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Events and People Historic Sites

Richard Allen and the Founding of Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church


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Throughout the 1700 and 1800s, Philadelphia was home to a large community of free African-Americans, many of whom were descendants of enslaved Africans forcibly brought to America. Members of the community formed churches, schools, businesses, and charitable societies. One of these churches, Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church, would become an important part of the community and influence African-American religious life throughout the country.

The history of Mother Bethel is inextricably bound up with the history of its founder, Richard Allen. Born into a slave-holding household in Philadelphia in 1760, Allen and his family were later sold to Stokeley Sturgis, a farmer in Delaware. In 1777 at the age of 17, Allen became a religious believer after hearing the preaching of a traveling Methodist pastor. Allen convinced his master to allow a minister to preach at the farm. When Sturgis heard the abolition influenced sermon, he agreed to allow Allen to buy his freedom. After three years of working nights and odd jobs, Allen became a free man at the age of 20.


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For the next few years, Allen supported himself by taking manual labor jobs while traveling extensively through several states and preaching on the Methodist circuit. In 1786, Allen was invited to preach to African-American members at St. George’s Methodist Church in Philadelphia where he was required to lead services at 5am so as to not interfere with the worship of the white congregants. As the African-American membership at St. George’s grew under Allen’s leadership, racial tensions in the congregation also increased. In 1787, Allen and Absalom Jones founded the Free African Society, an organization to provide aid to members of the black community. When Allen, Jones, and other African-Americans left St. George’s in protest of racial discrimination, they turned to the Free African Society as a source of religious leadership. The Society under Jones’ leadership would eventually organize the African Church, now known as the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, in 1792. Allen, however, wished to maintain a connection with the Methodist church and purchased land at 6th and Lombard Streets for the construction of a church. On July 29, 1794, Bethel Church was dedicated at the location. Facing interference from other Methodist congregations, Allen successfully fought in court for the right of Bethel to exist as an independent congregation. In 1816, Bethel joined with other black Methodist congregations to found the African Methodist Episcopal Church in America. Bethel became Mother Bethel and Allen was appointed the first bishop of the church.

Allen and Mother Bethel continued to play a role in the life of the free African-American community of Philadelphia. The church served as a stop on the Underground Railroad, and Allen remained an active leader of the church working for the rights of free and enslaved African-Americans. Constructed in the 1890s, the current Mother Bethel church building still sits at 6th and Lombard on the oldest parcel of real estate in the United States continuously owned by African-Americans. Richard Allen died on March 26, 1831. He and his wife Sarah are interred in a lower level of the church.


Sources

“About Us…History.” The African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas. http://www.aecst.org/about.htm

“About Us – Our History.” African Methodist Episcopal Church. http://www.ame-church.com/about-us/history.php

“History of the AME Church.” Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church.  http://www.motherbethel.com/museum.htm

“Richard Allen.” Africans in America. PBS Online. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3p97.html

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Historic Sites

Entering America: The Washington Avenue Immigration Station


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In the early 1600s, Europeans began arriving in the Philadelphia area, inhabited at the time by members of the Lenape tribe. Over the next four hundred years, immigrants, affected by various social, political, geographic, and economic factors, would continue to leave their countries of origin and settle in Philadelphia. While the population of the United States grew throughout this time period, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw an especially large boom in the growth of cities. As the American population shifted from predominantly rural to predominantly urban, immigrants also began settling in cities in large numbers.

Despite its location over a hundred miles from the ocean, Philadelphia served as the port of entry for 1.3 million immigrants from 1815 to 1985. In 1873, two steamship lines, the American Line and the Red Star line, began regular steamship service between Europe and Philadelphia. Other companies also began offering service to Philadelphia including the Hamburg-American Line, which operated runs between Hamburg, Germany and Philadelphia beginning in 1898. From 1873 until the enacting of stricter immigration quotas in 1924, over one million immigrants arrived in Philadelphia. These immigrants received health inspections at various locations on the Delaware River before disembarking at the immigration stations in Philadelphia and passing through customs.


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The Washington Avenue Immigration Station, the first of these stations, was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad in the 1870s on a pier located where Washington Avenue approaches the Delaware River. After completing all their paperwork at the station, some immigrants found employment and housing in Philadelphia while others traveled on to different locations. Since the station was owned by the railroad, train tickets were readily available for purchase, and many immigrants chose to board trains for destinations throughout the United States. The Washington Avenue Station was demolished in 1915.

