Industrially, early Philadelphia led all other colonial towns. Diversification was the keynote then, as it is now. Weavers, knitters, wheel-wrights, glass-blowers and other craftsmen came with the early German immigration. Germantown set the industrial example. The Quakers, Welsh as well as Eng lish, fed the city, and handled much of the money. They were successful merchants, shipowners and ship-builders. They man ufactured paper, cordage and canvas. Streams were readily dammed near Philadelphia, and there were mills on 16 main creeks. Before the Revolution the Wissahickon had II mills. Power for mills was drawn in 1829 by the building of Flat Rock dam on the Schuylkill; and Manayunk came into being. Iron was made at Germantown in 1717. The first Philadelphia carpets were made in 1775. Subsequently English weavers came in great numbers. An industrial north-west section, as well as a great north-east section, was developed. Philadelphia, near water but unswept by strong breezes, has a moist climate peculiarly suit able for textile manipulation.
Philadelphia's pre-war ( 19 I 7) products amounted to $784,500,000; in 1935, they had grown to $1,248, 270,893. Six industries manufactured products worth over one hundred million dollars in
: textiles, $327,940,250; food prod ucts, $231,622,227; petroleum and coal products, $166,544,118; chemicals, $112,693,592; machinery, $109,235,202; printing and publishing, $103,134,476. The Chamber of Commerce reports that the city led all other U.S. cities in the value of goods produced in the fourteen following fields: petroleum refining, knit goods, sugar refining, paper, cigars and cigarettes, carpets and rugs, clay products, steam packing, plumbers' supplies, lace goods, processed waste, files, cardboard, and upholstery materials.
is the headquarters of the Pennsylvania railroad. The Philadelphia and Reading and Balti more and Ohio have great terminals in Philadelphia.
Intra-urban transit is by electric-subway and elevated trains, or by surface trolley cars. All intra-urban roads are operated by the Philadelphia Rapid Transit company under contract with the city since July 5907. The Frankford "L" was built and equipped by the city at a cost of $15,603,992 and leased to P.R.T. in 1923. Subways built by the city are similarly leased. The city-built North Broad street subway was completed in 1928, at a cost of $100,000,000. The Philadelphia Rapid Transit operates urban and suburban taxicabs and motor-buses. Fifty companies, with 75o buses operate between the heart of the city and 150 outlying towns.
The first bank in the United States (Pennsylvania bank) was organized in 1781. The Bank of North America was chartered by the Continental Congress in 1784. The first building and loan association in the United States was the Oxford Provi dent and Building association, organized in Frankford (now 35th ward) Jan. 3, 1831. Of the 2,883 building and loan associa tions in Pennsylvania in the year 1934, Philadelphia had 1,846 with
members, and assets of $418,406,739. There were, in 1935, 38 institutions under the commonwealth of Pennsylvania; 16 operating under Federal charter; and numerous private bank ing houses. National banks reported resources of $805,585,580 and deposits of $693,352,888; while the state banks had resources of $1,311,193,066 and deposits of $1,086,884,927 of which $427,
was in savings banks. Philadelphia is the headquarters of the Third Federal Reserve District, whose 656 member banks reported (1935) loans of
investments of $1,301,000; reserves of $275,000; and deposits of $2,629,000. The reserve
bank itself had assets totalling $641,360,000.
An act of the Assembly, approved on Tune 25, 1919, regulates the present government of Philadelphia. The mayor, chosen for four years, and 72 other officials (including 32 judges and 28 magistrates, with the receiver of taxes, city treasurer, city controller, district attorney and sheriff) are elected from the city at large. The 22 councilmen, now paid officials serving for four years, are elected from eight State senatorial districts, one for every 40,00o assessed voters. The Council is the chief tax-levying body: it fixes the annual budget and pos sesses legislative powers including the right to override the mayor's veto. Council business is transacted through committees. There are 9 departments of city government : public safety, public works, public health, public welfare, wharves, docks and ferries, city transit, supplies, law, and city architecture. These administrative units are directly under the supervision of the mayor, who ap points the directors. Under the director of public safety are eight bureaux: (a) police; (b) fire; (c) electrical; (d) elevator inspec tion; (e) boiler inspection; (f) building inspection; (g) mainte nance and repairs; and (h) medical. Under the director of public works are bureaux that have charge of water supply and distribu tion ; highways ; city property, including supervision of I I curb markets and io6 small parks and squares; zoning; street cleaning; and lighting and gas. Under the director of public health are the bureaux of health and hospitals, with divisions and dispensaries; and under the director of public welfare are the bureau of recrea tion, supervising 4o playgrounds and 38 swimming pools and two bureaux dealing with charities and legal aid. Other municipal bodies include an art jury, library trustees, a board of health, a zoning commission, a civil service commission, a pension board, a city planning commission, a gas commission, a sinking fund com mission, a tax revision board, and a board of education. Certain offices are known as county offices—those held by the controller, treasurer, district attorney, sheriff, coroner, clerk of quarter ses sions, prothonotary, register of wills and recorder of deeds. In 1936 there were 21,808 city employees receiving $34,000,000. Many courts sit in the city—Federal or State; and six kinds, in cluding the municipal court organized for special purposes, have jurisdictions coterminous with the city and county. Five registra tion commissioners, appointed by the governor, have charge of the registration of voters, appointing four district registrars in each of the 1,566 election divisions of the city. Two of the five must belong to the minority party. One of the three elective commis sioners, who administer the election machinery, must belong to the minority party. An important aid to city government is the privately supported citizen's agency, the bureau of municipal re search (organized 1908, incorporated 1910), which is managed by a board of trustees. The assessed valuation of real estate as returned to the city controller by the board of revision of taxes totalled $2,745,007,900 in 1936; and the personal property, $873,
On Jan. I,
the gross funded outstanding debt was $616,661,016, of which the sinking fund held $127,232,280; the interest and sinking fund amounted in 1934 to two-fifths of the tax levy.