The Appleton Collection includes more than 2,000 glass photographic negatives, taken in Media, Pennsylvania and vicinity from 1888 to 1909. Media Historic Archives received the collection in 1988, but until 2018 most of these pictures had never been seen by the public.
Location is approximate. This might be a legal photograph documenting damages from a change of grade in Elm Avenue. Workmen and horse and dump cart under Maple Ave. sign.
Sign on side of building reads: H. P. Engle Ice Cream Parlor. Signs in adjacent storefronts include Phila. Laundry, and Branch Office, Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.
This view, of the Fairmount Dam and Water Works and the Callowhill St. Bridge, was taken from a boathouse ramp above the dam on the Schuylkill River. Two steamboats are moored above dam, and the roof of a bathing pavilion is visible below dam. Sewer construction is also underway along the Esplanade below the Water Works.
The family of Thomas S. Fields (seated, front), warden of the county jail in Media. This photograph appears to have been taken with the wall of the jail as backdrop. See also AP-5945-1 and -2 for Fields in a group of jail employees. The Fields children, gleaned from newspaper articles, are Howard W., Charles, Frank, Bessie, Clara, and Margaret, who, by 1910, was married to Edward V. Streeper Jr. This was confirmed by user Diane Fields Funk, who added this information: "The other daughter is Sara. Mrs. Fields is Sarah Jane (S. Jennie) Walker. Mrs Fields was warden for the ladies in the jail. Sara, her daughter, took over the job after her mother died."