As in cities across the country, the increase in immigration to Philadelphia brought new cultural customs and traditions as well as ethnic and economic tensions that influenced the development of the city and continue to have an effect on American history and policy today.

Sources
Miller, Fredric M. “Immigration through the Port of Philadelphia.” In Forgotten Doors: The Other Ports of Entry to the United States, edited by M. Mark Stolarik, 37-54. Philadelphia: Balch Institute Press, 1988.

Miller, Fredric M. “Philadelphia: Immigrant City.” Balch Online Resources.

Sitarski, Stephen M. “From Weccacoe to South Philadelphia: The Changing Face of a Neighborhood.” Pennsylvania Legacies 7, no. 2 (November 2007).

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Events and People

Poinsett and Smith and the 1914 Occupation of Veracruz


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With photographs of quiet neighborhood streets, busy commercial districts, schools, stores, trolleys, parks, and dozens of other aspects of daily urban life, the images on PhillyHistory.org provide a beautiful visual history of change and development in the communities throughout Philadelphia.

Often, though, there are photos on PhillyHistory.org that not only tell the story of Philadelphia’s past but also demonstrate the role that Philadelphians have played in events throughout the country and around the world. A series of photographs of the 1914 funeral of two sailors, George Poinsett and Charles Allen Smith, provides just one example of the internationally significant events depicted on PhillyHistory.

By 1914, the United States government had spent several years cautiously watching the Mexican Revolution and judging its possible impact on American citizens and business interests both in Mexico and along the border between the two countries. To protect these interests, the United States stationed U.S. Navy warships at the Mexican ports of Tampico and Vera Cruz in early 1914.[1] At the same time, President Woodrow Wilson rescinded an arms embargo that had prevented the sale of arms to either General Victorio Huerta, who had seized power from the Mexican president in February 1913, or Governor Venustiano Carranza and Pancho Villa, supporters of the previous president who were attempting to wrest control of Mexico from Huerta. President Wilson offered to provide help to Carranza. When the US forces at Vera Cruz learned that German weapons would be arriving at Vera Cruz for Huerta, President Wilson ordered them to seize the town’s customhouse and capture the weapons.[2]


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On April 21, 1914, 787 marines and sailors went ashore to seize the customhouse and were fired upon by Mexican forces. By April 22, the American troops had occupied the town. In two days of fighting, 17 Americans were killed and 61 wounded. An estimated 152-172 Mexicans were killed and 195-240 wounded. American forces would continue to occupy Vera Cruz until November 1914.[3]

Among the seventeen Americans killed during the initial occupation of Vera Cruz were Seaman George Poinsett and Ordinary Seaman Charles Allen Smith, both of Philadelphia. Eyewitnesses to the events stated that Poinsett was the first man killed during the occupation and “was shot by a Mexican sharpshooter while raising the flag on the Plaza following the first landing of marines.”[4] After the battle, the bodies of the seventeen men arrived in New York City on May 11, 1914 aboard the battleship Montana. The coffins were placed on caissons and then traveled from the Montana at Pier A past City Hall to the Navy Yard. At the Navy Yard, President Woodrow Wilson delivered a funeral oration during a ceremony that was attended by the Governor of New York, the Secretary of the Navy, and various other officials and citizens.[5]


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After the ceremony, the bodies of the men were shipped to their relatives. As shown in the photographs on PhillyHistory.org, Poinsett and Smith were given a funeral in Philadelphia with a procession beginning at Independence Square. Unfortunately, there are few additional details available about the ceremony.

The American occupation of Vera Cruz in 1914 may not be as well known as other military events in United States history. At the time of its occurrence, however, it signaled America’s increased involvement in political and military affairs in Mexico. These photographs on PhillyHistory.org show Philadelphia’s connection to one international event that significantly impacted relations between Mexico and the United States and influenced future actions between the countries.


[1] Yockelson, Mitchell. “The United States Armed Forces and the Mexican Punitive Expedition: Part 1.” Prologue 29:3, Fall 1997.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Russel, Thomas Herbert. Mexico in Peace and War. Sumner C. Britton: Chicago, 1914, p. 22.

