Lecturer Aaron Wunsch shows a map detailing the extent of the PECO system by 1961, at The Wagner Free Institute of Science.

Everyone in the Philadelphia technology community relies on it for their livelihood, but few think much about Philadelphia’s electrification system except for when it fails or it comes time to pay bills.

For The Wagner Free Institute of Science, though, electricity is on the mind. The museum, near Temple University’s North Philadelphia main campus, plans to revamp it’s ancient electrical system, but before they do, they brought Aaron Wunsch, a lecturer in Penn’s Graduate Program in Historic Preservation, in on Wednesday to explain how Philadelphia, beginning in the 1880s, got electricity in the first place.

Below we’ll take you on an abbreviated version of Wunsch’s photo tour of Philadelphia as it was becoming electrified.

An Edison Electric Light direct current power plant. Before PECO rose to dominance in the 1890s and implemented alternating current power plants, these direct current power plants were privately owned and could provide power within a few-block radius, Wunsch said.
An old postcard of City Hall lit up. At the time, City Hall had its own isolated generation system, according to Wunsch.

 

The Industrial Parade, headed into the Sesquicentennial fairgrounds, June 4 1926. This enormous Liberty Bell replica display is encrusted in lightbulbs, according to Wunsch.