Tuesday, October 4, 6 PM to 7:30 PM

presented by Steven J. Peitzman
Sponsored by the Preservation Alliance

Watch ONLINE via ZOOM from the safety and comfort of your home. A link with instructions will be provided two hours prior to this virtual lecture. 

The now submerged falls on the Schuylkill River, about five miles from central Philadelphia, once provided splendid scenery and excellent fishing (well-known to the Lenape, our predecessors). Several mills built as early as the late 1600s on the lower Wissahickon Creek and on Falls Run added industry to recreation and tourism. With the 19th century came a railroad, steam, and the immense Dobson Mills, which made blankets for the Union Army, and carpets for everyone else. The “Falls Village” became a busy, smoky mill town—”Falls of Schuylkill”–dense with workers’ rowhouses, churches, and breweries. But how did the renamed East Falls survive the closing of the mills, which at its peak employed 6000 women, men, and children, and find a new way to flourish?

Steven J. Peitzman, though partly retired, teaches at Drexel University College of Medicine and attends at a student-run free clinic. He is widely known as an historian of medicine, and is proud of his 2000 book on the history of Philadelphia’s Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania/Medical College of Pennsylvania. Dr. Peitzman has resided just east or west of Wissahickon Avenue most of his adult life, so claims to be both Germantowner and Fallser. In recent years, as an active preservationist he has submitted several successful nominations to place significant buildings on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places. He is active in the East Falls Historical Society and serves on the Advocacy Committee of the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia.

$15 | General Admission

$10 | Alliance Member 

Students with ID, residents of the neighborhoods being presented, or individuals with financial difficulties free with email to vcheng@preservationalliance.com

Click the link below to register and pay for the event.

You do not need to register for the organization or check the register for site box to complete the event request and pay for a ticket.

https://25017.blackbaudhosting.com/25017/Up-the-Hills-of-East-Falls-From-Mill-Town-Twice-to-Suburb-in-City

A presentation by Alex Balloon

Sponsored by the Preservation Alliance

Tuesday, September 27 at 6:00 pm

Watch ONLINE via ZOOM from the safety and comfort of your home. A link with instructions will be provided two hours prior to this virtual lecture. 

This talk will trace the development of the Tacony neighborhood of Northeast Philadelphia. Founded as a “company town within the City” by Henry Disston, Tacony became home to the world’s largest saw works. This planned community included housing, religious institutions, social organizations, and commercial developments. Tacony is home to a National Register Historic District and a number of locally-designated landmarks. The Tacony Community Development Corporation in partnership with the Tacony Historical Society and the Tacony Civic Association has worked to preserve and enhance the neighborhood through targeted revitalization efforts.

Alex Balloon is the former Executive Director of the Tacony Community Development Corporation. He has authored a number of historic nominations for Tacony Landmarks and worked to advance the most recent designation of the Disston-Taocny Waterfront Historic District. He has a background in Historic Preservation & Urban Redevelopment and a Masters Degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Design.

$15 | General Admission

$10 | Alliance Member 

Students with ID, residents of the neighborhoods being presented, or individuals with financial difficulties free with email to vcheng@preservationalliance.com

Go to this link to register for the presentation:

https://25017.blackbaudhosting.com/25017/Henry-Disston–The-Development-of-Tacony

ENGINEERING AMERICA: 
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN A. ROEBLING

With Professor Richard Haw

Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 6 P.M. 

Presented both in-person and online
Tickets are $10.
The lecture will be followed by a Book Signing.
Presented in partnership with The New York Landmarks Conservancy.

In this lecture, Professor Richard Haw, will discuss his book, Engineering America: The Life and Times of John A. Roebling. John Roebling was one of the nineteenth century’s most brilliant engineers, ingenious inventors, successful manufacturers, and fascinating personalities.

The book is the most comprehensive biography of John Roebling and the first in over 75 years. It is based on immense amount of original archival material that sheds light on many unknown aspects of Roebling’s life and narrates Roebling’s life, not just as an engineer, but also the places and times in which he lived.

Raised in a German backwater amid the war-torn chaos of the Napoleonic Wars, Roebling immigrated to the US in 1831, where he became wealthy and acclaimed, eventually receiving a carte-blanche contract to build one of the nineteenth century’s most stupendous and daring works of engineering: a gigantic suspension bridge to span the East River between New York and Brooklyn.

In between, he thought, wrote, and worked tirelessly. He dug canals and surveyed railroads; he planned communities and founded new industries. 

Like his finest creations, Roebling was held together by the delicate balance of countervailing forces. On the surface, his life was exemplary and his accomplishments legion. As an immigrant and employer, he was respected throughout the world. As an engineer, his works profoundly altered the physical landscape of America.

He was a voracious reader, a fervent abolitionist, and an engaged social commentator. His understanding of the natural world, however, bordered on the occult and his opinions about medicine are best described as medieval.

For a man of science and great self-certainty, he was also remarkably quick to seize on a whole host of fads and foolish trends. Yet Roebling held these strands together.

John Roebling was a complex, deeply divided yet undoubtedly influential figure, and this talk will provide an overview of not only his works, but also the world of nineteenth-century America. Roebling’s engineering feats are well known, but the man himself is not; for alongside the drama of large scale construction lies an equally rich drama of intellectual and social development and crisis, one that mirrored and reflected the great forces, trials, and failures of nineteenth century America.

Richard Haw is a Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY. He is the author of The Brooklyn Bridge: A Cultural History and Art of the Brooklyn Bridge: A Visual History.

To register In-Person, please click here

To register Online, please click here

Tickets are $10.

The book can purchased in person at the lecture or online through the following link