Manayunk
Once a quiet village resting along the banks of the Schuylkill River, Manayunk’s industrial boom began when the Schuylkill Navigation Company completed the Manayunk Canal in 1818. Just one year later, Captain John Towers opened the first mill to use the canal’s water power. Soon after, factories, textile mills, and neighborhoods full of immigrants and workers of German, Italian, Polish, and Irish descent sprang up. The area quickly gained a lucrative reputation as a textile industry hub and was incorporated as a borough in 1840 with the name “Manayunk,” closely related to the Lenape tribe’s word for “river.”
A vital player in the Industrial Revolution, Manayunk differed from other textile mills and manufacturing hubs in the United States. Rather than operating under large corporations, Manayunk’s mills were often family-owned, allowing for greater flexibility in production and investment. Additionally, immigrants who moved to the neighborhood often found upward mobility from laboring in the mills to working in their offices. Manayunk’s labor conditions, however, were subpar for most workers who came to the area, and the neighborhood faced strikes and worker uprisings throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
After many of its factories shuttered during the Great Depression, Manayunk suffered a period of steep economic decline. In the 1990s, upscale restaurants opened on Main Street, bringing much-needed retail and less-desirable development to the neighborhood. Today, residents strive to retain Manayunk’s original charm—along with its iconic row homes, cobblestone paving, and hilly streets.
Kensington
The original hub of Philadelphia’s working-class population, Kensington’s boundaries have fluctuated since Anthony Palmer purchased it from private landowners in the 1730s. Palmer came to Philadelphia from Barbados and sold parcels of land to shipbuilders who were outgrowing their riverfront lots in Old City and other neighborhoods.
As a large Irish immigrant population moved to Kensington in the 19th century, its industries shifted focus from fishermen and ship-builders to textile mills, making it a national and international leader in manufacturing. The neighborhood was not just limited to the production of textile products, however. Kensington facilitated a comprehensive manufacturing process by housing waste mills, dye works, foundries, machine shops, bolt shops, and box factories, independent from external supply chains.
Child labor was a prominent issue during the 19th and 20th centuries in Kensington and at other textile mills in the United States. In response, progressive activists such as Mary Harris Jones (aka Mother Jones) protested unfair labor conditions through marches, strikes, and other actions. She also organized a “Children’s Crusade” from Kensington to Oyster Bay, New York, where children working in textile mills carried signs bearing slogans like “We want to go to school and not the mines!”
After industry declined in the 1950s, Kensington suffered from high unemployment rates and an eventual economic downturn. The neighborhood has since begun its revitalization, turning once-abandoned factories and warehouses into spaces for artisans and small shops—but also increasing housing prices and pushing Kensington’s working-class residents toward other low-income areas of Philadelphia.