In The Cradle of Industry and Liberty

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Map of the City of Philadelphia showing its
major sections. Within these larger sections
are dozens of individual neighborhoods in
which manufacturing has taken place.
SCHOENBERG CENTER FOR ELECTRONIC TEXT & IMAGE,
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA LIBRARIES.
In some ways, manufacturing in Philadelphia
has come full circle. Today’s manufacturers,
like those in colonial times, are generally
smaller, more flexible, and located close to
their customers. The high-volume, lowmargin
industries of the past—companies
that employed thousands of workers and
made products in great quantities that were
sold worldwide—have largely been replaced
by smaller firms that produce fewer, more
specialized goods that are sold within more
defined markets. The modern version of the
colonial craftsman who was hands-on in
creating his products and knew his customers
personally is likely to be an entrepreneur with
a similar business approach, albeit one that
uses the latest in high-tech equipment and
stays in touch with customers through a
website and social media. It is no surprise
that Philadelphia is a major hub in the
new “Maker Movement,” the growing body
of modern-day do-it-yourselfers who take an
independent, hands-on approach to making
tangible products.
PARAMETERS
The word “manufacturing” is a tricky term
that can have different meanings in different
contexts. For the purposes of this book, it is
defined as the making of raw materials into
finished products, generally on a large scale,
for sale or distribution. “On a large scale” is
itself a relative term, encompassing everything
from a colonial boot maker who turned
out a few pairs of boots a week to a massive
twentieth-century textile mill that produced
thousands of articles of clothing a day.
Generally, this study will consider a “manufacturer”
to be any person or company that
makes raw materials into finished products
in quantity for sale or distribution rather
than personal use.
Geographically, the focus of the book is
the City of Philadelphia proper, as defined by
its modern boundaries. It is an area of 128
square miles with a population that in 2014
was just over 1.5 million. Philadelphia’s population
went from a few hundred inhabitants
at the time of its founding in 1682 to a peak
of over 2 million in 1950, at the height of
its manufacturing prowess. The city then saw
a gradual decline in population to about 1.5
million over the course of the late twentieth
century, a decline that was directly related
to the major loss of manufacturing jobs in
this period. (The trend has now reversed,
with the city enjoying modest increases
in population in the 2010s.) Although
Philadelphia was and is the hub of a larger
metropolitan region that includes several
important manufacturing centers in its outlying
areas, space does not permit telling
their stories here. The focus of the book is
specifically on the history of manufacturing
within the current boundaries of the City
of Philadelphia.
HISTORICAL
CONTEXT
This history unfolded in one of the
most historic cities in America. Although
founded considerably later than other major
colonial cities, by the mid-eighteenth century
Philadelphia was the largest and most
prosperous city in America and second largest
city in the English speaking world after
London. It was primarily a mercantile rather
than a manufacturing center in the eighteenth
century, led by enterprising merchants who
grew wealthy trading farm and forest products
from the rich hinterlands surrounding the
city for goods from Europe and the Caribbean.
By the 1770s Philadelphia was the unofficial
capital of the American colonies—politically,
economically, and culturally—a position it
IN THE CRADLE OF INDUSTRY AND LIBERTY
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