The musings of a physician who served the community for over six decades
367 Topics
Downtown A discussion about downtown area in Philadelphia and connections from today with its historical past.
West of Broad A collection of articles about the area west of Broad Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Delaware (State of) Originally the "lower counties" of Pennsylvania, and thus one of three Quaker colonies founded by William Penn, Delaware has developed its own set of traditions and history.
Religious Philadelphia William Penn wanted a colony with religious freedom. A considerable number, if not the majority, of American religious denominations were founded in this city. The main misconception about religious Philadelphia is that it is Quaker-dominated. But the broader misconception is that it is not Quaker-dominated.
Particular Sights to See:Center City Taxi drivers tell tourists that Center City is a "shining city on a hill". During the Industrial Era, the city almost urbanized out to the county line, and then retreated. Right now, the urban center is surrounded by a semi-deserted ring of former factories.
Philadelphia's Middle Urban Ring Philadelphia grew rapidly for seventy years after the Civil War, then gradually lost population. Skyscrapers drain population upwards, suburbs beckon outwards. The result: a ring around center city, mixed prosperous and dilapidated. Future in doubt.
Historical Motor Excursion North of Philadelphia The narrow waist of New Jersey was the upper border of William Penn's vast land holdings, and the outer edge of Quaker influence. In 1776-77, Lord Howe made this strip the main highway of his attempt to subjugate the Colonies.
Land Tour Around Delaware Bay Start in Philadelphia, take two days to tour around Delaware Bay. Down the New Jersey side to Cape May, ferry over to Lewes, tour up to Dover and New Castle, visit Winterthur, Longwood Gardens, Brandywine Battlefield and art museum, then back to Philadelphia. Try it!
Tourist Trips Around Philadelphia and the Quaker Colonies The states of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and southern New Jersey all belonged to William Penn the Quaker. He was the largest private landholder in American history. Using explicit directions, comprehensive touring of the Quaker Colonies takes seven full days. Local residents would need a couple dozen one-day trips to get up to speed.
Touring Philadelphia's Western Regions Philadelpia County had two hundred farms in 1950, but is now thickly settled in all directions. Western regions along the Schuylkill are still spread out somewhat; with many historic estates.
Up the King's High Way New Jersey has a narrow waistline, with New York harbor at one end, and Delaware Bay on the other. Traffic and history travelled the Kings Highway along this path between New York and Philadelphia.
Arch Street: from Sixth to Second When the large meeting house at Fourth and Arch was built, many Quakers moved their houses to the area. At that time, "North of Market" implied the Quaker region of town.
Up Market Street to Sixth and Walnut Millions of eye patients have been asked to read the passage from Franklin's autobiography, "I walked up Market Street, etc." which is commonly printed on eye-test cards. Here's your chance to do it.
Sixth and Walnut over to Broad and Sansom In 1751, the Pennsylvania Hospital at 8th and Spruce was 'way out in the country. Now it is in the center of a city, but the area still remains dominated by medical institutions.
Montgomery and Bucks Counties The Philadelphia metropolitan region has five Pennsylvania counties, four New Jersey counties, one northern county in the state of Delaware. Here are the four Pennsylvania suburban ones.
Northern Overland Escape Path of the Philadelphia Tories 1 of 1 (16) Grievances provoking the American Revolutionary War left many Philadelphians unprovoked. Loyalists often fled to Canada, especially Kingston, Ontario. Decades later the flow of dissidents reversed, Canadian anti-royalists taking refuge south of the border.
City Hall to Chestnut Hill There are lots of ways to go from City Hall to Chestnut Hill, including the train from Suburban Station, or from 11th and Market. This tour imagines your driving your car out the Ben Franklin Parkway to Kelly Drive, and then up the Wissahickon.
Philadelphia Reflections is a history of the area around Philadelphia, PA
... William Penn's Quaker Colonies
plus medicine, economics and politics ... nearly 4,000 articles in all
Philadelphia Reflections now has a companion tour book! Buy it on Amazon
Philadelphia Revelations
Try the search box to the left if you don't see what you're looking for on this page.
George R. Fisher, III, M.D.
Obituary
George R. Fisher, III, M.D.
Age: 97 of Philadelphia, formerly of Haddonfield
Dr. George Ross Fisher of Philadelphia died on March 9, 2023, surrounded by his loving family.
