Much of the essence of Philadelphia lies in the features described previously--its small-town atmosphere, its parks and tree-shaded downtown squares and streets, and its innumerable memorials to the American past, as well as its teeming riverside and factories and its diverse business institutions. There are other factors as well that contribute in their way to an understanding of Philadelphia's culture, considered in its broadest implications to comprise the life-styles of its people.
In addition to Fairmount Park, Philadelphia has Pennypack Park in the northeast, a semi-wilderness setting with bridle paths, bird-watching trails, and an abundance of deer and other wildlife. More than 100 other parks are located throughout the city.
Philadelphians has always been a sports-loving group, whether passive or participatory, though professional teams have always been the object, like the city itself, of a good-natured deprecation that is tolerated in residents but not in strangers. City baseball fans enjoyed a long-awaited triumph in 1980 when the Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series. Fox hunting in the surrounding countryside is of old Quaker origins, while the Schuylkill is a major rowing site for collegiate and other individuals and crews, and Germantown harbors remnants of a once-lively citywide enthusiasm for cricket.
In colonial days Philadelphia was known as the "Athens of America," and it retains a high place in the artistic achievement of the nation. The Academy of Music, opened in 1857, is the home of the Philadelphia Orchestra, which is among the finest orchestras of the world and was among the first to broadcast and make recordings. At Fairmount Park are two facilities--the Fredric R. Mann Music Center, which presents classical music, and the Robin Hood Dell, which presents popular music.
Philadelphia was the nation's theatrical centre until well after the Revolution, its stages having hosted the greatest players of Europe and America. The Walnut Street Theatre, opened in 1809, is the oldest playhouse in active use in the English-speaking world. The Playhouse in the Park opened in 1952 as the first city-owned and city-operated theatre of its kind.
Philadelphia was a pioneer in museums of all kinds. Charles Willson Peale's museum was housed in Independence Hall in the 1800s, but the art museums are now led by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. One of the world's great museums, it houses priceless collections of art from the Western Middle Ages onward and from the Orient. Others include the Rodin Museum, featuring the largest collection of sculptures by Auguste Rodin outside of Paris. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania has some 700 portraits by Benjamin West, James Copley, Gilbert Stuart, the four Peales, and other early American painters. The output of visual artists in Philadelphia and vicinity has been by and large conservative, though Thomas Eakins gained fame for work beyond his American contemporaries, and Mary Cassatt was among the few women in the Impressionist school of the late 19th century.
Other museums include the Museum of the Philadelphia Civic Center, originally organized in 1894 as the Commercial Museum to promote trade exhibitions. The Academy of Natural Sciences is the oldest of its kind in the United States. The Franklin Institute Science Museum and Planetarium is full of marvellous things that move and can be moved, while the University Museum is a major feature of the University of Pennsylvania. Among the newer museums in Philadelphia are the Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum and the New Year's Shooters and Mummers Museum, both established in 1976, and the Port of History Museum at Penn's Landing. There also are many small museums housed in restored buildings throughout the city.
Though Philadelphia has had most of the characteristics of an ethnic and racial pot nearly from its start, it lacks the steaming hurly-burly visible everywhere in its behemoth neighbor, New York City, about 90 miles (150 kilometers) northeast. The Philadelphians by and large are not a street people, and their orientation has been so traditionally toward the home that the city became known as a "city of homes." Philadelphians are also great joiners, giving the city more social and other clubs than any other in America. Many of these are based in ethnic neighborhoods, others are city wide, and still others serve the affluent "Main Liners" who reside in the plush suburbs that grew up in past centuries along the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad (now Amtrak).
Much of this tradition dates from Philadelphia's early years, from the beliefs and attitudes not only of the Quakers but also of such German pietist sects as the Mennonites, who stressed personal religious experience rather than institutionalized formulations. A basic sobriety underlying these tenets led to many stringent laws that remain in both the city and state. On the other hand, these groups strove for tolerance in all matters. Pennsylvania was among the few colonies admitting Roman Catholics and Jews, and the Quakers long were leaders in seeking justice and the alleviation of inhumanity in racial and other human relations. Philadelphia still has innumerable small, endowed charities of Quaker origin to provide the poor with coal or food--as well as one of the oldest and strongest municipal commissions on human relations.
During the 1800s the Protestant sects were joined by Roman Catholics, initially Irish and German and later Italian, Polish, and Slavic. Eastern European Jews also immigrated, eventually comprising a significant portion of the city's population. Cultural conflicts and competition for housing and jobs created tensions between the oldstock groups and the new arrivals. A series of anti-Catholic nativist riots rocked Philadelphia in the Jacksonian period, with an especially violent riot in 1844. Although immigrants came to Philadelphia in the hundreds of thousands in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the city had a relatively low proportion of foreign-born when compared with other major cities at that time. Some Irish, Italian, Polish, and Jewish newcomers did find opportunities for considerable economic advancement in Philadelphia; for many, however, hopes never materialized and the urban experience proved rough and oftentimes shattering. The slow progress of these ethnic groups toward full acceptance is represented by the fact that Philadelphia did not elect its first Irish mayor until 1963 and its first Italian mayor until 1971.
Philadelphia has been the focal point of one of the historically most important black communities in the nation. During the early national and antebellum periods, many black leaders came from or centred their activities in Philadelphia, and the free black community there was intensely involved in many efforts to abolish slavery, assist fugitive slaves, and advance the general social and economic well-being of blacks. Between 1829 and 1860, however, the Philadelphia black community was victimized by several antiblack mob actions. At the beginning of the 20th century Philadelphia was the site of the largest black community of any northern city. The migration of Southern-born blacks to the city continued to augment the city's black population throughout the first half of the 20th century. Discrimination in housing resulted in the creation of overcrowded black districts. By the late 20th century about 40 percent of all Philadelphians and well over 50 percent of the public school population were black. The suburbs, by contrast, were about 95 percent white.
During the late 1960s Philadelphia, like other major American cities, was shaken by race riots. This led, in 1971, to a backlash in the election as mayor of Frank Rizzo, a tough former police commissioner oriented toward "law and order." In 1979, however, Philadelphians turned toward more moderate rule by rejecting the attempt of Rizzo to alter the city charter and thereby win permission to seek a third term. In 1983 the city elected its first black mayor, W. Wilson Goode.
Problems of substandard and insufficient housing, delinquency, public health, crime, drug abuse, and other ills, by no means confined to the ghettos, have somewhat dimmed the city's image. Efforts at public housing date back to 1937. Other municipal and federal bodies have continued efforts at urban renewal for both blacks and poor whites, usually following the pattern of rehabilitating neighborhoods rather than razing them. Unusual is the fact that about two-fifths of the black families own their homes.
COPYRIGHT 2000 - AMERICATRAVELLING.NET