Relive Philly public history in high fidelity through those who came before us. Historian Janneken Smucker gives us a listen inside the inner workings of the digital oral history project, “Philadelphia Immigration”

Robert Masciantonio dives deep into the history of Philadelphia’s groundbreaking industrial powerhouse, the Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Company

Inside a 124-year-old mill in Kensington, World Manufacturing Inc. is buzzing with work orders. Theresa Stigale puts us on the production line with this photo essay

When the housing bubble burst and the recession hit in 2007, plans to convert Creswell Iron Works on Cherry Street into apartments tanked. The quaint collection of industrial buildings is now headed for demolition. Michael Bixler has the details

Contributor Amy Cohen gives us an intimate glimpse of immigrant life in the late 1800s with excerpts from a diary written by her great-grandfather Saul Kaplan

In Port Richmond, Amy Cohen has a chance encounter with her family’s industrial past when she happens upon a sign for her grandfather’s old business, the Philadelphia Rust-Proof Company

For the last 163 years, the Hall-Woolford Tank Company has supplied the Big Apple with its most enduring skyline icon: the rooftop water tank. Contributor Chris Dougherty takes us into the shop of the Olney manufacturer where the spirit of Workshop of the World is alive and well

If it wasn’t for Philadelphia and the S.L. Allen & Co. the mortality rate of snow sledders at the turn of the century would have been much higher. The farming implement maker introduced steering to sleds in 1900 with their popular Flexible Flyer, taking winter recreation by storm. New contributor Robert Masciantonio has the backstory and takes us inside the old manufacturing plant in Fairhill