Born in 1925 in Erie, Pennsylvania, to two teachers, George and Margaret Fisher, he grew up in Pittsburgh, later attending The Lawrenceville School and Yale University (graduating early because of the war). He was very proud of the fact that he was the only person who ever graduated from Yale with a Bachelor of Science in English Literature. He attended Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons where he met the love of his life, fellow medical student, and future renowned Philadelphia radiologist Mary Stuart Blakely. While dating, they entertained themselves by dressing up in evening attire and crashing fancy Manhattan weddings. They married in 1950 and were each other’s true loves, mutual admirers, and life partners until Mary Stuart passed away in 2006. A Columbia faculty member wrote of him, “This young man’s personality is way off the beaten track, and cannot be evaluated by the customary methods.”
After training at the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia where he was Chief Resident in Medicine, and spending a year at the NIH, he opened a practice in Endocrinology on Spruce Street where he practiced for sixty years. He also consulted regularly for the employees of Strawbridge and Clothier as well as the Hospital for the Mentally Retarded at Stockley, Delaware. He was beloved by his patients, his guiding philosophy being the adage, “Listen to your patient – he’s telling you his diagnosis.” His patients also told him their stories which gave him an education in all things Philadelphia, the city he passionately loved and which he went on to chronicle in this online blog. Many of these blogs were adapted into a history-oriented tour book, Philadelphia Revelations: Twenty Tours of the Delaware Valley.
He was a true Renaissance Man, interested in everything and everyone, remembering everything he read or heard in complete detail, and endowed with a penetrating intellect which cut to the heart of whatever was being discussed, whether it be medicine, history, literature, economics, investments, politics, science or even lawn care for his home in Haddonfield, NJ where he and his wife raised their four children. He was an “early adopter.” Memories of his children from the 1960s include being taken to visit his colleagues working on the UNIVAC computer at Penn; the air-mail version of the London Economist on the dining room table; and his work on developing a proprietary medical office software using Fortran. His dedication to patients and to his profession extended to his many years representing Pennsylvania to the American Medical Association.
After retiring from his practice in 2003, he started his pioneering “just-in-time” Ross & Perry publishing company, which printed more than 300 new and reprint titles, ranging from Flight Manual for the SR-71 Blackbird Spy Plane (his best seller!) to Terse Verse, a collection of a hundred mostly humorous haikus. He authored four books. In 2013 at age 88, he ran as a Republican for New Jersey Assemblyman for the 6th district (he lost).
A gregarious extrovert, he loved meeting his fellow Philadelphians well into his nineties at the Shakespeare Society, the Global Interdependence Center, the College of Physicians, the Right Angle Club, the Union League, the Haddonfield 65 Club, and the Franklin Inn. He faithfully attended Quaker Meeting in Haddonfield NJ for over 60 years. Later in life he was fortunate to be joined in his life, travels, and adventures by his dear friend Dr. Janice Gordon.
He passed away peacefully, held in the Light and surrounded by his family as they sang to him and read aloud the love letters that he and his wife penned throughout their courtship. In addition to his children – George, Miriam, Margaret, and Stuart – he leaves his three children-in-law, eight grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, and his younger brother, John.
A memorial service, followed by a reception, will be held at the Friends Meeting in Haddonfield New Jersey on April 1 at one in the afternoon. Memorial contributions may be sent to Haddonfield Friends Meeting, 47 Friends Avenue, Haddonfield, NJ 08033.
Settlements for three centuries have clustered along both sides of the Delaware Bay, like beads on two parallel strings.
Dr. Fisher
The Capital of southern New Jersey alternated between Salem and Burlington, and the King's Highway ran between them atop a clay ridge all of fifty feet above sea level. Colonial villages are strung along Kings Highway about ten miles apart, just like villages in the Midwest and for the same reason. That's about the distance a farmer's wagon could travel to market and return in one day. Travel by boat modified that somewhat. One unexpected feature: the marl clay ridge was eventually found to contain the first known dinosaur bones, still proudly on display at the Academy of Natural Sciences. We'll defer until Day Two describing the interesting origins of the coastal route on the Delaware side of the bay below the big river bend at Salem. In New Jersey the counterpart is the Del-Sea Drive, now rapidly fragmenting in response to school crossings and traffic. Although almost everything of interest is along these three roads, for this tour we propose taking President Eisenhower's interstate highway system, with side-trips as needed.
