Overview

The Sellers brothers, Samuel and George, came to North America in 1682 as part of the Quaker migration to William Penn's new province on the shores of the Delaware River. Across more than two centuries, the Sellers family-especially Samuel's descendants Nathan, Escol, Coleman, and William-rose to prominence as manufacturers, engineers, social reformers, and urban and suburban developers, transforming Philadelphia into a center of industry and culture. They led a host of civic institutions including the Franklin Institute, Abolition Society, and University of Pennsylvania. At the same time, their vast network of relatives and associates became a leading force in the rise of American industry in Ohio, Georgia, Tennessee, New York, and elsewhere. Engineering Philadelphia is a sweeping account of enterprise and ingenuity, economic development and urban planning, and the rise and fall of Philadelphia as an industrial metropolis. Domenic Vitiello tells the story of the influential Sellers family, placing their experiences in the broader context of industrialization and urbanization in the United States from the colonial era through World War II. The story of the Sellers family illustrates how family and business networks shaped the social, financial, and technological processes of industrial capitalism. As Vitiello documents, the Sellers family and their network profoundly influenced corporate and federal technology policy, manufacturing practice, infrastructure and building construction, and metropolitan development. Vitiello also links the family's declining fortunes to the deindustrialization of Philadelphia-and the nation-over the course of the twentieth century.

Full Product Details

9780801450112

Table of Contents

Reviews

<p> Domenic Vitiello's engaging and accessible study repositions industrialization s actors as proto-planners, fabricating products as well as relationships and institutions that propelled urban economic development and, in time, battled decline. A striking asset here is that his work anatomizes both successes and failures, even when the latter expose individual, family, and organizational shortcomings. Engineering Philadelphia is essential reading for all concerned with urban and industrial history. Philip Scranton, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, coauthor of Reimagining Business History

Domenic Vitiello's engaging and accessible study repositions industrialization s actors as proto-planners, fabricating products as well as relationships and institutions that propelled urban economic development and, in time, battled decline. A striking asset here is that his work anatomizes both successes and failures, even when the latter expose individual, family, and organizational shortcomings. Engineering Philadelphia is essential reading for all concerned with urban and industrial history. Philip Scranton, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, coauthor of Reimagining Business History

<p> Domenic Vitiello deploys the history of one firm that of the Sellers family as a window into understanding the broad sweep of American capitalism over 250 years. Vitiello successfully demonstrates how the Sellers family was embedded in worlds operating at the neighborhood, city, regional, and national scales. The tracing of American industrial history through the business history of one family is a fascinating way to explore the issues Vitiello raises. Robert D. Lewis, University of Toronto, author of Chicago Made: Factory Networks in the Industrial Metropolis

Author Information

Domenic Vitiello is Assistant Professor of City Planning and Urban Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and author of The Philadelphia Stock Exchange and the City It Made.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available