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Drayman racing on the streets of Philadelphia, by August Kollner, 1847.
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Drayman, horse and wagons, racing on the streets of Philadelphia.

Credit: Courtesy of the State Museum of Pennsylvania

In 1847, August Kollner drew two draymen engaged in a spontaneous race on a Philadelphia street for a Sunday School Union publication. To protect passersby from just this sort of event–and the more organized races that also once took place on Philadelphia thoroughfares– the Pennsylvania legislature in 1817 had outlawed racing on Philadelphia's public roads.

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