The retreating British Army ferried out of Philadelphia in 1778, went from Camden to Haddonfield and turned north on King's Highway. For this tour, we turn south from Haddonfield, pausing for a glance back at Camden. Poor Camden scarcely exists anymore, but the battleship New Jersey is parked there, the waterfront view is awesome, and Walt Whitman's home is open to tourists. Once the home of shipbuilding, Campbell's Soup, RCA/Victor, and the terminus of railroads at the ferries to Philadelphia, the town was first threatened by isolation by the Pennsylvania Railroad going down the other side of the river in 1839, but ultimately made economically redundant by the construction of the Ben Franklin Bridge in 1926. An interesting sociological study called Camden After the Fall relates how one futile effort after another to restore Camden after 1950 led only to riots and chaos; it's difficult to suggest anything which has not already been tried and abandoned. The present unstated but relentless approach is to tear the obsolete buildings down as they deteriorate, leaving vacant land which will eventually coalesce and become attractive to developers. Toll houses could be found along the turnpike to Haddonfield until 1960, but the automobile made Camden obsolete. What's left begins with the suburbs five miles away.
New Jersey Line
Haddonfield was a plain little Quaker town with undiscovered dinosaurs buried underneath it until the Revolution when the fugitive New Jersey legislature met in the Indian King Tavern and created the State of New Jersey. Because the Pennsylvania/New Jersey fortifications of the Delaware River at Fort Mifflin/Red Bank blocked the British fleet, Hessians were sent to attack New Jersey's Fort Mercer from the rear, staying overnight in Haddonfield. One young Quaker, a famous runner, ran ten miles to alert the defenders of Fort Mercer, who then defeated the Hessian attackers the next day by pretending not to notice the Hessians until they suddenly turned around and ambushed them. Later on, after the British occupied Philadelphia, General "Mad Anthony" Wayne rounded up cattle in Salem County and drove them to Trenton, then over to Valley Forge to relieve Washington's starving troops. The British responded to this with a famous massacre in Salem County by cavalry under Col. John Simcoe. So off we go to National Park, originally called Red Bank because of the reddish color of the clay riverbank at that point on the river, to see Fort Mercer. From here we travel to Salem, seeing its sadly dilapidated Colonial buildings, and the oak tree which was already famous among the Indians for its huge size in 1683. Along King's Highway, we pass through Mickleton, Mullica Hill, and Woodstown, three cute little Quaker villages waiting to be overwhelmed as suburbs.
From here we go to Greenwich, named for Connecticut settlers, where Paul Revere stirred up a tea-burning party in sympathy with the Boston event, on his way to promote even greater agitation in Philadelphia. Greenwich is sometimes referred to as a second Williamsburg, but what's here is original, not reconstructed. In passing, this tour takes us past Hancock's Bridge where Simcoe massacred those farmers who sold cattle to Anthony Wayne. That's biased local history speaking; in fact, Tory-Rebel reprisals were very bitter on both sides. Until ten years ago, this blood-stained site stood alone in the lonely moors, but unfortunately, it's pretty much built up and harder to find in the new suburbs than it was in the reeds.
From Greenwich we go on to Cape May, with a brief detour to Bivalve. The point about this stop is the perfectly gigantic pile of oyster shells left over from the days as a center of oyster harvesting. Notice the roads; they're paved with oyster shells. Oysters eat algae, sewage fertilizes algae. Overfishing the oysters caused rotting algae and bacterial overgrowth in the river. The result was depletion of the dissolved oxygen, dead areas for fish, murky water instead of a clear stream. It's an opportunity for oyster farming, but the vast piles of shells at Bivalve are a warning of how far we have to go before we restore the river.
Cape May was the first Atlantic Ocean beach resort, reached from Philadelphia and Tidewater Virginia by boat long before roads were usable. We are told Cape May was originally a separate barrier island, joined to the rest of South Jersey only later. It was once a whaling port, and the Quakers of the region were more related to Nantucket than to Philadelphia. Whale-watching is popular here, but dolphin sightings are more reliably frequent. As you would expect, this cute little place has many fine restaurants and hotels. The hotels are so authentic that strangers share common bathrooms the way they always used to do, so bed and breakfast places can be preferable for snootier tourists. Those whose great-grandparents once stayed in places like the Chalfonte, however, find it important to rough it in traditional summer places. The ocean currents "tumble" the small stones in the beach so beach-walkers can amuse themselves looking for "Cape May Diamonds". Unfortunately, even the locals often have never heard of them, so you are probably on your own. From here, we take the forty-minute ferry ride to Lewes, Delaware.
