Browse Items · Philly Immigration

Episode 9: The Heart is an Involuntary Muscle

A program on romance and courtship in the ethnic neighborhoods of pre-World War II Philadelphia, and the battles that raged between strict, Old-World fathers and their Americanizing children

Episode 10: Death in the City: Or Whatever Became of the Influenza Pandemic of 1918

A program on the worst pandemic of the twentieth century and its impact on Philadelphia, the hardest hit of American cities and on people’s experience and attitudes towards death.

Episode 12: Gang Rule in the City: Or, The Most Perfect Party Organization in the World (part 2)

Part 2 looks at the structure of the City’s Republican machine, patronage and political assessments, the vice protection rackets that provided its funding, and the Grand Jury investigations of 1928, the rise of the Democrats and collapse of…

Episode 8: Philadelphia: The City of Sweatshops

This program on immigrant work experiences in "The World's Greatest Workshop" focuses on the clothing industry, including work conditions, seasonal unemployment, labor relations, and child labor.

Episode 11: Gang Rule in the City: Or, The Most Perfect Party Organization in the World (part 1)

This is the first episode of a two part program on the powerful Republican City organization led by Congressman William Vare and politics in the city between the two world wars. Includes a consideration of "personal service," voting, endemic…