Thomas Moran in Kensington
With the gentrification of Fishtown and parts of Kensington, the influx artisans into the communities have been greatly expanding. Kensington even has its very own first Arts Festival, which takes place in May on Trenton Avenue, south of Dauphin Street. I have set up at the Arts Festival and sold my books. It is well attended, has live music and numerous vendors, as well as decent food to eat while you stroll along.
It's all rather strange to this life long resident, seeing the younger generation of tattooed ladies and pierced men walking up and down Trenton Avenue, milling about, and generally making themselves comfortable sitting on the ground. My kids loved it, they got free balloons shaped liked swords, and I was quite pleased with the influx of new neighbors and the energy they bring.
As might be expected, artists are not new to Kensington; they might just look a bit different today. My mother's brother, Martin Kaelin (Sr.) had been a painter and art teacher his whole life. He grew up on the 1100 block of Germantown Avenue from the late 1920's thru the 1950's. His fascination with New Orleans, early brass bands, and street life were at the heart of his paintings, and brought him into contact with many of the jazz greats of New Orleans (he would eventually count as his personal friends Louis Armstrong, Al Hirt, and the Jaffes, founders of Preservation Hall, to name a few).
If we took a trip back to the 19th century, we would find that Kensington was home to one of America's most famous landscape artists, the being the painter Thomas Moran (1837-1926).
Born in England, Moran's parents immigrated to Philadelphia in 1844. His father Thomas Moran, Sr., was a handloom weave and Kensington had a reputation for handloom weaving, so it was a natural draw for him.
Starting out near 4th & Master Streets in 1844, the Moran family had at least a 25-year relationship with Kensington. From 4th & Master in the 1840’s, we then find the Morans in 1851 living on 5th Street, below Jefferson, in Kensington, where they had been enumerated in Kensington’s 3rd Ward in the 1850 Census.
During the Civil War years of 1861 to 1864, Edward Moran, Thomas’ older brother, and also an artist, was listed at living at 915 E. Sergeant Street. Sergeant Street in 1861 is described as being located “west from Frankford Avenue above Cumberland Street.” The 900 block of Sergeant street would presumably be somewhere between Frankford Avenue and Kensington Avenue. The numbering system in the 1860’s was different then what it is today. It would appear that Edward Moran was enumerated in the 1860 Census in the 10th Ward, Eastern District, but moved back to Kensington the following year and stayed there during the war years.
Edward’s more famous brother, Thomas Moran, and his other siblings and parents were living at 927 N. 11th Street in 1861, before moving to 8th & Coates (Fairmount) Street area in 1862, an area where they stayed to at least when Edward Moran left Kensington and joined them there by 1870. By the 1870 census it appears that all of the Moran family members were out of Kensington and had moved closer to town, to the Northern Liberties and East Popular areas, or downtown, where the Moran boys would eventually set up studios along the more prominent streets in downtown Philadelphia.
Thomas Moran's early education would have taken place in Kensington. He came to America at about the age of seven and did not start his career in art until about the age of fifteen, when he began apprenticing as an engraver. Starting out at 4th & Master in an industrial setting and having Moran become America's most famous landscape painter seems odd, but perhaps it was the drudgery of the congested and polluted neighborhood that made Moran seek solitude and beauty in nature?
Moran's real reputation took hold after he took a number of trips to paint the landscapes of the American West, mostly done while on government surveying expeditions. One of his paintings entitled, "The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone" hangs at the Capitol Building in Washington, DC, along with a companion piece of his entitled, "The Chasm of the Colorado." His paintings of the western United States fascinated the people back east. The pictures were large and grand and brilliant with color. Moran's paintings of Yellowstone were said to be responsible in convincing Congress and President Ulysses S. Grant, to lay aside this area as America's very first national park.
I previously wrote about Kensington's involvement in the founding of the Vegetarian Movement in American, and now I'm writing about Kensington and the founding of the American Park System. Is there no end to the energies of our residents!