Cape Henlopen, on the Delaware side of the entrance to the bay, is south but appreciably to the east of Cape May. That means that a line directly west from Cape May points well inside the mouth of the bay, to Slaughter Beach, or Mispillion Point on the Delaware side. The ocean salt water turns to fresh river water at about this level, making for remarkably good fishing at certain times of the year. Furthermore, horseshoe crabs come ashore here on both sides of the bay to lay eggs. Birds who took off from South America months earlier swoop out of the skies to eat the crab eggs on the appointed day. Hawks pause in the woods to fly together in flocks over the bay, based on their own signals. Mispillion Lighthouse is the greatest place on the Atlantic flyway for bird-watching, crab-watching, fishing and nature loving. But you have to know when to go there and remember the best local hotels do get filled up at those times.
Tax-hungry Pennsylvania government has voted to allow two gambling casinos to be built on the Delaware River, near the historic district. A lot of angry people declare that must never happen, and it surely will not happen much before 2012. For the time being, and we hope longer than that, the oldest and most historic part of Philadelphia will exist as a quiet little nook fifteen blocks from the business center, with quite a choice of very pleasant, moderately priced hotels and bed-and-breakfasts. In the midst of this, at 2nd and Walnut, is a very large parking facility, with even more parking space available within a couple of blocks. For reference, let's call the site of William Penn's own home the epicenter of all this. It's now called the Welcome Park at South 2nd Street. The ship which brought Governor Penn to his land holdings was called the Welcome. Anyone who can prove descent from those who were on the ship is eligible to be a member of the Welcome Society.
Welcome Park
Welcome Park is across 2nd Street from a restoration of City Tavern, which only serves meals (in authentic period dress) but at one time was the place where the delegates to the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention stayed overnight. And of course, did lots of negotiation at night over a cold beer. It's also next to the famous Old Original Bookbinder's restaurant which unfortunately is out of business we hope temporarily because of ill-timed overexpansion by the former owner. It's a very large restaurant which used to be able to obtain four-pound lobsters and bake them for tourists. If legalized gambling does make an appearance, the winners are likely to frequent this spot, unless the new owner continues the former tradition of hiring the only truly surly waiters in our otherwise friendly town.
Dr. Thomas Bond House
A hundred feet away is a quiet upscale Sheraton, much favored by Society Hill residents. Over a footbridge is a Hyatt, next to the marina on the river, and favored as a hangout by the younger sports in the area. There are at least three charming bed-and-breakfasts along the block, of which the favorite is a 12-room hotel directly facing on Welcome Park. It is the former home of Dr. Thomas Bond, who founded the Pennsylvania Hospital with Ben Franklin's help. Not only did Dr. Bond found the Nation's first hospital, but he also started the tradition among American physicians of not charging for their services to the poor. Without that sort of leadership, the hospitals could never have survived their early years.
Seaport Museum
So, here is where to begin your tour if you are from out of town. A big garage to store your car, right next to several choices of quiet but moderately priced hotels, and a couple of dozen restaurants. This is a great place to branch out to the historic district, or Society Hill, or the seaport museums and marinas. And maybe some gambling casinos, although it is hard to imagine much tolerance between that group and the history lovers.
By the way, Philadelphia hotels are like hotels everywhere else in one respect. If you forget to make a reservation in advance, just breezing in looking for a room for tonight, you must expect to find the price is nearly doubled.
Adam Levine, the author of a new book about the Philadelphia public garden scene was recently the featured guest speaker at the Franklin Inn. He's a charming person, and has given us a great book.
He draws to our attention that the Philadelphia region is pre-eminent in the garden world, and has been so for several centuries. While it is true that Philadelphia has a mild enough climate to be suitable to two climate zones, the early settlers came from a region of middle England that has been a garden center since Roman times. And they were Quakers, uncomfortable with the outward show in buildings and furnishings, but flowers were innocent instruments of the display. Although Chanticleer was created by a Pennsylvania German family, the great centers of public gardens are mostly traceable to the influence of Quakers, and the du Pont family. Since one or two years of neglect will ruin almost any garden, the essence of great gardens lies in the ability to survive.
