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Friday, April 29, 2016

Signs of Prohibition Takes Affect in the City – February 1920


Public Ledger 18 Feb 1920


Public Ledger 25 Feb 1920



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Rumors of a Sugar Delivery - Grocery Store Germantown and Indiana Avenues - Nov 1919

Public Ledger 24 Nov 1919



Continued disruption of consumption patterns of commodities such as sugar following WWI. “Voluntary rationing”, “Meatless Mondays”, “Wheatless Wednesdays”, brain child of Director Herbert Hoover of U.S. Food Administration in efforts to reduce domestic use of food by 15%, commodity controls through June 1919, and then the same agency turned into the American Relief Administration to feed a starving Europe following the war.






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Tasty Baking Girls - 2335 Sedgley Avenue - 1920 "Pageant of Womanhood"

Public Ledger 18  Feb 1920



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Babe Ruth and Wife - Phila. Public Ledger 19 Nov 1919




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Setting Automatic Dials on Keystone Telephones - 1921 - 16th and Summer Streets


Public Ledger 24 Jan 1924

Automatic rotary dials using various exchange prefixes per finger hole via exchanges around the tri-state area was the reason that Keystone Telephone in the Philadelphia area was the preferred business to business telephone over that of the operators at AT&T that connected calls in the early days of the twentieth century and the reason many Philly businesses had two phone companies up until 1945 when AT&T bought out Keystone. 


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Thursday, April 28, 2016

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Election Day Results 1916 - Before Radio - Public Ledger Building - (9 Nov 1916)







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Freihofer's Liberty Loaf - 1917 - (Public Ledger 30 Nov 1917)





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Lincoln Market House - Broad Street and Fairmount Avenue - circa 1885


(Public Ledger - 5 Dec 1921)


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Adolph Proskauer 1836-1893 Restaurateur – Belmont Mansion


(Public Ledger 11 Jan 1922)



At a banquet at Belmont Mansion given by the Fairmount Park Commission Lobbying a Congressional Delegation
Promoting a Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in Fairmount Park in 1876

(Inquirer 18 June 1870)




(Inquirer 9 July 1869)



(Inquirer 26 April 1869)


Adolph Proskauer 1836-1893 Restaurateur - not to be confused with a famous "Jewish" Confederate General from Alabama of the same name.



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Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Lehigh Avenue Emerald Street to Frankford Avenue - Regrading Street - Public Ledger 26 April 1916




RESIDENTS OF THIS KENSINGTON STREET ARE “UP IN THE AIR” ON ACCOUNT OF LOWERED STREET


The corner grocery man and the line of houses on Lehigh avenue, between Emerald street and Frankford avenue, were left high and dry when their street was regraded, and one wonders how a lodger who comes home late at night after a banquet navigates all these steps.



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"On Philadelphia's Piers" - Corn Exchange Bank Advertisement - Public Ledger 5 Feb 1920


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P.R.T. Snowplow 5th and Market Street - Public Ledger 5 Feb 1920





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Rush Hour Shortage Public of Trolleys - League Island Navy Yard - Public Ledger 21 Oct 1914

Right Image per caption below



Left Image per caption below







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Frankford "L" Construction Progress - Frankford and Oxford Aves. - Public Ledger 29 Sept 1917


Seven Stars Hotel - left

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Atlas Dye Works - Womrath Street and Torresdale Avenue - Public Ledger 19 Oct 1920




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Simons and Struve Hosiery Co, - 4159 Frankford Ave - Public Ledger 14 Jan 1921



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Ace Motorcycle Corp - Eire (Castor) Ave and Sepviva Street - Evening Public Ledger 30 Aug 1920




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Monday, April 11, 2016

Murderous Mary Mamon – The Levittown Hammer Attacks and Murder - 1967


Phila.Inquirer 24 Nov 1937





The Levittown Attacks

"…Mary O’Connor Mamon appeared to live a dual life in Levittown, Pennsylvania. She had divorced her husband in 1957 and lived with her four sons. She had a degree in chemistry and worked in that field for a Fortune 500 fruit and vegetable processor. There she was known both as “a dependable, conscientious, and capable” employee and a co-worker who “never seemed to be fond of anybody, didn’t seem to talk much to anyone.”

In her neighborhood, the 49-year-old Mary was as well-liked as any other neighbor.

“Mary’s been in my home several times and she’s always been quite pleasant,” one neighbor told the press. “She wrapped her whole life around her kids.”

She was, however, known for her “husky, mannish appearance” and her preference for “men’s clothes” (Bear in mind this was the 1960s where women were expected to dress “appropriately”).

“Some of women where we bowled did mention however that she’d probably look a lot better if she dressed in women’s clothes,” a bowling teammate recalled.

When Mary was arrested for the murder of Nancy Glenn, her uncle told the press that she “did such strange things as write letters to herself and sign other people’s names to them,” Judge Harry S. McDevitt said. “She also wrote about herself and mailed them to other people, signing some other name than her own.”

This odd and destructive behavior apparently continued while Mary lived in Levittown, and might have contributed to her breakdown.
Mary’s oldest son, Robert, was engaged to Mary Ann Martin, but their relationship soured when Mary Ann began receiving obscene phone calls and was dissuaded from marrying Robert by her aunt Ethel Markham.

“I told Mary Ann I can’t see him, he’s sissified,” Ethel said. “He was a momma’s boy and kept on his mother’s apron strings.”

Meanwhile, neighbors began receiving anonymous letters about Mary that police later theorized were written by Mary herself. The letters referred to Mary’s arrest and trial for Nancy Glenn’s murder and questioned how the “God-fearing people” of the neighborhood could allow such a person to live among them.

Mary would later testify that she was also receiving obscene and threatening phone calls which she blamed on Mary Ann.

Although Robert vented his frustration by harassing Mary Ann, Mary Mamon focused her rage about the canceled wedding on Ethel Markham and began withdrawing from society. She quit her bowling leagues and became increasingly unstable. Eventually, she was forced to take a medical leave of absence from work.


She hatched a bizarre revenge plot against Ethel that came to fruition on March 23, 1967 — four days before Easter Sunday. … "



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Mr. and Mrs. Chester Phillips - Nancy Glenn Murder Case 1937 - Obits

Phila. Inquirer 24 Nov 1937


The Philadelphia News Media using the then underground and recognized three letter "G" word for those who knew the code for the word? (wink, nod). Husband and wife newlyweds caught in a web of political intrigue.










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The End of Chalkley Hall - January 1955


Phila.Inquirer 4 Jan 1955


Chalkley Hall by John Greenleaf Whittier

...And hence this scene, in sunset glory warm,--
Its woods around,
Its still stream winding on in light and shade,
Its soft, green meadows and its upland glade,--
To me is holy ground.
And dearer far than haunts where Genius keeps
His vigils still;
Than that where Avon's son of song is laid,
Or Vaucluse hallowed by its Petrarch's shade,
Or Virgil's laurelled hill.
To the gray walls of fallen Paraclete,
To Juliet's urn,
Fair Arno and Sorrento's orange-grove,
Where Tasso sang, let young Romance and Love
Like brother pilgrims turn.

But here a deeper and serener charm
To all is given;
And blessed memories of the faithful dead
O'er wood and vale and meadow-stream have shed
The holy hues of Heaven!


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