PHILADELPHIA (see 21.367), retaining its rank as third city in the United States, had in 1920 a pop. of 1,823,779, an increase of 274,681 or 17.7% over the 1,549,098 of 1910. The pop. of 1920 comprised whites, 1,688,313; negroes, 134,098, and Chinese, Japanese and Indians, 1,368. The increase in the white pop. since 1910 was 224,942 or 15.4%, while the corresponding increase in the negro pop. was 49,639 or 58.8%. In 1920 males were 908,067, or 49.8%, and females 915,712, or 50.2%.
Government and Finance.—The Bullitt Act, under which the city government had functioned since 1887, gave way in 1920 to the Woodward Act, which became effective with the beginning of the term of Mayor J. Hampton Moore, in Jan. 1920. The new charter differs greatly from its predecessor. Under it a dual council is succeeded by a single body composed of one member for each 20,000 assessed voters in each state senatorial district, the membership in 1920 being twenty-one. The councilmen serve for four years, and receive a salary of $5,000. In the executive department, the department of supplies is superseded by a purchasing agent, and the department of health and public charities is separated into two with a director for each, the title “Public Charities” giving way to “Public Welfare.” Further provisions enable the city to do its own street cleaning and garbage and ash removal, and place the great majority of city employees under civil service rules. By this provision not only small office-holders but the police and fire departments are removed from the possibilities of political activity.
The cost of city operations has grown steadily since 1911, when, under provisions of the state school code of May 18 1911, the Board of Education was separated from the city government. The combined cost in 1911 was $33,846,875.91. With the school expenses eliminated the cost in 1912 of city government was $30,213,067.44; and, barring a slight decrease in 1913, has grown steadily until it reached $48,520,872.92 in 1919. The tax rate, with the school tax transferred to a separate item, was $1 in 1912, $1.25 in 1917, $1.75 in 1918 and $2.15 in 1920. This rate applied to real estate valued in 1919 at $1,805,494,000. At the close of 1919, the gross funded outstanding debt of the city was $173,473,450, of which the commissioners of the sinking fund held $31,898,400, leaving a net funded debt outstanding of $141,575,050.
Commerce and Industry.—As a distinctive manufacturing centre, Philadelphia shared the general depression of 1914, but advanced rapidly with the increasing European demand after the outbreak of the World War.
This is shown in the following table of the export values of the port of Philadelphia from 1910-20:—
| Exports | |
| 1910 | $65,256,949 |
| 1911 | 70,869,648 |
| 1912 | 72,769,617 |
| 1913 | 72,236,967 |
| 1914 | 66,256,811 |
| 1915 | 132,437,556 |
| 1916 | 321,044,815 |
| 1917 | 501,234,069 |
| 1918 | 427,244,212 |
| 1919 | 522,391,091 |
| 1920 | 451,043,216 |
Importation figures also show a remarkable increase in the decade. The imports in 1910 were valued at $89,610,401; in 1915, $69,473,983; and in 1920, $282,157,831. In 1910, 9,871,667 gross tons of shipping arrived and 9,771,266 tons cleared; in 1915, 9,315,157 tons arrived and 9,377,901 cleared; and in 1920, 12,246,427 tons arrived and 12,820,377 cleared. The following table of coal exportation shows the increasing value of the product as compared with tonnage shipped:—
| Coal exported in tons |
Value | |
| 1910 | 866,148 | $2,505,745 |
| 1915 | 1,127,415 | 3,445,643 |
| 1919 | 1,072,773 | 6,434,581 |
This remarkable increase in the activities of the port was made possible by the completion of large parts of the 35-ft. channel from Allegheny Ave., Philadelphia, to the sea. The channel, about 800 ft. wide throughout, was 56% completed on Dec. 31 1920 (the remaining sections having a depth of 30 ft.), while a similar channel in the Schuylkill river, from Passyunk Ave. Bridge to the Delaware, was 65% completed. Both channels are national operations, authorized by Congressional action and carried on with biennial appropriations. The completion of more than half of the main channel opened the port to shipping of a heavier tonnage and the result was manifest in the increased number of lines plying from Philadelphia. In 1914 there were 27 transatlantic and 5 coastal lines; in 1918, at the close of the World War, 36 transatlantic and 4 coastal; and in April 1921, 49 transatlantic and 10 coastal lines. A survey of the Pennsylvania department of internal affairs shows that Philadelphia in 1919 had 4,454 manufacturing establishments, with 297,436 employees, and products of $1,951,998,000. The capital invested was $1,005,658,500. Metals and metal products were first with 946 establishments, 66,991 employees, and products of $366,780,000. Textile factories
numbered 502, with 44,294 employees and products of $292,107,000. The values of other products were: food and kindred lines, $283,531,000; chemicals and allied products, $210,240,000; clothing manufacture, $189,629,000; paper and printing industry, $146,510,000; leather and rubber goods, $130,585,000; building and contracting, $70,344,700; lumber and its remanufacture, $41,747,700; and tobacco and its products, $27,648,000.
History.—Municipal history in 1910-20 was marked with few items of interest outside of the political aspect and the natural effect of American participation in the World War. The late John G. Johnson, the noted corporation lawyer, who died April 14 1917, gave the city his collection of 1,300 pictures, appraised at $4,445,802, but estimated to be worth $7,000,000. In May 1919 the art collection of Mrs. Emily L. Harrison was left to the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art for permanent exhibition in Memorial Hall. In Oct. of the same year, the George W. Elkins collection of paintings, containing 110 masterpieces of the Dutch, Flemish and 18th-century portrait schools, and valued at approximately $2,500,000, was left to the city for display in the new Art Museum. In 1921 the late John Howard McFadden, a cotton broker, left to the municipality his collection of about 50 18th-century English paintings, estimated at $2,000,000. The collection includes the famous Gainsborough, “Lady Rodney,” and a number of fine portraits by Romney and Raeburn. Under the will the collection was to be housed in the projected Art Museum in Fairmount Park, provided that it was completed by 1928. In March 1921, the architects announced that it would be completed within three years.
A free library was being built in 1921, and a convention hall was planned for the Parkway, a thoroughfare from City Hall to Fairmount Park completed in 1919. Three large municipal piers were completed between 1916 and 1920 and three more were under construction. An elaborate subway and elevated transit system was being built by the city, the first line of which, to Frankford, was expected to be in operation by 1922.
War Period.—Philadelphia sent 54,127 men into the National army through the draft, and nearly equalled that figure with volunteer enlistments in the regular army, National Guard and Marine Corps. The city supplied the personnel of two full regiments of the 28th Div. and practically the full personnel of two regiments of the 79th Div., National army.
The city subscribed to the different Liberty Loans and to the Victory Loan as follows:—
| Loan | Apportionment | Subscribed | Per capita Subscription |
| First Liberty | $94,694,750 | $145,172,950 | $80 |
| Second Liberty | 139,499,950 | 234,901,000 | 130 |
| Third Liberty | 136,499,950 | 169,350,600 | 94 |
| Fourth Liberty | 259,198,000 | 311,306,250 | 172 |
| Victory | 186,209,450 | 208,482,200 | 115 |