Philadelphia

Philadelphia, largest city in Pennsylvania, 4th largest in the U.S., is situated on the Delaware River, 100 miles from the Atlantic. The site was occupied by an Indian settlement and a Swedish community before 1682, when William Penn founded the city as the proprietary capital of his Quaker colony, under its present Greek name (“brotherly love”). The next year, Pastorius brought German and Dutch settlers to establish Germantown in its environs. During this early period, the city was famous not only as a trading post but as a refuge for many diverse sects. In Franklin's time, Philadelphia saw the decline of the power of the Penn family and of Quaker dominance, as it became noted for its shipping industry and such figures as the wealthy merchant Stephen Girard. Democratic feeling arose during the pre‐Revolutionary period, when the city assumed leadership through the writings and actions of such men as Franklin and John Dickinson, and the gathering of the two Continental Congresses at Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was adopted. Howe occupied the city following the rebels' defeats at Brandywine and Germantown, and held it through the incident known as the Battle of the Kegs, finally evacuating in the summer of 1778. After the Revolution the city was the capital of the U.S. (1790–1800), and the scene of the Constitutional Convention.

During the 19th century, Philadelphia became an important industrial center, and its character changed with the influx of Irish and German immigrants. It prospered during the Civil War from various war manufactures, and fortunes were acquired by such financiers as Jay Cooke, although the fighting came no closer to the city than the Battle of Gettysburg. Further expansion occurred during the Gilded Age, marked by labor strife, financial panics, and political corruption, and the ascendancy of such speculators as Yerkes. By the end of the century, the city had settled down as a leading metropolis, whose financial and social figures included C.H.K. Curtis, publisher of The Saturday Evening Post, the Drexel family, and John Wanamaker. The Philadelphia Centennial Exposition (1876), an industrial and educational exhibit celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, was the first great international exposition held in America.

Philadelphia has long been one of the centers of education in the U.S. As early as 1689 George Keith founded the present William Penn Charter School; the University of Pennsylvania was founded by Franklin and others in 1751; and other educational institutions include The Library Company (1731), American Philosophical Society (1744), Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (1805), Franklin Institute (1824), La Salle College (1867), Temple University (1884), Drexel Institute (1891), Dropsie College (1907), and the nearby Haverford College (1833), Swarthmore College (1864), and Bryn Mawr College (1880).

Even before Franklin's time, the city was noted for its publishers, who included William Bradford, Andrew Bradford, and Samuel Keimer, while later publishers have included Claypool, Poulson, Duane, Godey, Graham, Lippincott, Curtis, and Bok. The city's literary history may be said to date from the tracts of Penn and Pastorius, but its fame as a literary center began in the time of Franklin. Authors associated with Philadelphia include James Logan, Jacob Duché, Woolman, Thomas Godfrey, Nathaniel Evans, Paine, Hopkinson, Seabury, John Bartram, Robert Proud, Joseph Galloway, Crèvecoeur, Brackenridge, C.B. Brown, Joseph Dennie, Cobbett, Matthew Carey, Freneau, J.N. Barker, R.M. Bird, J.A. Stone, Sara J.B. Hale, George Lippard, T.D. English, T.S. Arthur, Poe, Whitman, Bayard Taylor, Rebecca Davis, Frank Stockton, S.W. Mitchell, T.B. Read, G.H. Boker, C.G. Leland, J.L. Long, R.H. Davis, Owen Wister, Agnes Repplier, Huneker, T.A. Daly, Langdon Mitchell, A.E. Newton, J.T. McIntyre, Hergesheimer, and Christopher Morley. Daniel Hoffman, a New Yorker, has written a major long poem about the city, Brotherly Love (1980).

(For Philadelphia newspapers other than those prefixed by the name of the city, see American Weekly Mercury; Aurora; Gazette of the United States; National Gazette; Pennsylvania Chronicle; Pennsylvania Journal; Pennsylvania Packet; and Porcupine's Gazette.)