JonVal Turbines // Philadelphia Waterworks // Cropped

Although America's great industrial centers rose from the banks of rivers that provided cheap power and transportation, Philadelphia was the first large American city to regard the delivery of safe water as a municipal responsibility. In the late 1700s, yellow fever epidemics — then thought by some to be a water-borne disease — compelled civic leaders to name a "Watering Committee" (precursor to the Philadelphia Water Department) to assure a constant supply of uncontaminated drinking water. Committee members eventually chose Frederick Graff to build a waterworks on the eastern bank of the Schuylkill River. Graff's initial use of steam engines to lift water from the river eventually gave way to waterwheels in July 1822. Powered by the river, pumps raised water into reservoirs high atop a nearby hill, Faire Mount (Fairmount). By 1872, even more efficient water-driven Jonval turbines replaced the waterwheels. Already an aesthetic triumph, the Water Works became one of the most profitable and prestigious businesses in the City when it adopted water power.