Origin of famous Philly Photo 1897 – 714, 716 Chestnut Street in Background?

[supersupper]

A lot of goods points some of which I am still trying to conceptualize.

As far as foster shoe and rubber in Camden, maybe a manufacturer or maybe a registration of a company in NJ with the best deal in corporations like Delaware today.

My original reaction to the photo is a thought from my youth where concentrations of wholesalers inhabited the same neighborhood and I am thinking of Arch st. not as in this photo but in memory where street to street used to have it own wholesalers of similar specialities. Looking at the Chestnut and 7th st thing, I see too many banks on the map. Am wondering where all the rubber wholesalers used to have their turf in Philly.

Clearly the National Archives thinks this photo is problematic.

You can't put much stock in this photo being from philly just because someone anonymous says it is. And lots of those buildings of that era were cookie-cutter types (just like today) and looked very similar to each other, so you need to find another photo of that location from that time period to verify that location based on the total combination of visual elements. Or find another way to verify. In the news lately is a glass object that was sitting in a museum mislabeled, and only now discovered quite by happenstance to be a Picasso.

I find it hard to believe the location can't be pinpointed based on the plethora of information regarding philly buildings, esp considering 7th and Market is a pretty high profile location. And in my opinion some of the buildings in this particular photo seem too small for the Market street of that era, although the street scape is very much like your photo:


Market at 10th street looking East 1907:



Its also possible this may not be Philadelphia. Camden has a 7th and Market, and by one account had Philly Traction cars around this time. I can't seem to find many historical photos of Camden, but it was more prosperous then than now, and your photo kinda looks like a mini- Philly Market Street.

[Phillyxpat]

While it might be difficult to prove they snuck a big fat Brougham into any street scene, perhaps a latter nostalgic view backwards would demand some touchups with Stock shots from the Kilburn archives.

How many stars do you count?





Too many I think for 1890 or 1897 or 1905?

Perhaps a stock flag photo from a later date to touch up a decorative photo product. From the time of the manufacturers prime toward 1910?

Benjamin W. Kilburn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

"Known as the world's most extensive manufacturer of stereoscopic views from 1890 - 1910."


USFlag.org: A website dedicated to the Flag of the United States of America - The 44-Star Flag
USFlag.org: A website dedicated to the Flag of the United States of America - The 45-Star Flag
USFlag.org: A website dedicated to the Flag of the United States of America - The 46 Star Flag

[supersupper]

If that is all true and other evidence shows up to prove the above, then the photo is not so much historical data as I thought of and critical so much as it is decorative art. An Elvis portrait painted on velvet as opposed to a real Picasso.

I had thought of that as well, because so much of this photo seems to go out of its way to be indecipherable.

Yes photographers back then had many of their own retouching tricks. however to convincingly retouch a stereoscopic image would be nearly impossible.

[Phillyxpat]

I find the Philadelphia Traction car idea in Camden interesting and plausible. Probably no federal interstate rule book back then but maybe a Pennsy or Jersey odd rule or two.

Don't know the technical end of the stereographic thing, but that company sounds like it was a big factory operation. I have no doubt that what a mechanic or the technician did on the factory floor to get the job done and meet a deadline never made its way back to the front office and the official factory manual/handbook.

[Eastcoast]

Hey guys,

A quick google search on Foster Rubber Co 716 resulted in the second hit for a site called fold3.com, under the cached view it listed:

http://www.google.com/search?client=...UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Shoe & Rubber Co., 716 Market



There is a free sign up that I'm going to wait to do until I can gather a few other bits I want to research.

[Eastcoast]

OK I also got this for the Rubber Goods sign at what looks like 712.

The Railroad, Telegraph and Steamship Builders' Directory - Google Books

In the "The Railroad, Telegraph and Steamship Builders' Directory" Page 370 there is listed:

Town and Bros 712 Market St.

[Eastcoast]

and this one is pretty cool.

For the Scales and Weights at what apears to be 710 Market Street we get:

Miscellaneous Mining Items/Henry Troemner May 1902 Engineering and Mining Journal

