The Middle-Class City. John Henry Hepp, IV

       Prelude: I Went Out to the Centennial

       Wednesday, June 14, 1876:I went out to Centennial in afternoon & I looked around in Machinery Hall—Art Gallery & Main B. & went home. ¹

      This was not John L. Smith’s first visit to the Centennial. He, like thousands of other Philadelphians, had toured the grounds regularly even before the fair had opened. Smith also was one of the lucky people who had jammed themselves inside the main building a month earlier when President Ulysses S. Grant (a hero to Smith, a thirty-year-old mapmaker whose life had been largely defined by his service in the Union Army) started the great Corliss steam engine to inaugurate the exposition. But that day had been very busy and crowded, unlike most days since at the Centennial. To help better understand the rhythms of everyday middle-class life in Philadelphia in 1876, we can follow John Smith on a more typical day as he takes a horse-drawn streetcar from his shop downtown out to the exhibition grounds in Fairmount Park.

      That morning Smith left the house he shared with his mother in middle-class North Philadelphia and went to his store at 27 South Sixth Street (located a block from the old State House in the commercial center of Philadelphia). He spent the morning at work but business had been, in his words, “dull” even though he found the city “full of strangers.” That afternoon, the combination of slow sales and near-perfect weather drew Smith to Fairmount Park for another visit to the Centennial. Like many other middle-class Philadelphians, Smith made multiple trips to the fair that summer. In Smith’s case, it was very cheap entertainment, for, as an exhibitor, he could enter the grounds for free.

      After lunch, Smith left his quiet shop in the hands of his clerks. Out the front door and into the crowds on Sixth, Smith walked one-half block north to the corner of Market Street to catch one of the frequent cars of the West Philadelphia Passenger Railway Company. The Market Street line of this firm ran directly from the railroad ferries on the Delaware River through down-town to Fairmount Park. Standing near the corner, he glanced across the street at the massive men’s clothing store of Wanamaker & Brown as a sea of humanity flowed around him. He was on the city’s busiest street, in the heart of its commercial district. The sounds of the street vendors, the horses, the wheels of the carts and street cars, the many construction projects, and all the people filled his ears while the aroma of the vendors’ foods combined with the other smells of the city—the horses and their residue, the unwashed wool clothes and their occupants—filled his nose. Smith likely noticed few of these sights, sounds, and smells that day; they were simply the background to everyday life in one of the world’s largest cities.

      As he waited, Smith, a loyal Republican, probably thought about the big news in the Public Ledger that day: speculation over the likely nomination of James Blaine. Or he may have pondered what a beautiful day it was: low humidity, temperature in the eighties. In a few weeks would come Philadelphia’s hot and sticky summer. Or perhaps he wondered why John Wanamaker had opened an additional store a few blocks to the west when he had such a beautiful store here. Regardless of Smith’s thoughts, he did not have long to develop them, as the cars on this line ran every few minutes. His attention was diverted by the driver bringing the team of horses to a stop. He waited as people stepped off the car and was happy to see that it was not too crowded. He would get a seat today; sometimes he had to stand for almost the whole journey. After he boarded, he paid the conductor his seven-cent fare and settled in for the thirty-minute ride to the gates of the exhibition. Traffic would be heavy and the pace slow until at least Twelfth Street, which was then the western extremity of downtown.

      Smith, a keen observer of the city’s progress, probably stared out the open window of the car seeking further evidence of the numerous “improvements” along the route. Smith loved to explore all the city’s changes with friends; he was quite a civic booster and Philadelphia’s continuing progress thrilled him. Market Street was the commercial spine of the metropolis; it was lined with a variety of business enterprises from the Delaware to the Schuylkill River. Its one-hundred-foot width, originally designed by William Penn to accommodate market stalls (and hence its name), allowed it to be filled with tracks for both the local and long distance railways, adding to its busy air. Heading west, Smith could see a number of the city’s tallest commercial structures (all about five or six stories in height): at Seventh, the publishing house of J. B. Lippincott; at Eighth, the massive dry goods emporium of Hood, Bonbright & Company; and at Eleventh, the Bingham House, Philadelphia’s leading hotel. Smith’s interest rose as he approached Thirteenth Street, for there he could see two of Philadelphia’s larger and more recent developments: the massive (and elaborately decorated) clothing store of John Wanamaker (the merchant’s third in the city) and the construction site of the new Public Buildings in Centre Square.

      Between Centre Square and the Schuylkill River the commercial buildings became smaller and more utilitarian and of less interest to Smith. As the car plodded westward, Smith may have been lulled to sleep by the combination of the rhythm of the horses’ shoes on the stone street and the warmth inside the small, slow-moving, ill-ventilated car. His attention likely rose again after crossing the river. Just past Thirty-first Street he could see the recently opened depot of the city’s most powerful corporation (and an occasional client): the Pennsylvania Railroad. In a few hours, a special train would leave the station inaugurating service on the city’s newest steam railroad, the grandly named Philadelphia, Newtown and New York Railroad that actually only went eleven miles to Fox Chase. Smith hoped to catch a glimpse of the train and reminded himself that he should ride the new line soon. He likely thought about all the improvements the new line would bring to a still largely rural section of the city.

      After passing the depot, he was about two-thirds of the way through his journey in terms of time. Most of the land between the depot and the park was filled with the respectable middle-class homes of West Philadelphia, very similar to—although a bit more commodious than—the one he and his mother shared in equally bourgeois North Philadelphia. As the streetcar neared the Centennial grounds, Smith viewed with some distaste the large number of temporary buildings housing hotels, restaurants, bars, and inexpensive amusements that lined the streets just outside the gates. It was not just their size and gaudiness that caused these structures to stand out but also their construction: in an almost exclusively brick- and stone-built city, they were made of wood. Smith did not view this tacky temporary “city” as an improvement; not only were these down-market hotels and amusements poor substitutes for their downtown counterparts but visitors staying in West Philadelphia were less likely to patronize Center City businesses like his own.

      The car came to a stop at the terminus outside the main gates at Elm and Belmont Avenues. The massive fan of tracks was designed to handle dozens of street cars simultaneously and was part of the elaborate transportation system built especially for the fair. On opening day, Smith had been one of the estimated 200,000 riders who had tested the limits of this terminus. Thankfully, there were far fewer passengers today. After leaving the car, Smith threaded his way through the cars, horses, and people and walked past the main entrance (as it was for paying customers only). A half-block west was the smaller and less busy entry to Machinery Hall. Smith had his exhibitor’s ticket punched by the attendant and went through the turnstile that both controlled ingress and counted the visitors. He spent the afternoon touring the major buildings and examining whatever caught his eye (figure 3 shows the Main Building). He thoroughly enjoyed himself and vowed to return again. After a long day, he went out through the main gates and took a car on the Girard Avenue line to within a few blocks of his mother’s house.²