[5] New York Times. “Vera Cruz Dead Here on Warship.” May 11, 1914.

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Entertainment

The Dempsey-Tunney Fight of 1926


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Among the many events at the Sesquicentennial, perhaps none drew as much attention and publicity as the world’s heavyweight title fight between defending champion Jack Dempsey and challenger Gene Tunney. Held at the Sesquicentennial Municipal Stadium on September 23, 1926, the boxing match drew a crowd of over 120,000 people and became one of the best known fights of the 1920s.

Although Tex Rickard, the promoter for the fight, originally investigated staging the match in Chicago or Jersey City, he eventually arranged for it to be held on September 16, 1926 at Yankee Stadium in New York. These arrangements had to be abandoned, however, when the License Committee of the New York State Athletic Commission refused to issue Dempsey a license to box in New York. Rather than fight the decision in court, Rickard chose to accept the offer of E.L. Austin, Director of the Sesquicentennial, to hold the match at the Municipal Stadium in Philadelphia on September 23.[1]


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The decision to move the match to Philadelphia was warmly welcomed by residents of the city. Boxing was hugely popular in the 1920s. As Tunney prepared for his match with Dempsey, a crowd of 2,000 people came just to watch him spar twelve rounds with two workout partners on August 15, 1926.[2] On that same day, more than 1,000 people paid $1 each plus tax to watch Dempsey during his workout at Saratoga Springs, New York.[3] The New York Times published 75 articles on the fight preparations in August and September alone and ran a three-tiered front page headline as well as nine full pages of coverage the day after the fight.[4] While tickets to the fight sold quickly, not everyone approved of the bout being held at the Sesquicentennial. One letter to the New York Times argued that the fight was being held to “bolster up deficient receipts” at the Sesquicentennial and that it was “disgraceful and humiliating (or should be) to the American people.”[5]

Plenty of Americans did not find the fight disgraceful or humiliating at all. The match was attended by both the mayor of Philadelphia and the mayor of New York City as well as Pennsylvania Governor Pinchot, several other governors from across the country, Secretary of the Navy Curtis D. Wilbur, and many millionaires and members of well-known families.[6] Extra trains brought crowds from New York, New Jersey, Chicago, and dozens of other places. People around the world eagerly listened for radio and telegraph reports regarding the outcome of the match.


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After ten rounds fought in the pouring rain, Tunney defeated Dempsey to claim the title of world’s heavy-weight champion. Although the match did not end in a knockout, Tunney is said to have been “a complete master, from first bell to last. He out-boxed and he out-fought Dempsey at every turn.”[7] In meticulous detail, the New York Times summarizes the fight and notes Tunney’s strategic and calculated responses to the more rushed and ineffectual charges by Dempsey. One year later on September 22, 1927, Tunney would successfully defend his title and defeat Dempsey again at Soldier Field in Chicago in a fight that came to be known as The Long Count.

The Dempsey-Tunney boxing match drew incredible crowds to the Sesquicentennial and demonstrates the extreme popularity of boxing during the 1920s. The Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce estimated that the crowds likely brought an additional $3,000,000 in revenue to city businesses through purchases of meals, hotel rooms, train and taxi rides, and other items.[8] The match helped boost Sesquicentennial attendance numbers while also showing that many members of the public now favored public sporting events to world’s fairs as a way to spend their leisure time and money.


[1] New York Times, “Dempsey Title Bout Suddenly Shifted to Philadelphia.” August 19, 1926.

[2] New York Times, “Tunney Boxes Twelve Rounds; 2,000 Attend the Workout.” August 16, 1926.

[3] New York Times, “1,000 Pay $1 Each to Watch Dempsey.” August 16, 1926.

[4] Pope, Steven W. “Negotiating the ‘Folk Highway’ of the Nation: Sport, Public Culture and American Identity, 1870-1940.” Journal of Social History Vol 27 No 2. (Winter, 1993): p. 327-340.

[5] French, Joseph Lewis. “Disapproval of Sesqui Fight.” New York Times. September 12, 1926.

[6] Davis, Elmer. “Victory is Popular One.” New York Times. September 24, 1926.

[7] Dawson, James P. “Tunney Always Master.” New York Times. September 24, 1926.

[8] New York Times. “Philadelphia Sees Bout a Great Boon.” September 25, 1926.