Philadelphia History (nonfiction)
1. 
Dr. Mütter's Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine 4.01 avg rating — 8,184 ratings
3. 
City Of Sisterly And Brotherly Loves: Lesbian And Gay Philadelphia, 1945-1972
by:
Marc Stein
3.72 avg rating — 36 ratings 4. 
The Buried Past: An Archaeological History of Philadelphia
by:
John L. Cotter
4.60 avg rating — 5 ratings 4. 
The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist
by:
Marcus Rediker
4.13 avg rating — 497 ratings 6. 
City Water, City Life: Water and the Infrastructure of Ideas in Urbanizing Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago
by:
Carl Smith
3.76 avg rating — 33 ratings 
9. 
When Bosses Ruled Philadelphia: The Emergence of the Republican Machine, 1867–1933
by:
Peter McCaffery
4.67 avg rating — 3 ratings 9. 
The First Wall Street: Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, and the Birth of American Finance
by:
Robert E. Wright
3.29 avg rating — 31 ratings 9. 
Deep Down in the Jungle: Negro Narrative Folklore from the Streets of Philadelphia 3.59 avg rating — 17 ratings
14. 
Oppose and Propose: Lessons from Movement for a New Society
by:
Andrew Cornell
3.91 avg rating — 92 ratings 14. 
Blue-Collar Conservatism: Frank Rizzo's Philadelphia and Populist Politics 4.05 avg rating — 39 ratings
16. 
First City: Philadelphia and the Forging of Historical Memory
by:
Gary B. Nash
3.94 avg rating — 33 ratings 17. 
Engineering Philadelphia: The Sellers Family and the Industrial Metropolis
by:
Domenic Vitiello
3.25 avg rating — 4 ratings 18. 
The Middle-Class City: Transforming Space and Time in Philadelphia, 1876-1926
by:
John Henry Hepp
4.17 avg rating — 6 ratings 19. 
Embodied History: The Lives of the Poor in Early Philadelphia
by:
Simon P. Newman
3.82 avg rating — 17 ratings 19. 
The Tears of the Desert: Love and Crime at the 1876 International Centennial Exhibition
by:
Conrad Fraider
it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings 19. 
Silk Stockings and Socialism: Philadelphia's Radical Hosiery Workers from the Jazz Age to the New Deal really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 18 ratings
19. 
Philadelphia Mansions: Stories and Characters behind the Walls
by:
Thomas Nickels
3.25 avg rating — 4 ratings 19. 
Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College
by:
Jesse Wegman
4.26 avg rating — 1,254 ratings 19. 
Digging in the City of Brotherly Love: Stories from Philadelphia Archaeology
by:
Rebecca Yamin
4.10 avg rating — 20 ratings 
19. 
Sesqui!: Greed, Graft, and the Forgotten World's Fair of 1926
by:
Thomas H. Keels
4.36 avg rating — 25 ratings 28. 
"Other Sheep I Have" The Autobiography of Father Paul M. Washington
by:
Paul Washington
it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 6 ratings 28. 
The Problem of Jobs: Liberalism, Race, and Deindustrialization in Philadelphia
by:
Guian A. McKee
4.33 avg rating — 6 ratings 28. 
The Grid and the River: Philadelphia’s Green Places, 1682–1876
by:
Elizabeth Milroy
4.60 avg rating — 5 ratings 28. 
Mastering Wartime: A Social History of Philadelphia During the Civil War 3.42 avg rating — 12 ratings
32. 
32. 
Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River
by:
Beth Kephart
3.28 avg rating — 36 ratings 
36. 
The Peoples of Philadelphia: A History of Ethnic Groups and Lower-Class Life, 1790-1940
by:
Allen F. Davis
3.76 avg rating — 33 ratings 
36. 
36. 
The Philadelphia Chromosome: A Mutant Gene and the Quest to Cure Cancer at the Genetic Level
by:
Jessica Wapner
4.29 avg rating — 1,063 ratings 40. 
The Most Learned Woman in America: A Life of Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson 3.67 avg rating — 3 ratings
40. 
The Mütter Museum: Of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia
by:
Gretchen Worden
4.28 avg rating — 402 ratings 42. 
Philadelphia Gentlemen: The Making of a National Upper Class really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 20 ratings
43. 
