What does the past look like?
This was the question that during the 1930s preservationists sought to answer along Elfreth’s Alley by restoring it to appear as they imagined it must have in colonial Philadelphia. The alley, located between North 2nd St. and North Front St. in today’s Old City neighborhood, is named after a blacksmith who lived there alongside other tradespeople during the first decades of the eighteenth century. Although successive waves of industrialization, immigration, and deindustrialization made the alley a mirror of Philadelphia’s urban transformations, the past that visitors encounter there today still reflects the vision of people concerned to capture one particular moment in time.
These photographs show how Elfreth’s Alley appeared during the decades following its restoration. Most of them were taken on Fete Day, an annual celebration during which the alley’s private residents open their doors to visitors. All of them appeared in the pages of The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin.
Looking at how people look at people looking at the past makes us aware of how constructed our historical gaze really is: by the people around us, by the places we go, and by the ideas we have about history and its meanings. It reminds us that, no matter how hard we try to see the past, we inevitably end up seeing ourselves.
This exhibit is a project of the Center for Public History, which is grateful for support from:
- Marc Getty, Director of Information Technology, College of Liberal Arts
- Ken Finkel, History Department
- Jay Lockenour, Chair, History Department
- Ted Maust, Director, Elfreth’s Alley Association
- John Pettit, Assistant Archivist, Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries
- Margery Sly, Director of Special Collections, Temple University Libraries
- Byron Wolfe, Program Head of Photography, Tyler School of Art
Curated by Seth C. Bruggeman, Director, Center for Public History. Direct all comments and queries to scbrug@temple.edu.