Our view shows Ursinus College, located in Collegeville, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, as shot from the air by Aero Service Corporation sometime during the 1920s or 1930s. The Library Company’s collection includes thousands of images by Aero Service Corporation, a Philadelphia based firm founded in 1919. While the Ursinus College campus has grown over the last 75 years, it is in the surrounding countryside that the most astonishing changes have taken place. Philadelphia’s suburban sprawl with its housing developments, corporate headquarters, and shopping malls has transformed the rather rural appearance of Collegeville seen in this image.

Sarah J. Weatherwax
Curator of Prints and Photographs

The following readers correctly identified the scene:

James M. Bergquist
Martha B. Kriebel
David Long
Glenys A. Waldman