Welcome to our home! 1900

In 1900, the occupants of 424 S 7th Street consisted of married couple, 49-year-old Garret H. Welsh and 40-year-old Cordelia Welsh, their five-year-old son Garrett Jr., and a 33-year-old boarder named Solomon Cole. Besides Garrett Jr., the Welshes had three other children together. Both parents could read and write.

The Welshes were most likely a working-class family. Garrett was a day laborer and one of the many thousands of African Americans at the time who had left their home in the South to find employment in northern cities. By 1900, Philadelphia was home to 40,000 African Americans, comprising the largest Black population of any northern city. [1] Despite the ample opportunity for employment, job conditions continued to be difficult. As a day laborer Garrett would have been hired and paid one day at a time, with no promise that more work would be available in the future. Despite the progressive labor movement happening during this period, most trade unions either refused or, as in iron and steel and in meat-packing, failed to organize the less skilled. As a Black man, Garrett would have been further discriminated against. In 1902, Blacks made up barely 3 percent of the total trade union membership. [2]

Despite the labor conditions, the abundant industrial jobs in Philadelphia also drew thousands of immigrants. While at the time of W.E.B. DuBois’s study, the area was primarily home to German and Irish immigrants besides Black residents, by 1900, an increasing number of Eastern European immigrants and even a small group of Arab immigrants began to settle in the area. In the 1870s, the Pennsylvania Railroad built the Washington Avenue Immigration Station just south of South Street, and over the next forty-five years, thousands of Italians, Poles, and Eastern European Jews located in the area. [3] Between 1870 and 1910, the number of Philadelphia’s Russian-born Jews rose from 100 to nearly 91,000. [4] Italian immigrant numbers also skyrocketed. Many of these immigrants settled in rowhouses on or near South Street and would have been neighbors of the Welsh family. These new arrivals helped transform South Street into a major commercial corridor with an open-air food market, garment workshops, warehouses, stores with Jewish vendors selling fabric and household items, and Italian-owned produce stands.

Welcome to our home! 1920

In 1920, a single occupant was listed as living at 424 S 7th Street. Joseph Abraham was a 39-year-old immigrant from what was listed as Arabia. During the early years of the first major Arab migration to the United States, which lasted from around 1881 to 1914, the U.S. had no standard terminology on how to identify from what part of the Ottoman Empire Arab immigrants originated. [1] Based on this description, Joseph could have been from Lebanon, Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, or Yemen. However, it is likely that Joseph Abraham was one of the small numbers of Lebanese Christians who settled around South Street, and who were among the first Arabic speakers to arrive in the United States. Additionally, many early Lebanese immigrants were predominantly male, like Joseph. Although Joseph is listed as married, his spouse and family may not have joined him in the United States yet.

Like many immigrants at the time, Arab immigrants were met with hostility by a prevalent, nativist attitude. Even the question of Arab eligibility for American citizenship proved contentious and was not legally solidified until a series of successful lawsuits between 1910 and 1923. [2] In 1920, Joseph Abraham had submitted his papers for naturalization but had not yet been granted citizenship. In the decade following 1920, a series of nativist laws were passed. First, the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921 set numerical limits on European immigration for the first time in United States’ history. Then the National Origins Act of 1924 even further lowered the number of eligible immigrants. [3] While by 1920, Arab Americans were living and working in over 80% of all U.S. counties, these acts almost halted immigration to the United States from Arab nations. [4]

Despite these later restrictions, in 1920, South Street was an incredibly diverse residential and commercial center. Based on the census, Joseph Abraham worked as a self-employed candy merchant. This could mean he was involved in the business and trade of candy between suppliers and retailers or it could possibly mean he was a pushcart merchant. At the time, pushcart merchants of all nationalities lined South Street selling vegetables, fruits, pots and pans, and even clothing. Their two-wheel carts allowed them to push their carts from neighborhood to neighborhood selling their wares. In the summer, there were even a number of water-ice carts.

Welcome to our home! 1940

In 1940, 424 S 7th Street was occupied by the Little family and their lodgers, the Hopkins. The Littles consisted of 43-year-old Rose Little, her 28-year-old daughter Frances Fulton, and 13-year-old grandson, Louis Little. The Littles were joined by their lodgers, a married couple, 36-year-old DeWitt Hopkins and 29-year-old Beulah Hopkins.

During the First World War, American industries faced critical labor shortages. This included the Pennsylvania Railroad, which in 1916 began offering free transportation to the North to any Southern Blacks who were willing to work for the railroad. [1] Decisions by the Pennsylvania Railroad and other northern industries to allow African American workers, spurred a mass exodus northward for many African Americans. During the Great Migration from 1917 into 1970, more than 6 million African Americans migrated from the South to primarily northern urban centers. [2] The Littles and Hopkins were both part of this migration pattern. Rose was born in Georgia; Frances and DeWitt were born in Florida; and Beulah was born in North Carolina.