The Horticultural Society
In fact, the Philadelphia area contains hundreds of gardens which have decayed and virtually disappeared. The Horticultural Society is at the heart of garden preservation, financed in large part by the annual flower show, but even that thriving organization is hard pressed to do justice to the vast areas that need tending. Woodlands would be an example of an area needing tending, and Friends Hospital is an object lesson. When that venerable institution was sold to sharp pencil types from out of town, the Azalea gardens on the grounds were closed to visitors, except for two hours a year. It makes you tremble to imagine how long this famous azalea collection will probably survive. Meanwhile, Germantown's famous gardens are maintained in a minimal way, stretching the resources of the owners who have more urgent demands to meet in their buildings and furniture. Indeed, it is hard to name a really outstanding garden within the city limits, with the exception of the Morris Arboretum, which barely makes it within city boundaries. The area back of the Art Museum along Boathouse Row makes a brave attempt in the spring, but it's a pale reminder of the glory which used to be seen in East Fairmount Park, especially at Lemon Hill, Stenton, and Cliveden. Stotesbury is just a relic.
Morris Arboretum
Gardens have moved to the suburbs. Chanticleer, the Morris Arboretum, Longwood Gardens, Nemours, the Scott Arboretum at Swarthmore, West Laurel Hill, The University of Delaware in Newark, Cabrini College in Villanova, Haverford College Arboretum, Temple University's Ambler campus, and the Trenton Sculpture Gardens on the old fairgrounds -- all would demand mention in any list of outstanding gardens in America. But only a few of them aspire to the standards of an outdoor sculpture garden, where the goal was to surround each piece of sculpture with a garden in such a way that only one sculpture could be seen at a time. Now, that was gardening on the grand scale.
Hidden in a regional garden scene is the seed merchants, starting with John Bartram and famous under the Burpees, which make gardens possible. After all, there has to be a place to find these things. Perhaps the catalog stores, like Wayside Gardens, are the hope for the future. Every shrub or tree transported from a nursery takes up a ball of topsoil along with the specimen, and the appearance of nurseries around the periphery of a city is usually the first step in the development of housing projects. If there is an investment of topsoil in every garden, perhaps we ought to think a little bit about the way we let the investment dry up and blow away.
REFERENCES
Gardens of Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley William Klein Jr. ISBN-10: 1566393132
We are going without a metal gold standard, substituting 2% inflation targeting because we don't really know what else to do.
And we seem to be getting away with it, although most people don't trust it. And indeed we have the shock of discovering that the Phillips curve (inflation and joblessness balance each other) doesn't work because we just can't get inflation to rise. By the way, this includes Milton Friedman, who blamed it on the Federal Reserve, but that can't be right, either. Don't listen to experts -- no one knows why this is true. I have a solution which hasn't been tried: we could use index funds as a new gold standard. They would be a real currency backing, which would flexibly respond to inflation and deflation. Come back in a century, if you want to find out how that works.
We have too much paper money. That's another way of saying the banks have thirty times as much paper money as they have hard currency (safe) reserves to back it up. We started out with banks making it two to one, two centuries ago, and gradually raised the ratio. No one knows what the right ratio should be, so we push the envelope and watch. One day, it will be too much, but it will then be too late to do anything about it. Thirty to one seems to account for most of our prosperity, but we have several billion of the world's population still living in poverty, but with atom bombs to blackmail the rest of us. So we apparently are going to inflate the bubble until it breaks. Then we will know what the right ratio should have been. Along comes Stephan Moore of the Heritage Foundation, with either the greatest trial balloon in history or else the best idea. Who cares why interest rates are so stubbornly low, just take advantage while that is the case. He suggests we take advantage of stubbornly low rates to have the federal government issue long-term bonds until interest rates rise, possibly paying off our national debts with the profits. And also bankrupting almost everyone whose survival depended on continuing low rates, and will surely oppose the move. At least, the argument may surface the reason the Phillips Curve stopped working.
