George E. Thomas

Domenic Vitiello

The Philadelphia Stock Exchange and the City It Made recounts the history of America's first stock exchange and the ways it shaped the growth and decline of the city around it. Founded in 1790, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, its member firms, and the companies they financed had profound impacts on the city's place in the world economy. At its start, the exchange and its members helped spur the development of the early United States, its financial sector, and its westward expansion. During the nineteenth century, they invested in making Philadelphia the center of industrial America, raising capital for the railroads and coal mines that connected cities to one another and built a fossil fuel-based economy. After financing the Civil War, they underwrote the growth of the modern metropolis, its transportation infrastructure, utility systems, and real estate development. At the turn of the twentieth century, stagnation of the exchange contributed to Philadelphia's loss of power in the national and world economy. This original interpretation of the roots of deindustrialization holds important lessons for other cities that have declined. The exchange's revival following World War II is a remarkable story, but it also illustrates the limits of economic development in postindustrial cities. Unlike earlier eras, the exchange's fortunes diverged from those of the city around it. Ultimately, it became part of a larger, global institution when it merged with NASDAQ in 2008. Far more than a history of a single institution, The Philadelphia Stock Exchange and the City It Made traces the evolving relationship between the exchange and the city. For people concerned with cities and their development, this study offers a long-term history of the public-private partnerships and private sector-led urban development popular today. More generally, it traces the networks of firms and institutions revealed by the securities market and its participants. Herein lies a critical and understudied part of the history of metropolitan economic development.

The Philadelphia Stock Exchange and the City It Made

Benjamin Franklin, founder of America's first university, the University of Pennsylvania, hoped that its students would learn "everything that is useful and everything that is ornamental." The same might be said of the architecture of its campus, both useful and ornamental. The newest title in our highly acclaimed Campus Guide Series takes readers on an insider's tour of this historic school, unique in the Ivy League for its single urban campus. The guide presents architectural walks of a campus that is distinguished by landmark buildings. Thomas traces the university's rich history from its founding in 1749 to the present wave of construction on the modern campus. Hand-colored maps and detailed descriptions of the buildings guide to readers on their tour.

An Architectural Tour

University of Pennsylvania

David B. Brownlee

Building America's First University tells the story of the University of Pennsylvania, a story that begins with Benjamin Franklin's transcendent notion that learning ought not to be restricted to a leading religion or class. Rather than looking back toward antiquarian knowledge, Franklin set his college's course toward the world of the present and the future by focusing on modern languages, the natural sciences, and contemporary literature. His goals were soon reflected in the addition of a course in medicine, the first in the New World, and, by the end of the century, a course in law. This broader definition of education was celebrated after the American Revolution when the College was renamed the University of Pennsylvania, the first American institution to carry that all-encompassing title. In the intervening centuries, Franklin's vision has become the model of American higher education. Since its founding the University has adapted to reflect the values of the community that has supported it, charting a course between innovation and convention. These changes are evident in the architecture and character of the three campuses that have been its home. From Franklin's adaptation of a nonsectarian chapel as the institution's first quarters to Frank Furness's innovative University Library and Louis Kahn's momentous Richards Medical Research Laboratory, Penn's buildings can be seen as illuminating the evolving intentions of the University's leaders. Written by architectural historians George E. Thomas and David B. Brownlee, Building America's First University uses the physical evidence of Penn's campuses and buildings to illustrate the development of this landmark institution in American education. Part 1 recounts the history of the University, with three of the five chapters devoted to the evolution of the current campus. The historical chapters weave together the often conflicting interests and goals of trustees, administrators, alumni, and students that have shaped the institution of today. Part 2 presents a gazetteer to the campus in its present form--two hundred and fifty years after Benjamin Franklin wrote his "Proposals for the Education of Youth in Pensilvania." Here the authors describe every significant building on campus, with at least one photograph of each. Coming at the end of forty years of massive growth, this is the first comprehensive architectural history of the University since the early twentieth century.

George E. Thomas

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