Population Density by Race, 1900 West Philadelphia Enumeration Districts

The population was heavily concentrated at the east end of West Philadelphia, near the bridges to Center City. At the west end, many large estates and farms were to be found. Whites were overwhelmingly the dominant racial group, concentrated in West Philadelphia’s streetcar suburbs. Much of the area shown at the center of the map below Market St. was, as the urban historian Kenneth Jackson puts it, a “crabgrass frontier,” whose development awaited the coming of the Market St. Elevated.