A guide to finding current research on West Philadelphia. This guide is still a work in progress.

A research guide created for Urban Studies 012. Included are links to help students find information about specific place in Philadelphia through History.

This is a guide created to help students in Historic Preservation learn about the resources available for studying Philadelphia places.

86 neighborhood planning surveys prepared and published by the Philadelphia City Planning Commission between 1946 and 1990. These reports contain descriptions of current conditions of housing stock; population trends; property turnover; public transportation; community activity. Recommendations are made for future action.

Changes to the names of certain streets, alleys, and courts were first effected by an ordinance dated September 1, 1858. A provision of this ordinance was an alphabetical index of former names, together with the location of the street and the new name given to it. By an ordinance of February 23, 1897 names of intermediate streets were indexed by old name, location and new name.

History of manufactures in the United States : 1607-1860

by Victor S Clark

Type:	Book
Language:	English
Publisher:	Washington, D.C. : Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1916.
Editions:	12 Editions
OCLC:	20302798

This guide is designed for students in Hist204 as a guide to resources about Philadelphia from 1907-1956.

Includes beautiful maps and atlases of the Hexamer Volumes from the 1850's through Philadelphia Land Use maps 1960's.

The Philadelphia Neighborhoods Planning History Project creates a web presentation of the full content of 86 neighborhood planning surveys prepared and published by the Philadelphia City Planning Commission between 1946 and 1990. These reports contain descriptions of current conditions of housing stock; population trends; property turnover; public transportation; community activity. Recommendations are made for future action. The project will facilitate university and public research on Philadelphia's architectural and social environment by providing access to a body of material whose content is of current and future interest but whose printed format is ephemeral and subject to physical deterioration and loss. The reports are a primary resource for the study of how the problems and aspirations of Philadelphia neighborhoods were described during decades of debate about urban renewal in Philadelphia. School of Design faculty have affirmed the survey's continuing relevance to the curriculum of the school. At the same tiime, the initiative aligns with the University's stated commitment to Philadelphia as an urban environment.

Index to Aerial photos of the Philadelphia area taken between 1924 and 1960 held at the Library Company and (some) at the Free Library of Philadelphia.

This is an effort to bring together some resources -- images, documents, tools, and links -- for pursuing historical information about place in the five-county Philadelphia area: Bucks, Chester, Delaware. Montgomery, and Philadelphia counties. The project has been building incrementally, as opportunities have permitted, since 1997. The overarching idea is to use new media to more effectively disseminate information about place, to enhance cross-institutional access to documentary materials of this sort, to better connect people with the history of their environment, and to thus enrich their lives here.

This index was compiled from the original road records, docket books, jury decisions, and surveys held by the Philadelphia City Archives. From these sources the Philadelphia Department of Streets developed and maintains its comprehensive survey of official road records for the City. Changes to the names of certain streets, alleys, and courts were first effected by an ordinance dated September 1, 1858. A provision of this ordinance was an alphabetical index of former names, together with the location of the street and the new name given to it. By an ordinance of February 23, 1897 names of intermediate streets were indexed by old name, location and new name. Both indexes are held by the Philadelphia City Archives under Record Group 90.47.

The Genealogy and Local History Collection of the State Library of Pennsylvania consists of a wide variety of indexes, genealogies, state and county histories, atlases, land warranty maps, ship lists, and compilations of church and cemetery records, as well as the Pennsylvania Federal Census records on microfilm.  Of interest to genealogists and historians alike are such items as the Published Pennsylvania Archives series, the many regimental histories in the collection, research guides for ethnic and minority groups, and guides to genealogical research in foreign countries.

from publisher...

What is the magic formula for turning a place into a high-tech capital? How can a city or region become a high-tech powerhouse like Silicon Valley? For over half a century, through boom times and bust, business leaders and politicians have tried to become "the next Silicon Valley," but few have succeeded. This book examines why high-tech development became so economically important late in the twentieth century, and why its magic formula of people, jobs, capital, and institutions has been so difficult to replicate. Margaret O'Mara shows that high-tech regions are not simply accidental market creations but "cities of knowledge"--planned communities of scientific production that were shaped and subsidized by the original venture capitalist, the Cold War defense complex.

At the heart of the story is the American research university, an institution enriched by Cold War spending and actively engaged in economic development. The story of the city of knowledge broadens our understanding of postwar urban history and of the relationship between civil society and the state in late twentieth-century America. It leads us to further redefine the American suburb as being much more than formless "sprawl," and shows how it is in fact the ultimate post-industrial city. Understanding this history and geography is essential to planning for the future of the high-tech economy, and this book is must reading for anyone interested in building the next Silicon Valley.

Margaret Pugh O'Mara teaches history at Stanford University. The dissertation this book is based upon won the Urban History Association's award for Best Dissertation in Urban History completed in 2002.

Concentrating heavily on the 19th century, Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930, includes approximately 1,800 books and pamphlets as well as 6,000 photographs, 200 maps, and 13,000 pages from manuscript and archival collections. By incorporating diaries, biographies, and other writings capturing diverse experiences, the collected material provides a window into the lives of ordinary immigrants

The History of Medicine subset of PubMed includes citations to journal articles in the history of the health and biomedical sciences dating back to 1966. New records are added to PubMed daily.

This page shows how to search for historical articles in PubMed.

The Valley of the Shadow is a digital archive of primary sources that document the lives of people in Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania, during the era of the American Civil War. Here you may explore thousands of original documents that allow you to see what life was like during the Civil War for the men and women of Augusta and Franklin.

This section shows the routes of battles of union and confederate soldiers in the area.

The Great Britain Historical Geographical Information System is a unique digital collection of information about Britain's localities as they have changed over time. Information comes from census reports, historical gazetteers, travellers' tales and historic maps, assembled into a whole that is much more than the sum of its parts.

Historical Maps plus GIS from the David Rumsey Collection.

H-net discussion of the damage to New Orleans in historical context. Go forward through the thread to find posts by historians about Katrina.

This guide will help you to use the Penn Library when researching topics on recent sub-saharan African historical and political events. Materials containing relevant information are collected chiefly by Van Pelt Library, (social sciences, including history, political science, and economics, and area studies, including African studies). In addition, the University Museum Library's anthropological holdings and the Biomedical Library's public health collection may also be useful.