The pull of economic opportunities in the North and persistent discrimination and Jim Crow Laws in the South were some of the primary motivators of this great migration. As a major industrial hub and the nation’s second biggest port, Philadelphia had a massive demand for new workers. Southern Black men found employment in the region’s steel mills and munition plants, while Southern women, like both Rose and Frances, worked as domestic workers cleaning, cooking, and caring for the children of White families. Until later in the 1940s, when more opportunities for women in the workplace opened up, domestic work was the largest category of women’s paid labor. [3] This job was typically left out of state labor regulations and workers labored long hours for low pay. While most European immigrant domestic workers were single young women, many Black women were wives and mothers, such as Rose. [4]

While South Philadelphia remained the heart and soul of Black Philadelphia, the large number of newcomers pushed west towards the Schuylkill River and south into the Italian neighborhoods. Others moved to West Philadelphia, North Philadelphia, Germantown, and Elmwood. By the end of the decade, many government policies led to the flight of White residents to the suburbs from the central city. By 1948, the City Planning Commission had proposed plans to “redevelop” the “blighted” area that made up Society Hill at the Eastern edge of DuBois’s historic Seventh Ward. [5]

Welcome to our home! 1960

Records from the censuses of population and housing are only publicly available 72 years after each decennial census. Therefore, the most recent publicly available census records were from 1940, so there is no public record of who lived at 424 S 7th Street in 1960. However, using oral history records from the Preserving Society Hill project, [1] a fictionalized family was imagined for this site. The fictionalized Cohens, a typical, middle-class family, consisted of 57-year-old Benjamin Cohen, 56-year-old Deborah Cohen, and their children 25-year-old Eli Cohen and 16-year-old Carole Cohen. Deborah was born in what is now Poland, and Benjamin was born in Philadelphia. The Cohens owned and operated a jewelry store on Sansom Street and both Benjamin and his son Eli were master jewelers. [2]

Philadelphia’s Jewish population goes back to the colonial era, but in the late nineteenth century, Russian Jews became the largest foreign-born group in the city. By 1920, the Jewish population around South Street had grown to over 100,000. [3] While declining after the National Origins Act of 1924, the area just east of 424 S 7th Street has continued to have a high proportion of Jewish residents like the Cohen Family.

The Cohen family originally lived farther east but moved to 424 S 7th Street in 1960 over fears that the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority would take their property. [4] While ultimately their home was not taken by the Authority, the family had reason to be concerned. After a period of decline, the neighborhood now known as Society Hill became a target of Philadelphia’s early urban renewal efforts. Urban renewal was a nationwide program aimed at maintaining central cities after decades of disinvestment and suburban growth. Spearheaded by famous urban planner Edmund Bacon, Society Hill became the first urban renewal project in the nation to incorporate historic preservation. [5] In 1960, the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority, burgeoned by an influx of federal urban renewal dollars condemned any property in the neighborhood that was vacant or in poor condition. Existing homeowners could keep their homes, but they had to prove they had the resources to repair them. However, the renters of the neighborhood, who were often non-white, did not have the same set of choices. Therefore, these people were forced to leave their dwellings. By the end of the project, most of the Black residents in the area had been displaced.

While 18th-century buildings were restored, many 19th-century buildings were demolished and replaced by new residential construction, including the high-rise Society Hill Towers designed by famous architect I.M. Pei. The area went from being one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city in the 1950s to one of the wealthiest by the 1970s and is often lauded as a model of urban renewal. However, the transformation of Society Hill in the 1960s is also considered one of the first instances of gentrification in the United States. [6] The Society Hill project drastically shifted the area demographics of the neighborhood that once overlapped with the Seventh Ward and the heart of the Black community in Philadelphia. While from the 1940s through the 60s, the city of Philadelphia saw an increase of Black residents to the area and loss of White residents to the suburbs, 20 years after the Society Hill project, it saw an influx of White residents, but also the seeming disappearance of Black residents. Despite the Redevelopment Authority's promise to tend to the relocation of displaced families, there was little to no effort to relocate them.[7]

Welcome to our home! 2021

While the current owners of the 424 S 7th Street home are on public record through the city of Philadelphia, in order to preserve the privacy of the owners on this site, the names have been fictionalized. In 2021, the current residents are 54-year-old Matthew Rapley and 52-year-old Diana Rapley. Matthew and Diana are both successful attorneys, so they are able to afford the home’s current, steep market value of $580,900. [1] The couple may have been attracted to the house due to its close proximity to the many restaurants and shops on South Street as well as easy access to Center City.

These amenities have attracted many wealthier families to the area in recent years. As Center City creeps southward, real estate values in the area continue to rise and concerns over displacement and gentrification have been raised. [2] For decades, South Street had been a gathering spot for the city’s Black population, immigrants, and creative community, but with the community changing around them, the future character of this area seems uncertain. Today, most of the previous, working-class residents of 424 S 7th Street would most likely not be able to afford to live in the area.