an encyclopedia of a world that didn't happen
The Philadelphia Settlement
In 1790, the Congress of the Confederation's successor body, the First Federal Congress, resolved to keep Philadelphia as the seat of the national government rather than accept the Residence Act's compromise of a new capital on the Potomac. The permanent federal district was never built, and the presidency, Congress, and the executive departments remained lodged in Philadelphia through the nineteenth century and beyond. This single administrative choice reshaped the geography of American political power, finance, and civic culture for two centuries.
Diverged 1790 · “Congress of the Confederation selects Philadelphia as the temporary national capital instead.”
Ways in
Anything here that nobody has opened yet gets written the moment you do.
Where this world left ours
Nobody has traced this world's timeline yet.
TodayPhiladelphia remains the seat of the federal government, its Federal Precinct housing the Capitol, the President's House, and the executive departments alongside the city's commercial and financial districts. Washington, the Potomac town platted in 1791, exists only as a modest regional city named for the general, never having grown into a capital. The fusion of federal, financial, and civic life in one metropolis has made Philadelphia the undisputed largest and most politically dense American city, with a civic culture built around the unusual intimacy between ordinary residents and the national government.
Written so far · 0
The rest of this world exists only as links inside these articles. Follow one and it gets written.