807 Fairmount Avenue

This isn't much for visual effect, but here's what's just happened: Someone at the Philadelphia Department of Records posts old photos from the collection on Facebook every day, and today two of them from the early 20th Century startled me. One of them, shown HERE, shows 807 Fairmount Avenue in 1907, which is around two years after Voltairine de Cleyre, the great anarchist who I blipped about for her birthday and have been researching over the past twenty years, last lived in the house. The picture shows that a cigar dealer, or possibly a (hand-rolled) cigar factory, operated in the house. The other picture shows that next door, there was an oyster bar. The photo of her house is a rare and wonderful find for me.

What's the big deal, you might ask? Well Voltairine's life and struggle are more deeply branded in my mind than any other historical person's. Of all the houses she ever lived in, this little house is the most important, but it no longer exists.

Two other anarchists, George and Mary Brown, were her housemates. While she lived there Herman Helcher, a crazed former pupil (also an anarchist) stalked her and finally shot her elsewhere in the neighborhood. She recovered from her wounds in the house, and when she was able to travel to a friend's house a few months later, there was an overflowed house party for her, and notable people such as Clarence Darrow stopped by to wish her well. News reporters interviewed her there. Memories of Voltai, recorded after her death, took place in that house.

I feel as though I know that house better than I can remember some that I've lived in myself. Now I know what it looked like!

This blip-shot is from my scrap books. It shows a detail of the street from the city ordinance map of 1886. I have a few others like it from closer in time, but this has more details of the same buildings.

That was one of the highlights of my day. I also rode my bike into town in the sunny, unusually warm air and visited with some friends. This day was a good one!