Philadelphia: The World War I Years

By Peter John Williams

In 1914, Philadelphia was the third largest city in the United States with a population of just over one and a half million people. It was fitting, therefore, that during World War I, Philadelphia mobilized itself for the war effort perhaps more than any other large American city. Nicknamed the Workshop of the World, Philadelphia saw its manufacturing and textile companies converted, almost overnight, to full wartime production. Meanwhile, private and city-sponsored organizations sprang up to send relief to the people of war-torn Europe and prepare for the possibility of American involvement. The Great War would forever alter the city s landscape and its people. Architecturally, demographically, and socially, Philadelphia would experience sweeping change, and the people of William Penn s greene country towne would come together as never before to support the war effort at home and their boys abroad.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Dec 2, 2013
• ISBN: 9781439644379

Peter John Williams

PeterJohn Williams, a lifelong resident of Philadelphia, is an attorney and amateur historian with a special interest in World War I. The photographs for this book were selected from various public and private museums, libraries, and collections; many of them have not been seen for almost 90 years.

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gratitude.

INTRODUCTION

During the first two decades of the 20th century, Philadelphia was a very different place than the city of today. Outsiders, especially those in the city’s northern neighbor, New York, saw the town as dull, conservative, unchanging, and sleepy. Even some of its homegrown commentators shared this view. The essayist Christopher Morley described Philadelphia as a large town at the confluence of the Biddle and Drexel families . . . surrounded by cricket teams, fox hunters, beagle packs, and the Pennsylvania railroad. Although humorous, this view was far from reality.

In 1914, Philadelphia was the third largest city in the United States with a population of just over 1.5 million people. After the Civil War and as a result of the Industrial Revolution, Philadelphia had become a major manufacturing center and was nicknamed the Workshop of the World. Industries, both large and small, dotted the city’s landscape and filled its air with smoke, ash, and dirt. By 1918, the greene country towne envisioned by William Penn had almost disappeared.

Between 1901 and 1915, Philadelphia’s population had grown by one-third. This increase was primarily due to immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Additionally, the African American population would grow from about 60,000 residents, or five percent, to 134,000 by 1920, as black workers from the South moved into the city for work as a result of the military mobilization of the shipbuilding and manufacturing industry. However, segregation was still the accepted social norm. The movement of blacks into formerly all-white neighborhoods even resulted in a race riot in the summer of 1918. But, eventually, all these new Philadelphians would change the look, culture, and feel of old established neighborhoods as well as creating new ones.

The middle and working classes were also making themselves heard in politics through fraternal and social organizations. Appalled by the corruption and graft of the political leadership, Philadelphians rose up, demanding changes in the way the city was run. Anticorruption candidates would run for mayor and city council. Although initially meeting with only moderate success, these movements would eventually be successful in changing the very structure of the city government.

Architecturally, construction of new public buildings, two-story row homes, and schools was taking place throughout the city to meet the needs of the growing population. Old revered buildings and even entire neighborhoods would disappear to make way for a new subway system and elevated railway line. In the center of the city, construction for a new grand boulevard, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, modeled on the Champs Elysees in Paris, was begun. The parkway, when finally completed in 1926, gave Philadelphians a magnificent thoroughfare connecting the center of the city with Fairmount Park.

But soon, the focus of the city would change from the domestic and local issues concerning the residents to a terrible conflict in the Old World. On June 28, 1914, in the city of Sarajevo, Bosnia, the heir to the Imperial Throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, were assassinated by a Serbian nationalist. Philadelphians read about the murders and the ensuing war in one or more of its newspapers. Like most Americans, they saw it as a European matter, a concern of countries and peoples far away which did not touch their lives. But it would.

When the United States of America declared war on Germany and its allies on April 6, 1917, Philadelphia mobilized like few other American cities. Almost overnight, Philadelphia’s manufacturing and textile companies converted to full wartime production. Private and city-sponsored organizations previously created to send relief to the people of war-torn Europe now marshaled their money, time, and efforts to support America’s war and our boys.

The shipyards on the Delaware River waterfront would produce hundreds of ships for the military, including battleships, destroyers, submarine chasers, and troop transports. Hog Island Shipyard was built in a little more than six months and became a city within a city. At its completion, it was the largest shipbuilding facility in the world. Hog Island, along with the already established private ship building companies on the Delaware River and the US Navy Yard at League Island, made Philadelphia one of the greatest centers of ship construction in the world.

The Great War years would forever change the city’s landscape and its people. Philadelphia would experience sweeping change, and the people of William Penn’s greene country towne would come together as never before to support the war effort at home and their boys over there.

With this book, I have attempted to provide the reader with a glimpse of a Philadelphia now mostly gone. It is but a brief snapshot of the people and their city in a time of rapid transformation and how together, the city, businesses, and the people coped with the most devastating war in human history. In a very real sense, they did it the Philadelphia way, with the values that Philadelphians from all the social, economic, and ethnic groups agreed on—hard work, perseverance, stubbornness, and a dogged determination—to get the job done and win the war.

One

LIFE IN THE CITY

Even though Philadelphia stretched for over 135 square miles, most of its population lived in the Center City area and in the surrounding neighborhoods along the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers. It was an industrial city of factories, textile mills, and shipyards. Most people lived in single-family row homes and did their working and shopping within walking distance of their front door. (Courtesy Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, World War I Posters, LC-DIG-ppmsc-03521.)

Above is a panoramic view of Philadelphia looking north on Broad Street, the city’s main thoroughfare, towards city hall in 1913. The Bellevue Stratford Hotel can be seen on the left towering above all other structures except city hall. Businesses in the city observed a gentleman’s agreement that no building would