Know Your Neighborhood: Franklin Bridge North (& Old City & Callowhill)

Know Your Neighborhood: 401 Race St.

As the new apartment building between 4th and 5th Sts. and between the bridge and Race St gets closer to completion, let's look back at what it replaced.

Stephen French Whitman, born in Philadelphia in 1823 opened his first candy store in 1842 just blocks from the Philadelphia waterfront on Market Street. Philadelphians from all walks of life quickly flocked to the store. Sailors were regular customers and helped make his candy well known along the Eastern Seaboard.

Whitman's produced the first pre-packaged candy in 1854—a box of sugar plums adorned with curlicues and rosebuds. Whitman began advertising in newspapers shortly before the beginning of the Civil War and the business grew so large that in 1866 the company moved to an entire building at 12th and Market Streets. (1st & 2nd photos) In 1877, he introduced Instantaneous Chocolates in tin boxes that became much-admired.

After a fire in 1880, Whitman’s Candies moved to the 600 block of Cherry Street and, in 1906, to 4th and Race Streets. By the turn of the 20th century Whitman’s Candies were on the shelves of drugstores across the region and beyond. Whitman's introduced the perennially popular, and still best-selling, Whitman's Sampler in 1912, marking the first use of cellophane by the candy industry.
(3rd photo is 1922 ad)

When the company unveiled the Sampler in 1912, the patterns on its box were meant to remind customers of an even earlier, homier era. As legend has it, Whitman’s president Walter Sharp used a piece of embroidery, or “sampler,” made by his great-aunt as inspiration for his new line of fancy boxed chocolates. Consumers seemed to enjoy the vintage look and crafty appeal of the packaging (over one billion Whitman’s Samplers have been sold since 1912) as well as the implicit invitation to “sample” the different chocolates from Whitman’s most popular boxes.

As the popularity of the Sampler grew, Whitman’s collected actual samplers. Between 1926 and 1964, the Philadelphia-based company bought embroidery from all over the world, spanning from the 17th to 20th centuries.

In 1946, the company helped General Electric develop a refrigerated display case to guard the product against melting in warmer temperatures and extend the selling season through the summer.

Whitman's had a longstanding tradition of supporting American servicemen and servicewomen during wartime. During World War I, millions of tins were shipped to American soldiers throughout the world. During World War II, women at the Whitman's production line secretly slipped handwritten notes of encouragement into candy boxes to help soothe soldiers' homesickness. (4th - WWII ad)

The company expanded it's facility up Race Street to 5th in phases. Designed by engineering firm Gravel & Duncan, the first phase of construction occurred between 1941 and 1942. The second and largest phase was completed in 1946, and a third floor addition was built in 1947. (5th, 6th, 7th photos)

In 1961 the company was bought by Pet, Inc. and operations were moved to Northeast Philadelphia. The older buildings at the Old City production site were demolished (4th St side) and the facility was taken over by Pincus Brothers. Here they manufactured and sold Bill Blass suits among other name brands until the early 2000's, after which the buildings sat empty until it's demolition. (8th photo)

The embroidery collection was donated to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1969, which occasionally displays selections from the collection. (9th photo, courtesy of PMA)