took the Reading when he was tired or the weather was bad. As time went by (and his pay increased), Edwin rode the train more often. By 1888, he was buying monthly or season (quarterly) tickets for the railroad, illustrating that he had all but given up on walking and that he had firmly entered the middle class (for the monthly tickets cost $5.25 and the quarterly $14.15, payable in advance). In September 1888, Edwin moved from the plant to the main office downtown and spent the remainder of his life commuting to various white-collar jobs in Center City. Except for a few periods immediately after the introduction of electric trolleys in the 1890s, he stayed a loyal rider of the Philadelphia & Reading.19

      The streetcars, trolleys, and trains allowed the white middle class to begin to withdraw their homes from heterogeneous walking city to bourgeois neighborhoods like Germantown, West Philadelphia, and North Philadelphia. Racial discrimination restricted the housing options of the city’s African-American bourgeoisie and, although they were active users of the trains and streetcars, middle-class blacks generally lived in more class heterogeneous neighborhoods than their white counterparts. For the white bourgeoisie, the middle-class home on the middle-class street in the middle-class neighborhood became a reality well before Philadelphia began to suburbanize in significant numbers around the turn of the century.20

      For these white bourgeois neighborhoods to exist, their residents needed easy access to places other than just work and school. They had to buy food, clothes, and sundries and, after commuting, shopping was the most frequent activity for which middle-class Philadelphians used the streetcars and trains. Over one-quarter of all streetcar riders in 1880 were shoppers. The streetcars and the trains not only helped make the Center City department store possible but they also allowed other shopping nodes to thrive: the local equivalents of Center City’s Market Street in Germantown and West Philadelphia.21

      Middle-class men and women frequently used the trolleys and trains to shop at the large retail establishments of Center City. Starting in the 1870s, these palaces of consumption drew customers not only from the residential neighborhoods and the early suburbs but from throughout the nation. This retail area was especially busy and festive during the Christmas season; in 1877 John L. Smith noted the “Splendid” display windows on Chestnut Street and the “Great Many Persons out … Shopping for Christmas.” A few years later another shopper, Edwin Lehman of West Philadelphia, described in greater detail the excitement he found in the display windows at two early department stores “… a Christmas scene at Sharpless window of St. Nicholas with his pack full of toys on his back in a sleigh + driving for reindeer—he is descending a hill + the winter scene around him is beautiful. There are also other pretty windows—Wanamaker has one of flower stalks + flowers trailing along the side of this window—composed entirely of silk [handkerchiefs] of [different] colors—also a mantel and a looking glass—the frame and decorating of mantel piece being all made of pocket + other hdkfs. of different colors—making a very odd + novel display.” By the end of the century, visiting the large department stores became as much a part of a trip to Philadelphia as touching the Liberty Bell in the lobby of the old State House.22

      The department store zone that anchored this retail district was a relatively compact area that developed in the 1880s and 1890s as the central business core extended westward. By the turn of the century, all the major merchants had picked sites along an L-shaped, eight-block-long corridor (figure 5). Convenient to the trains and streetcars and surrounded by specialty stores and restaurants, shoppers and visitors flocked by the tens of thousands every day to this retail district. It was a very rare day in the 1890s when at least one member of Mary Smith’s family did not take the trolley from West Philadelphia to go shopping in Center City.23

      The locations of the street railway lines (and to a lesser extent, the steam railroad depots) are what shaped this retail zone. The city’s main east-west car lines on Market, Chestnut, and Arch streets brought shoppers from the New Jersey ferries, from many of the outlying train depots, and from the middle-class residential areas of West Philadelphia. On Eighth Street, one axis of the department store district, ran the only double-tracked north south street railway in the central business district. This line connected Center City with the bourgeois sections of North Philadelphia and Germantown. Where these two transit corridors crossed, at Eighth between Arch and Chestnut, by 1900 could be found five of the city’s largest department stores: Cimbel Brothers, Lit Brothers, Marks Brothers, Partridge & Richardson, and Strawbridge & Clothier.

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Key:
A John Wanamaker Thirteenth and Market
B Nathan Snellenburg Twelfth and Market
C Joseph Darlington Tenth and Chestnut
D Blum Brothers Tenth and Market
E Gimbel Brothers Ninth and Market
F Partridge & Richardson Eighth and Chestnut
G Strawbridge & Clothier Eighth and Market
H Lit Brothers Eighth and Market
I Marks Brothers Eighth and Arch
1 City Hall Broad and Market
2 Reading Terminal Twelfth and Market
3 Old State House Fifth and Chestnut

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