During the Gilded Age, Rittenhouse Square was home to Philadelphiaas high society, with more millionaires per square foot than any other American neighborhood except New Yorkas Fifth Avenue. Established by William Penn in 1682 as the South-West Square and renamed after astronomer David Rittenhouse in 1825, Rittenhouse Square and its environs changed from an isolated district of brickyards and workersa shanties into the cityas most elegant and elite neighborhood between 1845 and 1865. The brownstone and marble mansions on the square itself were inhabited by the cityas wealthiest and most prestigious families, with names like Biddle, Cassatt, Drexel, Stotesbury, and Van Rensselaer. As Philadelphiaas upper classes fled to the suburbs in the early 20th century, their mansions were replaced by skyscrapers or taken over by cultural institutions like the Philadelphia Art Alliance and the Curtis Institute of Music. While only a few original residences remain on Rittenhouse Square, it is still the center of a lively upscale neighborhood.

The many neighborhoods west of the Schuylkill River across from William Penn's "Quaker City" were distinctly rural until 1860, when horsecar lines first crossed the river. The area soon became home to wealthy businessmen who built elegant mansions and villas in University City and Powelton Village. West Philadelphia's growth accelerated northward into Belmont and Parkside-Girard after the 1876 Centennial Exposition and westward into Cedar Park, Spruce Hill, and Walnut Hill in the 1890s with the introduction of electric trolley lines. West Philadelphia: University City to 52nd Street is the first photographic history of the area in the last one hundred years. Images of the typical, modest West Philadelphia row houses, which slowly took over the open farmland after the Market Street Elevated opened in 1907, tell the story of how Philadelphia became known as the "City of Homes." Countless, rarely seen photographs of the streets where people lived and worked fill this extraordinary history.