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Philadelphia: The Great Experiment Sneak Peek

Presented by Gershman Y at Gershman Y

January 13, 2011

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1865-1876 was a time of enormous change for Philadelphia. A new and modern city was being birthed. Streetcars opened undeveloped areas to residential growth and became the stage on which an emerging movement for civil rights would be fought. A new public building-City Hall-would house the modern municipal bureaucracy. On the street, competition between African Americans and Irish immigrants created a cauldron of conflict. The mayoral election of 1871 was a major flash point. By the end of that day, riots and chaos left four dead and impacted political alliances for a generation to come. The Philadelphia that evolved in this period created the foundation of the modern city powered by a manufacturing economy that prided itself on entrepreneurship, innovation and invention. Its crowning achievement was a world's fair, the Centennial of 1876, an expression that America had indeed arrived and would, like its host city, be a force to be reckoned with. These stories and more are depicted in the pilot episode of a multi-part documentary film, Philadelphia: The Great Experiment which History Making Productions, is producing.