Along a different line, James Madison was scared to death poor people will outnumber rich people, so in a democracy, poor people will win. They will vote themselves free college, free medical care, free wealth they didn't earn. We will then be tempted to substitute dictators for leaders, sacrificing democracy permanently to have the joys of a dictatorship temporarily. We may try everything else first, but what we need is something which will work, not demagogues, and probably not college professors, either. God help us if we start electing newspaper columnists. Even Ben Franklin learned that much.
Just remember how long we have been tinkering with bankruptcy solutions. Instead of cutting your heart out if you don't repay your creditors, we improved things somewhat by putting defaulted debtors in prison. Morris the billionaire showed George Washington how to strip all personal wealth from the defaulted debtor in exchange for extinguishing their debts; it's called bankruptcy. The banks figure out how many defaults they will have in bulk, and add that charge to the interest rate they legitimately charge substandard risk debtors and illegitimately charge a lesser amount to non-risky debtors. Unfortunately, lots of people have figured out how to cheat on their bookkeeping, and with cell phones, soon tell their friends. Just have the government bail out bad debts, and then tax the rest of the population to pay for it. It's that last step which makes it socialism. In Philadelphia, someone a century ago thought it was a good idea to have a city/county consolidation, with sheriffs sales to pay the bills. Today, hundreds of millions of dollars are skimmed off this arrangement by corrupt politicians, and the current --allegedly non-corrupt-- Mayor is running for re-election on the promise he will absorb this revenue for worthy causes, like education. In most cities in this country, this corruption goes on, because it pays off. We have had this corruption for a century, and keep electing the same people to continue it. Yes, I know we have a drugs problem, but we voted for this scam and the taxicab medallion scam. We need a few more people to get mad, but they soon turn into elected crooks, if the rest of us let experts seem to run things. Our Constitution assumes half of the public are inherently honest and the other half are inherently bad apples, seeing its job is to maintain a balance between the two.
In short, the Supreme Court could easily fix this, by fixing enforcement and penalties. Let's see if they try. Congress could also fix this, but it would be opposed by others in Congress. The overall potential might be to lower consumer and retail interest rates, because bonds average 5% return over the long run, while equities average 10% for the same risk. If stocks and bonds returned an equal amount, as they should, there should be a doubling of effect. Bonds are mostly purchased by insurance companies, forced by state insurance commissioners to limit equity purchases to 10%. Presumably, insurance commissioners are holding down the cost to the state of municipal bonds, so the cost of this subsidy is not visible. But the net effect is to have the municipal taxpayer subsidize the defaulting debtor. The tax exemption of municipal bonds is yet another feature of this subsidy, in this case drawing the federal government into the process.
Simplifying somewhat, raising the permissible insurance commissioner's permissible level of insurance company's purchase rate from 10% to 11% would double the permissible stock purchases by insurance companies. Not enough to pay off the national debt to foreigners, perhaps, but demonstrating the opportunity just waiting for a presidential candidate to exploit in his campaign.
V Sixth and
Arch to Second and Arch
Betsy Ross House 239 Arch Street
A lot of Philadelphians don't like Betsy Ross and won't say why. Maybe it shows I am not a true Philadelphian. because I don't know the secret. But I have personal reasons for doubting the premise. More likely it has to do with Arlen Specter, who gave himself credit for getting the funds for the Philadelphia colonial revival, and that seems largely true. So maybe it traces to having several husbands of different religions. but you could say the same of lots of other colonial dames, notably Katy Greene. Possibly they don't like Betsey for being the last surviving Free Quaker, and giving herself the remainder, but she needed it and somebody had to get it. Maybe it was because she was a Quaker and Quakers have a tradition of taking your medicine in silence, regardless of short-term consequences.
In any event, Betsy was a heroine, a Quaker, and an Episcopalian, but she didn't quite pull it off. This is her part of town, her survival. and she did her best in trying times,
Same thing with Specter. He wanted people to think the Philadelphia Revolutionary revival was his accomplishment, and that was only partly true. But it was partly his accomplishment, and let's let it go at that. During a speech Senator Arlen Specter "let it slip" that he had a lot to do with obtaining federal financing to establish the new Constitution Center on the north end of Independence Mall. Probably more important, he intimated that his wife, Joan Specter, did a lot of domestic agitating to see that it happened. The earmarks were his, the fingerprints were hers.
