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Up the Hills of East Falls: From Mill Town (Twice) to Suburb in City

presented by Steven J. Peitzman

The now submerged falls on the Schuylkill River, about five miles from central Philadelphia, once provided splendid scenery and excellent fishing (well-known to the Lenape, our predecessors). Several mills built as early as the late 1600s on the lower Wissahickon Creek and on Falls Run added industry to recreation and tourism. With the 19th century came a railroad, steam, and the immense Dobson Mills, which made blankets for the Union Army, and carpets for everyone else. The “Falls Village” became a busy, smoky mill town—"Falls of Schuylkill”--dense with workers’ rowhouses, churches, and breweries. But how did the renamed East Falls survive the closing of the mills, which at its peak employed 6000 women, men, and children, and find a new way to flourish?

Steven J. Peitzman, though partly retired, teaches at Drexel University College of Medicine and attends at a student-run free clinic. He is widely known as an historian of medicine, and is proud of his 2000 book on the history of Philadelphia’s Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania/Medical College of Pennsylvania. Dr. Peitzman has resided just east or west of Wissahickon Avenue most of his adult life, so claims to be both Germantowner and Fallser. In recent years, as an active preservationist he has submitted several successful nominations to place significant buildings on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places. He is active in the East Falls Historical Society and serves on the Advocacy Committee of the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia.

$15 | General Admission

$10 | Alliance Member 

Students with ID, residents of the neighborhoods being presented, or individuals with financial difficulties free with email to vcheng@preservationalliance.com