Dr. Jayne’s Skyscraper: The Chestnut Street Building that Housed a Patent Medicine Empire
Author(s): Meagan Ratini
Year: 2016
Summary
Among the building remains uncovered during JMA’s 2014 excavations of the site of Philadelphia's new Museum of the American Revolution were sections of the granite foundations of the famous Jayne Building. This building had been called an "ante-bellum skyscraper" by Charles Peterson, who rallied to save it from demolition in the 1950s. A century earlier, the construction of this substantial building had significantly altered its neighborhood and may have also influenced the later architecture style of Louis Sullivan and the Chicago School. Dr. David Jayne commissioned the ten-story building on Chestnut Street to house various elements of his patent medicine empire, including facilities for creating the widely-distributed almanacs which marketed his remedies.
Cite this Record
Dr. Jayne’s Skyscraper: The Chestnut Street Building that Housed a Patent Medicine Empire. Meagan Ratini. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, Washington, D.C. 2016 ( tDAR id: 435070)
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Keywords
General
Architecture
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Industry
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Patent Medicines
Geographic Keywords
North America
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United States of America
Temporal Keywords
1840s-1950s
Spatial Coverage
min long: -129.199; min lat: 24.495 ; max long: -66.973; max lat: 49.359 ;
Individual & Institutional Roles
Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology
Record Identifiers
PaperId(s): 176