Some have worried about a Center telling the Supreme Court telling the world what the Constitution means because the Justices see that as their unique function. The point that is sensitive is the emphasis on the words. "We the People" which could be seen as urging easy modification of the document by shouting demands or repetition of certitudes without passing due process.
The second floor of this enormous new building is devoted to some very skillful exhibits relating to certain features of Constitutional history. The many auditoriums are the site of public lectures and programs, and there is a very interesting set of life-sized bronze figures of every member of the original Constitutional Convention. A striking feature of this display is how short and inconsequential Hamilton and Madison seemed to be in person, while Ben Franklin and Gouverneur Morris appear imposing. These things matter in politics.
=====================
Just across Fifth Street, (in the Christ Church Episcopal graveyard) is the gravesite of Franklin and his wife. This is the site every wintry (Apri 21) morning when the organizations Franklin founded re-enact his funeral march. ending with a speech, a luncheon, and a celebration. It's as close as you might come to remembering Franklin's funeral at age 84, and being gently reminded simultaneously that Franklin was a deist, not a Quaker, not an Anglican. And you do sort of get the idea that Franklin was possibly the most remarkable man who ever lived.
---------------------------------------
Going down Arch Streett from Fifth to Fourth, you can visit the orthodox pacifist Meeting House, its interior largely unpainted and grimly plain -- quite different from the effect of pristine simplicity of the Free Quakers. If you go inside the meetinghouse, a quiet and unprepossessing Quaker will be more than happy to give you a magnificently short and simple explanation of what Quakerism is all about. In passing down Arch Street, glance at the warehouses on the left, covering the site of what was once a major factory for shoes and uniforms for Union soldiers in the Civil War.
--------------------------------
Behind the buildings on the Eastside of Fourth street, as the ground slopes sharply to the river, you can sense the rough-tough feeling of the mid-Nineteenth Century. Looking three blocks further on Second Street, Charles Dickens might have felt entirely at home. Looking three blocks further you can see St. George's Church, the (you heard it correctly) oldest Methodist Church in the world, its view unfortunately obscured by the approaches to Ben Franklin Bridge.
------------------------------------
If you reverse course up Arch Street, you will pass the building once said to have been the house of Betsy Ross. When the Free Quaker meeting was "laid down", it had to define a purpose for the funds and assets of an inactive church, and the selected purpose was to care for the poor. According to the records, the first recipient of such charity was Betsy Ross. Anyone who knows Quakers might initially assume there was nothing irregular about this. Money designated for indigents would be used for real indigents, no matter what others may say or think. So this little scrap of paper is taken to be a footnote to her personal history, until proven otherwise.
109 Volumes
Philadephia: America's Capital, 1774-1800 The Continental Congress met in Philadelphia from 1774 to 1788. Next, the new republic had its capital here from 1790 to 1800. Thoroughly Quaker Philadelphia was in the center of the founding twenty-five years when, and where, the enduring political institutions of America emerged.
Philadelphia: Decline and Fall (1900-2060) The world's richest industrial city in 1900, was defeated and dejected by 1950. Why? Digby Baltzell blamed it on the Quakers. Others blame the Erie Canal, and Andrew Jackson, or maybe Martin van Buren. Some say the city-county consolidation of 1858. Others blame the unions. We rather favor the decline of family business and the rise of the modern corporation in its place.
Originally the "lower counties" of Pennsylvania, and thus one of three Quaker colonies founded by William Penn, Delaware has developed its own set of traditions and history.
Start in Philadelphia, take two days to tour around Delaware Bay. Down the New Jersey side to Cape May, ferry over to Lewes, tour up to Dover and New Castle, visit Winterthur, Longwood Gardens, Brandywine Battlefield and art museum, then back to Philadelphia. Try it!
Millions of eye patients have been asked to read the passage from Franklin's autobiography, "I walked up Market Street, etc." which is commonly printed on eye-test cards. Here's your chance to do it.
In 1751, the Pennsylvania Hospital at 8th and Spruce was 'way out in the country. Now it is in the center of a city, but the area still remains dominated by medical institutions.
Grievances provoking the American Revolutionary War left many Philadelphians unprovoked. Loyalists often fled to Canada, especially Kingston, Ontario. Decades later the flow of dissidents reversed, Canadian anti-royalists taking refuge south of the border.
