On this page we will look back at life in the city during the war years. Here we will provide the visitor with the stories making the news, what was happening in sports and entertainment, city politics, the social scene and the prominent people at the time. We will also recount the events occurring in the war on that day. So, check back each day for new editions.
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TODAY IN PHILADELPHIA – MONDAY, AUGUST 16, 1915
There will be partly cloudy skies over the city today and tonight with the high about 85° and the low near 65°. The Board of Education has announced that “penny lunch” counters will be opened at 25 public schools next term under the supervision of the Board. This is part of a campaign to provide good food and promote good health for all the city’s school children. Eventually penny lunch counters will be opened in every school.
The city announced today that construction of the new central public library will begin on Thursday, August 19th with groundbreaking ceremonies at 19th & Vine Streets. The new “Free Library” will cost $3,000,000.00. The library will be an architectural monument on the new Parkway. Horace Trumbauer (shown below), the architect who furnished preliminary designs for the building back in 1911, said that even though some final plans and studies need to be completed the construction can begin immediately [Editor’s Note: Trumbauer also was involved in the design of the Art Museum and many other well-known buildings in Philadelphia].
Horace Trumbauer
It was reported here on Friday that a possible milk war was underway in South Philadelphia between Dolfinger’s Standard Dairies and its competitors. There was also an accusation that certain policemen were helping rival milk companies spread rumors about Dolfinger’s firing Italians without cause. Today Mr. Dolfinger met with police officials and decided to let the matter drop. Mr. Dolfinger believes the conspiracy has been nipped in the bud and his advertising campaign has reassured the people of South Philadelphia that no action was taken against his Italian employees.
On the sports beat, in baseball the Phillies met the Braves for the final time of the season at National League Park and Eppa Rixey pitched a brilliant 4 hit shutout as Moran’s boys beat the Braves 5 to 0 before a crowd of 12,000. The Athletics closed out their series with the Yankees at the Polo Grounds in New York today. Rube Bressler took the ball for the A’s and pitched his best game of the season throwing a 1 hit shutout and breaking the A’s 7 game losing streak wining 2 to 0.
WAR NEWS
On the eastern front, Austro-German armies under Prince Leopold of Bavaria and Field Marshal von Mackensen are now only 24 miles from the great Russian fortress of Brest-Litovsk. The armies are acting in concert driving the Russians back. On the western front, in the Vosges Mountains the French exploded a huge mine under German trenches causing many deaths. The surviving Germans were then cut down by the French “Blue Devils”. In the Middle East, French and British areoplanes have dropped bombs on Constantinople inflicting heavy damage and many causalities.
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