As is true in many American cities, the beginning of large-scale manufacturing in Philadelphia began during the Industrial Revolution, specifically around 1800. By the early 1900s, the manufacturing center in Philadelphia was continuing to ascend. In the 1920s, the textile and shipbuilding industries of Philadelphia reached their peak, as the entire country suffered a sharp decline in manufacturing (and employment in general) during the Great Depression. The onset of World War II re-sparked the manufacturing industry in Philadelphia, and, by 1953, forty-five percent of Philadelphia residents were employed as manufacturers. After 1953, consumers considered the products that were created by Philadelphia manufactures were outdated, and thus less appealing. The Philadelphia manufacturers were unable to recover from this loss of sales. Because of this, the number of Philadelphians working in manufacturing plummeted in the years following 1953, to the extent that by 2007 only five percent of Philadelphia residents worked in manufacturing (Licht). The graph located below illustrates this decline in Philadelphia manufacturing between 1953 and 2007.
(Licht’s graph from his article, “Workshop of the World,” found at http://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/workshop-of-the-world/)
Correlated with this decline in manufacturing, pollution in the city also fell significantly, largely due to the closure of toxin emitting factories closed. Indeed, there has been a “70 percent drop in toxic emissions [in Philadelphia] in fewer than 20 years, from 1966 to 1985” (“Haunted by an Industrial Future”). As one can see in Licht’s graph, the percentage of Philadelphians employed by the manufacturing industry was in the midst of one of its sharpest declines from 1966-1985. It is thus not surprising to see this “70 percent drop in toxic emissions” between these two decades, as this reflects the decrease in manufacturers, along with their toxic waste products and air polluting smoke stacks.
(Graph from Philadelphia Air Quality Report located at http://www.phila.gov/health/pdfs/airmanagement/AQR_2010_Final.pdf)
Indeed, Philadelphia’s Air Quality Report shows that air pollution in Philadelphia is decreasing to this day, as the general trend in the graph displays the increase in good air quality days and the decline in unhealthy days from the 1990s to 2010 (Philadelphia’s Air Quality Report 2010).
(Header Photo Site [From Getty Images]: http://phillydeclaration.org/2015/03/13/first-energy-hub-hearing-stacked-with-business-interests-environmental-experts-not-invited/)
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