Busted: A Tale of Corruption and Betrayal in the City of Brotherly Love
by:
Wendy Ruderman
3.76 avg rating — 994 ratings 43. 
Forging Freedom: The Formation of Philadelphia’s Black Community, 1720–1840
by:
Gary B. Nash
4.16 avg rating — 49 ratings 43. 
Philadelphia Beer: A Heady History of Brewing in the Cradle of Liberty
by:
Rich Wagner
3.38 avg rating — 21 ratings 47. 
Bring Out Your Dead: The Great Plague of Yellow Fever in Philadelphia in 1793
by:
J.M. Powell
3.82 avg rating — 244 ratings 48. 
Philadelphia Then and Now: 60 Sites Photographed in the Past and Present
by:
Kenneth Finkel
4.12 avg rating — 17 ratings 
48. 
VIOLENT DEATH IN THE CITY: Suicide, Accident, and Murder in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia
by:
Roger Lane
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 3 ratings 51. 
The Constitutional Convention: A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison
by:
James Madison
4.14 avg rating — 131 ratings 
51. 
William Dorsey's Philadelphia and Ours: On the Past and Future of the Black City in America
by:
Roger Lane
4.50 avg rating — 2 ratings 55. 
Literary Philadelphia: A History of Poetry and Prose in the City of Brotherly Love
by:
Thom Nickels
3.67 avg rating — 9 ratings 
55. 
The Diary of Elizabeth Drinker: The Life Cycle of an Eighteenth Century Woman 4.08 avg rating — 26 ratings
59. 
Jewish Quarter of Philadelphia: A History & Guide 1881-1930
by:
Harry D. Boonin
4.20 avg rating — 5 ratings 59. 
When the United States Spoke French: Five Refugees Who Shaped a Nation 3.74 avg rating — 123 ratings
61. 
The Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry: A History of Misery and Medicine
by:
J.P. Webster
3.73 avg rating — 122 ratings 61. 
Making Houses, Crafting Capitalism: Builders in Philadelphia, 1790-1850
by:
Donna J. Rilling
3.25 avg rating — 4 ratings 61. 
The Forgotten Bottom Remembered: Stories from a Philadelphia Neighborhood
by:
August Tarrier
4.14 avg rating — 7 ratings 64. 
The Nicest Kids in Town: American Bandstand, Rock 'n' Roll, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in 1950s Philadelphia 3.78 avg rating — 41 ratings
65. 
Let It Burn: MOVE, the Philadelphia Police Department, and the Confrontation that Changed a City
by:
Michael Boyette
4.18 avg rating — 141 ratings 66. 
A House On Fire: The Rise and Fall of Philadelphia Soul
by:
John A. Jackson
4.07 avg rating — 57 ratings 66. 
Wobblies on the Waterfront: Interracial Unionism in Progressive-Era Philadelphia
by:
Peter Cole
4.27 avg rating — 33 ratings 68. 
Imagining Philadelphia: Travelers' Views of the City from 1800 to the Present
by:
Philip Stevick
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 6 ratings 68. 
70. 
Wanamaker's Temple: The Business of Religion in an Iconic Department Store
by:
Nicole C. Kirk
3.87 avg rating — 23 ratings 71. 
Imagining Philadelphia: Edmund Bacon and the Future of the City
by:
Scott Knowles
3.44 avg rating — 27 ratings 72. 
City in a Park: A History of Philadelphia's Fairmount Park System
by:
James McClelland
3.83 avg rating — 12 ratings 73. 
Ethics, Politics, and Anarcho-Punk Identifications: Punk and Anarchy in Philadelphia 3.50 avg rating — 2 ratings
74. 
Pure Heart: The Faith of a Father and Son in the War for a More Perfect Union (Civil War in the North) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 5 ratings
76. 
Upon the Ruins of Liberty: Slavery, the President's House at Independence National Historical Park, and Public Memory
by:
Roger C. Aden
3.06 avg rating — 17 ratings 77. 
Breaching Jericho's Walls: A Twentieth-Century African American Life
by:
Allen B. Ballard
it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings 78. 
The Red Rose Girls: An Uncommon Story of Art and Love
by:
Alice A. Carter
4.33 avg rating — 135 ratings