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"Where Negroes live, Surface drainage," Philadelphia, PA, circa 1905.
Credit: Allan Macintyre © President and Fellows of Harvard College
In decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century, settlement houses and other private charitable groups and organizations sprang up in Philadelphia and cities across the nation. This photo was one of many taken to document the poor sanitation in Philadelphia's immigrant and African American neighborhoods and to mobilize the public and city governments to improve the lives of the nation's urban poor.