PROGRAM, ANNUAL MEETING & PICNIC
Monday, September 25
Engineering Philadelphia: The Sellers Family and the Industrial Metropolis
When Philadelphia was the Workshop to the World, the Sellers family numbered among the city’s leading industrial families, developing canals and railroads and manufacturing goods ranging from textiles to steel frames for bridges and skyscrapers. But as Philadelphia de-industrialized in the twentieth century, the Sellers family’s firms also declined.
Author Domenic Vitiello, PhD, is an urban historian at the University of Pennsylvania who will examine the rise and fall of Philadelphia as an industrial metropolis through a focus on the Sellers family and their network of associates. His talk is based on his 2013 book of the same name from Cornell University Press . Dr. Vitiello’s book is available at Amazon.com and other retail sources.
The introduction of railroads in the 1830s initiated a revolution in the development of American industry, land use, and social patterns. The new technology challenged the nascent American professions of architecture and engineering to create entirely new building and structural types to meet railroad needs— passenger waiting stations, bridges, train sheds, repair shops, grand downtown depots, and even bedroom suburbs. For more than 100 years, Philadelphia’s most important designers met this challenge, including William Strickland, Thomas U. Walter, John Notman, Theophilus P. Chandler, the Wilson Brothers, Frank Furness, Horace Trumbauer and Paul P. Cret. This exhibit features drawings, prints, photographs, and manuscripts that document how these Philadelphia architects and engineers transformed not only their own city, but much of the American landscape.
OLIVER EVANS CHAPTER 
You must be logged in to post a comment.