Miscellaneous Mining Items/Weight Set III

Weight Set III | WEIGHT SET III - Boxed with top weight set, marked HENRY TROEMNER INC. PHILADELPHIA, PA, USA CLASS S-1 100 g – 1 mg, 21 weights with bone-tipped tweezers and small weights cover, mahogany box dimensions 5 1/2 x 4 x 2 3/8 in. [Henry Troemner was born in 1809 at Elnhausen, Germany where he served an apprenticeship of eight years as a locksmith or machinist. He immigrated to New York City in 1832 and sometime before 1839 married Catherine Ritter, also a native of Germany. He went into business with F. Meyer in 1840 as F. Meyer and Company with offices on Decatur Street in Philadelphia, PA making prescription, jewelers' and grocers' scales and weights. Sometime around 1844, he decided to establish his own scale and balance manufacturing business and his name appears in the 1844 Philadelphia Business Directory as a scale manufacturer. His first factory was located at 196 High Street where he remained until 1853, when he moved to 240 Market Street. Not long thereafter, he received a contract to make the balances for the U. S. Mint at Philadelphia. In 1858 he moved to 710 Market Street in Philadelphia, establishing an office and factory. He built his first major factory in 1862 on the northwest corner of 22nd and Master Street in Philadelphia, the office remaining at 710 Market Street. Henry and Catherine were parents of thirteen children. His business continued to expand. With Henry's death in 1873, his wife Catherine operated the business until 1875 when his three oldest sons purchased the company. The company continued to expand and thrive with ownership changes along the way and in1955 the business was incorporated as Troemner Inc. manufacturing precision weights, balances and laboratory apparatus at 6825 Greenway Avenue, Philadelphia. The company continues in business today. Henry Troemner was by far the most prolific of balance manufacturers in the United States, making scales and balances for almost every conceivable use: assay, bullion, analytical, pharmaceutical, egg, yarn, specific gravity, candy, moisture, babies, photographic uses, diamond, cream, butter-fat, silk, hatter's fur, solder testing, sand, hosiery, paper testing, tack - nail - screw count, grain tester, and others. See Shannon, The Assay Balance, pp 102-105]

[CHIOSSO]

So its Market Street?

[ZARK]

Delete

[Colin P. Varga]

I wouldn't rely on the stars. Frankly, two of those flags seem to have different numbers of stars. There's a photo of Card. Doughtery at the American College in Rome after he became Cardinal in 1921 and the US flag in back of him has 45 stars on it.

...

How many stars do you count?





Too many I think for 1890 or 1897 or 1905?

Perhaps a stock flag photo from a later date to touch up a decorative photo product. From the time of the manufacturers prime toward 1910?

Benjamin W. Kilburn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

"Known as the world's most extensive manufacturer of stereoscopic views from 1890 - 1910."


USFlag.org: A website dedicated to the Flag of the United States of America - The 44-Star Flag
USFlag.org: A website dedicated to the Flag of the United States of America - The 45-Star Flag
USFlag.org: A website dedicated to the Flag of the United States of America - The 46 Star Flag

[supersupper]

I'd say Eastcoast closed the book on this one! Well done. Alert the Archives!

[CHIOSSO]

This was great , just great.

[Eastcoast]

Glad to contribute for a change.

[Phillyxpat]

Teamwork makes it work. Thank you for all your efforts and insights. Interesting view into the many ways of approaching a historical puzzle.

[nanyika]

Sorry to reply to this thread so late. In my spare time for the last week or so, I have been trying to solve the REAL mysteries that this photo presents. Perhaps some of you sleuths can help me out:
(1) What is the event? Is it merely really a traffic jam? Clearly, traffic has halted. We see an electric trolley car smack up against an open-air one-horse trolley, which is behind another vehicle from which a man might be unloading a crate. But a crowd has gathered on the balconies and doorsteps; the attention of almost all of them is directed off the left side of the photo (toward 7th Street). So it appears that SOMETHING out of our sight is obstructing traffic. The only thing I could think of (with no proof) is that we are seeing effects of the big strike of transit workers that took place in December 1895, which produced traffic blockades. The photo is dated cc. 1897, but is that correct? For example, the trolley car has a sign for the Philadelphia Traction Co., but that company was amalgamated into the Union Traction Co. in 1895. (Of course, UTC probably used cars with the old PTC livery for a while after the merger.)
(2) The second question has to do with the building at 714 Market St. today (part of the "Sovereign Building"). It looks like a 19th-century building, and is in a similar style to the building in the photo that seems to be at that address. But they do not exactly match. For example, it has three window bays instead of four. In looking at on-line old photos, I could find nothing as yet for that address. Can anyone help?

[Phillyxpat]

There are many anomalies and or enigmas that this photo present to me. I do not like the spacing or do not understand the depth if it is Market Street, where was the photo shot from - a building or top of vehicle etc. which is why I originally chose Chestnut Street. A lot of useful and technical and historic input above from others. I am removed from Philly for over three decades so I do not totally understand some of the ideas presented here as I cannot quite fully conceptualize some of them. The consensus more or less agreed on Market Street with some info on one of the signs and other data. I, since I am playing a lot lately with magnifying photos lately think that even if this is a legitimate Market St. photo for the time frame, I feel like a photo of a political event, fire, parade etc got built up by professional photography in layers away from the main body of the crowd, first with fancy horse and carriage and secondly with the disinterested workman on a cart in the foreground. But that is just my opinion. Read the others. Decide for yourself. The main sign blocked with a flag of 47 or 48 stars as I count them, an anomaly, was not identified. I speculated that it the sign might be Morris (Rosen)burg and Sons which was a Jewish Undertaker uptown in ritzy Broad st around 2000 block and they had franchises over the decades but none that I could find on Market or Chestnut Street. etc.

[CHIOSSO]

City hall was formally dedicated in July 1897.