Pennsylvania in 1838 - Philadelphia, West Philadelphia, Germantown

This Philadelphia city plan comes from Thomas G. Bradford's 1838 An Illustrated Atlas, published by Weeks, Jordan & Co. and Wiley and Putnam and engraved by George W. Boynton at a scale of about 1:16,800, oriented with north at the top. Philadelphia in 1838 was still absorbing the fallout from President Jackson's Bank War, having lost its status as home to the Second Bank of the United States when Jackson vetoed the bank's recharter in 1832 — a blow to the city's standing as the country's financial capital, even as it remained one of the largest manufacturing centers in the country.

The Delaware River runs prominently along the bottom of the map, central to Philadelphia's identity as a port city and hub of economic, political, and cultural life, with West Philadelphia laid out across the river's western bank — a city whose commercial ambitions were undimmed even after losing its central role in national banking.

A fine choice for a Philadelphia native, a transplant who's kept ties to the city, or a collector of early American city plans. Unlike our statewide 1838 Pennsylvania sheet, this one zooms all the way in on the city itself. The print ships unframed and in multiple sizes.