Schuylkill Arsenal

Then

The Army Quartermaster Department's clothing and camp equipage center. It bought from private contractors or made goods itself, its bootee and tent shops turned out work better than contract goods, and during the war it employed up to 10,000 outside seamstresses and tailors to make uniforms, tents and bedding.

Arsenal seamstresses petitioned the War Department for a minimum wage and an end to contracting and met President Lincoln. Government workers got a raise, but subcontracting continued.

Now

Ruins

The arsenal was declared surplus in 1957, sold to the Philadelphia Electric Company in 1961 and demolished from 1962. Only remnants of the arsenal wall remain at 2620 Gray's Ferry Avenue.

Track in service today runs beside the site, on a line owned by CSX.