Clik here to view.
Garment Work and Workers
Garment work was once one of Philadelphia’s largest industries. Clothing and textiles (a category including hosiery, a Philadelphia specialty) employed more than 40 percent of the city’s paid workforce...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Gray Panthers
In 1970, Philadelphian Maggie Kuhn (1905-95), a white middle-class woman and frustrated victim of mandatory retirement at age 65, formed an anti-ageist organization called the Gray Panthers. From...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Godey’s Lady’s Book
Sarah Josepha Hale was longtime editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book. (Library Company of Philadelphia) The first successful women’s magazine and most widely circulated magazine in the antebellum United...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fashion
Fashion played an important role in Philadelphia’s development as a center for retail and manufacturing. Philadelphians imported and promoted the latest European styles while producing garments and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Convents
Convents—communities of women devoted to religious life—in the Greater Philadelphia area played a significant role in the education of youth and in social services for communities from the nineteenth...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Children’s Aid Society of Pennsylvania
The Children’s Aid Society of Pennsylvania was founded in 1882 by a group of predominantly women volunteers to address social issues plaguing the city of Philadelphia, such as drunkenness, child...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Burlesque
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Philadelphia became one of the central nodes of American burlesque, a genre with origins in the ribald Victorian “travesties”—theatrical parodies...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Boarding and Lodging Houses
Distinguished by its ubiquitous row houses and high rates of home ownership, Philadelphia has been long been known as a “city of homes.” But for much of its history, it also has been a city of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Art of Cecilia Beaux
The elegant portraits of Cecilia Beaux (1855-1942) found unanimous critical acclaim in Philadelphia, Paris, and New York. Her modern style of painting combined the best of academic training, European...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hat Making and Millinery
Hat making, among the earliest occupations in Philadelphia, grew to be one of the city’s major industries. It was especially robust in the late nineteenth through mid-twentieth century, when...
View Article
