A Portrait of the Philadelphians--The first European settlers in Philadelphia, arriving in the 1640s, were from Sweden. (You can see models of the two ships that brought them over in Gloria Dei Church.) Unusual tolerance, epitomized by the Quakers, helped lead to two separate strains of immigration during the first centuries of the city's history. One was made up of large European families drawn to the new world by the promise of cheap farmland -- English, Scottish, Sephardic Jews, and Germans (Deutsch in German -- hence the term Pennsylvania Dutch). The other group included thousands of London-based craftsmen, servants, and sailors, including London-based French Huguenots. German immigrants specialized in linen and wool weaving and ironwork, French Huguenots in fine silver, and all immigrants from all ethnic groups farmed and built ships.
In general the quality of life was high, despite a disastrous 1793 yellow fever epidemic. Franklin's legacy flourished. The resources of the Library Company became available to the public, and both men and women received "modern" educations -- that is, more emphasis on accounting and less on classics. The 1834 Free School Act established a democratic public school system. Private academies, such as Germantown Friends School and Friends Select, are still going strong today. Culture flourished -- the Walnut Street Theater, founded in 1809, is the oldest American theater still in constant use, and the Musical Fund Hall at 808 Locust St. (now apartments) hosted operas, symphony orchestras, and chamber ensembles. The 1805 Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, now at Broad and Cherry streets, taught such painters as Washington Allston and the younger Peales. Charles Willson Peale, the eccentric patriarch, set up the first American museum in the Long Hall of Independence Hall; its exhibits included a portrait gallery and the first lifelike arrangements of full-size stuffed animals.
The 19th century saw the arrival of English commoners fleeing the industrialization of their countryside in the 1820s, Irish escaping from the 1840s potato famine, and waves of Germans and central Europeans seeking peace and stability during the 1870s. From the 1880s to the 1920s, Russians and Jews from eastern Europe, Italians, and free blacks from the American South all migrated in record numbers to the city. In recent years, Asian and Hispanic immigrants have filled in the gap left by the suburban exodus of earlier groups, creating a more multicultural Philadelphia than ever before.
