and the local
Lenape depicted in an 18th century sketch Before the first European settlers arrived in present-day Philadelphia, the region was inhabited by the
Lenape, a group of
Native American people. The Lenape occasionally fought with the earliest
Dutch settlers, but had much better relations with
William Penn and the early inhabitants of the English subjects of the colony of
Pennsylvania. Still, disease and development pushed the Lenape west. A member of the
Religious Society of Friends who faced
religious persecution and was imprisoned in
Great Britain for challenging established religious views of the
Church of England, Penn envisioned his colony as a place where many groups of people could live together and worship freely.
Mennonites,
Amish,
Moravians, and
Pietists moved to the area during the 17th century. By the mid-18th century, Quakers and the English had become a minority in the colony as other ethnic groups such as the
Welsh,
Scots,
free blacks,
Germans,
Ulster Scots,
Finns,
Swedes,
Dutch Americans, and
Irish moved to the city.
Lutherans established places of worship in the city as early as the 1720s. In 1748,
Henry Muhlenberg led the founding of the Lutheran-affiliated
Pennsylvania Ministerium. In 1734, followers of what would become the
Schwenkfelder Church arrived in Philadelphia and settled in the region. The first American
Presbytery was founded in 1706 in Philadelphia and a year later in September 1707 the Philadelphia Baptist Association was founded, the oldest
Baptist association in the United States. The city's first
Catholic chapel was built in 1733 and the city's first recorded practicing
Jew, Nathan Levy, arrived as early as 1735. During most of the 19th century, immigrants mainly from Germany, England, and Ireland settled in the city. Some of these immigrants were
Catholic, which fueled
anti-Catholic feelings and organizations. In the 1840s Philadelphia became a major base for anti-Catholic Protestant groups which soon led to
deadly riots in 1844. However, by the end of the 19th century, Roman Catholics had become the largest single denomination in Philadelphia, though all Protestant denominations combined remained a majority of the Christians in Philadelphia into the present day. During the last decades of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, the origin of immigrants shifted from England, Ireland, and Germany to
Italy,
Southern Europe,
Russia,
Poland, and
Eastern Europe. Italians and
Poles helped increase the city's Catholic population, but Jewish immigrants, mainly from Poland,
Lithuania, and Russia, were the largest religion to settle in the city during this period. Supplementing the already settled German Jews, the city's Jewish population swelled from 5,000 in 1881 to 100,000 in 1905. Philadelphia's Italian population changed from 300 in 1870 to 77,000 in 1910.
Hungarian and Polish immigrants also settled in the city, but in smaller numbers. In the 20th century political power began to shift from primarily white Protestants to Irish and Italian Catholics and Jews, with the city's first Catholic and Jewish mayors elected in 1963 and 1992 respectively. In the second half of the 19th century, immigration began from
Latin America, mainly from
Puerto Rico and
Cuba. Starting in the 1950s, large numbers of Puerto Ricans settling primarily in
North Philadelphia. By the end of the 20th century, Puerto Ricans became the largest Latino group in Philadelphia. Immigrants from
China founded
Chinatown in the 1870s and 1880s; over the next century, the neighborhood grew into a diverse community with immigrants from many
Asian countries. By the 21st century, Philadelphia's two largest Asian ethnic groups were Chinese and
Korean immigrants. Philadelphia became the earliest recorded
East Coast city with a Korean community in the 1880s; early members were largely political exiles supporting
Philip Jaisohn. Immigration from the
Middle East to Philadelphia began as early as the 1880s with immigrants primarily from
Lebanon. Starting in the 1960s immigrants from other Middle Eastern countries, such as
Syria, the
Palestinian territories and
Iraq moved to the city. Other immigrants from Asia during the last decades of the 20th century include
Indians,
Vietnamese and
Cambodians. Another community who established an identity in Philadelphia during the 20th century was the
gay community. The city's homosexual community is centered in a portion of
Washington Square West, nicknamed the "gayborhood" by residents.
