
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.




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