The Salvation Army: It Started Here in Philadelphia

The Salvation Army came to America on Oxford Street here in Philadelphia in eighteen seventy-nine, and it arrived in the form of a seventeen-year-old girl. Eliza Shirley had emigrated from England with her parents and wrote to William Booth, the Army's founder in London, asking permission to open an outpost. Eliza began meeting in a rented hall, and Booth gave his blessing, gathering Philadelphia's poor for prayer and practical aid.

Her reports back to London were so encouraging that Booth sent a formal delegation to the United States the following year. The corps Eliza founded here became the seed of what grew into one of the largest private charitable organizations in the country. Today the Salvation Army operates in more than one hundred thirty countries. It began with a teenager and a rented room on this block.