African Americans high society in 19th century Philadelphia The first black people in Philadelphia were slaves; with at most 1,500 people living as slaves in the city during the period slavery was legal. Slaves in Philadelphia usually lived in the same house of their owners and worked as servants or in their owners' shops. An
abolition law in 1780 did not free any existing slaves, but banned the slave trade in Pennsylvania and freed the children of slaves born after the law was passed once they reached a certain age. By the time the law was passed, about 400 slaves and 800 free black people lived in Philadelphia. Many newly freed slaves and escaped slaves from the
South moved to the city, and by 1820 the city's
African American population was nearly eleven percent. During this time one former slave,
Richard Allen, founded the
African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. As the African American population grew, so did white hostility towards them. African Americans were attacked and killed in the street and in their houses during a race riot in 1834, and four years later a state law was passed that prevented African Americans from voting. Abolitionists were also targets; they were prevented from spreading their message, and one of their meeting houses was burned. In the latter half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century large numbers of African Americans migrated from the Southern United States to Philadelphia giving the city the largest African American population of a northern U.S. city. In 1896
W. E. B. Du Bois came to Philadelphia and wrote his sociological book
The Philadelphia Negro. Du Bois' study of the city's African Americans found many lived in Center City with growing populations in
West Philadelphia. Many African Americans lived in neighborhoods near the rich white families they worked for. There was also a small group of upper class African Americans, both educated, wealthy and Philadelphia born, who descended from freedmen earlier in the century. The aristocratic African Americans were generally isolated, not recognized or even known about by the white population and alienated from the rest of the city's African American population. As Philadelphia grew more industrialized the new factories refused to hire African Americans, with only about one percent of Philadelphia's African American population finding employment with the factories. In 1899, W. E. B. Du Bois said that ninety percent of the African American population in the city was below the
poverty line.
White-collar office jobs also refused to hire African Americans and many worked as domestic workers. There were African Americans that did manage to own their own businesses, while other became professionals such as doctors and lawyers. In 1884 Christopher J. Perry founded
The Philadelphia Tribune, a newspaper for African Americans. During
World War II, factories began hiring African Americans. The
Philadelphia Police Department first hired African Americans in 1881. In the 1950s, the first African American promoted to Police Captain was James N. Reaves. Reaves went on to integrate
patrol car crews. During the 1950s and 60s the factories and a large portion of the white population left the city. African Americans became the city's largest ethnic group, with most of
North Philadelphia, West Philadelphia,
Germantown and portions of
South Philadelphia becoming black neighborhoods. Old black working-class neighborhoods became
ghettos filled with vacant lots and houses due to loss of industrial jobs. Starting in the 1970s African Americans began to gain significant independent political influence in city government, with the city's first African American mayor,
Wilson Goode, being elected in 1984.
Philadelphia aristocracy on
South Broad Street in May 2017 By the second half of the 18th century Philadelphia had developed an
upper-class society. Many of the families that made up the upper class could trace their
lineage to the earliest Quaker settlers, though many of these had subsequently joined the
Church of England or
Presbyterian denominations. The Philadelphia upper class was exclusive; what mattered was a person's family, not a person's wealth. Inheritance was better than self-made wealth. In the late 19th century
Mark Twain observed, "In
Boston, they ask how much does he know. In
New York, how much is he worth. In
Philadelphia, who were his parents." A person could not enter Philadelphia society by acquisition of wealth, but their offspring, if they grew up well and married into the right family, could create a new lineage if the family stayed respectable. In the 18th century, the wealth had been built on
shipping, trade, and
real estate. Despite the later generations' inheritance they were expected to pursue a career. The acceptable careers in Philadelphia were
medicine and
law, with
insurance,
banking, and
brokerage next in line on the ladder of acceptability. Running the family business was also acceptable especially if it related to
iron and
steel making,
coal, and the
railroads. Beyond their careers, the Philadelphia elite strived to have a seat on a
board, particularly as the chairman of the board. Business boards such as the boards for the
Pennsylvania Railroad and
Philadelphia Savings Fund Society were important, but so were charitable, institutional, cultural and social boards. The Philadelphia upper class engaged in
fox hunting, race horse breeding, attending balls and lavishly entertaining in their townhouses or mansions. The elite also joined exclusive clubs such as the
State in Schuylkill, the
Philadelphia Club, the
Philadelphia Cricket Club, and the
Union League. The upper class started with mansions in
Old City, but through the 18th and 19th centuries upper class gradually moved west through
Center City until the end of the 19th century when much of the upper class moved to large mansions along the
Philadelphia Main Line. The Philadelphia aristocracy lasted well into the 20th century but by the end of the century the old rich families were overwhelmed by the new rich. By the late 20th century, membership in the upper class was defined less by ancestry, and organizations such as the Union League began to accept limited numbers of
Jews,
Catholics,
African Americans, and even
Indians. ==Art==