Reading Terminal Market : An Illustrated History

Reading Terminal Market has been at the heart of Philadelphia's commercial and social life from the beginning of its long and tumultuous history. Growing out of the first open-air markets of the colonial city, Reading Terminal Market -- like all venerable institutions -- has survived to its present vibrant form by adapting to and initiating change. An innovator in cold storage at the end of the nineteenth century, the market established new standards for the buying and selling of food, revolutionizing the industry. Over the next century, it responded nimbly to the advent of the telephone and the automobile, and dodged threats from the Reading Railroad, the Great Depression, World War II, the rise of the supermarket, and unionization. Today, responding to a renewed yearning for local products, Reading Terminal Market retains its central prominence in the life of Philadelphia. Book jacket.