Elfreth's Alley Museum
Episode 2.08: Laboring Philadelphians

In our Season 2 finale, we look at the people who have been there throughout all of the other episodes—the laborers! We also try to consider what types of labor today share the physical toll and the meager wages with laborers of the past.

Elfreth's Alley Museum
Episode 2:01: The Mechanics' Lecture

In 1789, a pamphlet was published in Philadelphia, an ode to the "mechanics" of the world. In this introductory episode of Season 2, we tell the story of the author of this pamphlet and lay out our plan for the episodes to follow.

Podcast
Elfreth's Alley
Episode 1: The Dressmakers

In Episode 1 of The Alley Cast, Isabel Steven tells the story of three women who lived on Elfreth's Alley in the eighteenth century who worked as dressmakers. Steven explores us how these women made their living sewing clothes and invites us to imagine what their working and personal relationships might have been like.

The Alley Cast

Episode 2.07: The Servers

The ongoing pandemic has wreaked chaos on the restaurant industry, closing popular spots and leaving huge numbers of restaurant workers out of work. In this episode of The Alley Cast, we explore the long history of the transience of restaurant work in order to try to gain some perspective on the challenges of today.

Episode 2.02: Building Houses, Part I

This week, on the Alley Cast, we start our exploration of the story of building houses in Philadelphia over the past three centuries. In Part I, we talk with Alex Palma of Carpenters’ Hall and Rachel Schade, architect and professor at Drexel University, about early construction in Philadelphia. How did master builders learn their trade? Who else was involved in construction? How did the threat of fire and financial concerns such as insurance influence the design and building of houses?

Episode 8: Renewal

This season we have worked our way from dressmakers in 1762 through to 20th-century preservationists, with many other topics in between. We have explored how the neighborhood around Elfreth’s Alley was built and rebuilt, how economic and demographic changes in the city as a whole affected this little street, and how commemoration and preservation began to remake the street even as these efforts remained, in effect, racially segregated.

Today we continue with the story of 20th century commemoration efforts on the Alley as well as at Independence Hall, and we will wrap up this first season of The Alley Cast.