Philadelphias Fairmount Park focuses on the more than four thousand acres of land along the east and west banks of the Schuylkill River and into parts of the Wissahickon Valley that comprise one of the worlds largest urban parks. Historically and architecturally important structures and buildings are chronicled, such as the famous waterworks, the many bridges that span the parks waterways, the Zoological Gardens, and Boathouse Row. Numerous fountains, monuments, and artistic sculptures that dot the landscape are also documented. Rich in natural beauty, the parks meadows, gardens, lush vegetation, rugged ravines, and wooded areas will capture the eye. Philadelphias Fairmount Park is a nostalgic view of the park as it was enjoyed by visitors during the first quarter of the twentieth century.

Streetcar service arrived in Philadelphia in the 1850s, shortly after the consolidation of the city. After the Civil War, the horse-drawn omnibus gave way to a comprehensive network of streetcar lines with some routes measuring nineteen miles in length. By 1915, the electrification of the streetcar increased the number of routes in Philadelphia to a total of eighty-six. During the trolley's heyday, the city provided a vast test track for such companies as J.G. Brill, Kimball and Gorton Car Manufacturers, and the Budd Wheel Company. The Wharton Railroad Switch Company revolutionized the manufacture of switches and tracks. Of the lines that once operated in Philadelphia, five are still running today. Philadelphia Trolleys contains a variety of rare images, including a postcard of the Point Breeze Amusement Park, photographs of motormen's uniform badges and buttons, architectural drawings, early stock certificates, and a photograph of the Toonerville Trolley used in the silent movies produced by Lubin Studios in the 1920s.

For four years, early in the last century, the Fairmount Park Motor Races were run on an eight-mile course in Philadelphia's West Fairmount Park. They drew half a million spectators the first year, but surprisingly they have been overlooked as part of automobile racing history and as part of the history of Philadelphia. In contrast to other racing events, such as the Vanderbilt Cup, there were never any serious injuries and not a single death, but after four years of spectacular racing, the event was banned, with safety concerns cited. Opening with a brief look at automobile racing prior to 1908, the book covers the events leading up to the first race. It discusses the proposal to have a race in Fairmount Park and the reasons why Philadelphia, and the park in particular, was such an unlikely place. Both the on-track action of the races and the off-track events that affected them are described. Dr. J. William White's successful crusade, following the 1911 outing, to stop the races is examined, as are attempts to revive the race in the following six years, including Philadelphia's attempt to compete with Indianapolis by constructing a two-mile oval speedway, and the city's eventual exit from automobile racing.

The many neighborhoods west of the Schuylkill River across from William Penn's "Quaker City" were distinctly rural until 1860, when horsecar lines first crossed the river. The area soon became home to wealthy businessmen who built elegant mansions and villas in University City and Powelton Village. West Philadelphia's growth accelerated northward into Belmont and Parkside-Girard after the 1876 Centennial Exposition and westward into Cedar Park, Spruce Hill, and Walnut Hill in the 1890s with the introduction of electric trolley lines. West Philadelphia: University City to 52nd Street is the first photographic history of the area in the last one hundred years. Images of the typical, modest West Philadelphia row houses, which slowly took over the open farmland after the Market Street Elevated opened in 1907, tell the story of how Philadelphia became known as the "City of Homes." Countless, rarely seen photographs of the streets where people lived and worked fill this extraordinary history.

An extensive number of trolley car lines linked the city of Philadelphia to the rich farmland and picturesque towns of southeastern Pennsylvania. These trolley lines traversed miles of narrow streets lined with row houses whose residents were proud working-class Americans. These historic photographs trace the trolley cars' routes, including Route 23, the region's longest urban trolley route, from the expanses of Northwest Philadelphia's Chestnut Hill through the crowded commercial Center City to South Philadelphia with a variety of neighborhood stops at everything in between. Southeastern Pennsylvania Trolleys follows the history of the trolley cars that have served this diverse and historic region.

Millions of urbanites never see primeval forests during their lives except for the old growth forests found in urban parks. Unfortunately, these forests are on the verge of disappearing because arboreal reproduction is lost to human trampling and park administrators and urban foresters do not maintain these “natural” forests. To aid urban foresters and park managers in meeting the challenges, research on old growth forests in urban parks is synthesized in terms of historical ecology to introduce the methods utilized to reveal long-term forest composition changes. The case study of three stands in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, PA relates pre-chestnut blight tree species densities and post-chestnut blight arboreal changes to fire and visitor trampling. The information gained on how urban old growth forests have developed and changed is used to develop restoration ecology based frameworks to restore species composition and address challenges to forest survival including invasive species.

The classic historical interpretation of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in America sees this period as a political search for order by the middle class, culminating in Progressive Era reforms. In The Middle-Class City, John Hepp examines transformations in everyday middle-class life in Philadelphia between 1876 and 1926 to discover the cultural roots of this search for order. By looking at complex relationships among members of that city's middle class and three largely bourgeois commercial institutions—newspapers, department stores, and railroads—Hepp finds that the men and women of the middle class consistently reordered their world along rational lines. According to Hepp, this period was rife with evidence of creative reorganization that served to mold middle-class life. The department store was more than just an expanded dry goods emporium; it was a middle-class haven of order in the heart of a frenetic city—an entirely new way of organizing merchandise for sale. Redesigned newspapers brought well-ordered news and entertainment to middle-class homes and also carried retail advertisements to entice consumers downtown via train and streetcar. The complex interiors of urban railroad stations reflected a rationalization of space, and rail schedules embodied the modernized specialization of standard time. In his fascinating investigation of similar patterns of behavior among commercial institutions, Hepp exposes an important intersection between the histories of the city and the middle class. In his careful reconstruction of this now vanished culture, Hepp examines a wide variety of sources, including diaries and memoirs left by middle-class women and men of the region. Following Philadelphians as they rode trains and trolleys, read newspapers, and shopped at department stores, he uses their accounts as individualized guidebooks to middle-class life in the metropolis. And through a creative use of photographs, floor plans, maps, and material culture, The Middle-Class City helps to reconstruct the physical settings of these enterprises and recreate everyday middle-class life, shedding new light on an underanalyzed historical group and the cultural history of twentieth-century America.