Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

U.S.A., St. Bernard Beneficial Association Medal, gold, 7g., obverse inscribed, ‘Awarded for Heroism at Collapsed Bldg. 11th & Market Sts., Phila. Pa., July 15 ’09’; reverse inscribed, ‘Presented by St. Bernard Beneficial Ass’n.’, with brooch bar inscribed, ‘Ferdinand J. Dittrich’, extremely fine £250-350

On the afternoon of 15 July 1909, a five-storey building being remodelled on the corner of 11th and Market Streets, Philadelphia, suddenly collapsed burying many workers and pedestrians.

The Evening Bulletin of Philadelphia, 15 July 1909 reported, ‘S. J. Dietrich (sic), who lives at the south-east corner of 26th and Oakdale Sts., and who was on the west side of 11th St. when the building fell, did heroic work in assisting to rescue the injured who were buried in the ruins. From head to foot he was covered with bloodstains.

Dietrich was one of the first to rush into the ruins and after working ten minutes hurling aside the debris, he with others got out a coloured man who was badly injured and who was carried to an ambulance and hurried to hospital. Dietrich next helped to rescue a white man who was likewise taken off immediately to a hospital. “When the building collapsed I thought it was an explosion on account of the noise and the vast clouds of dust that filled the air.” Dietrich was very modest about the part he had taken in the rescue work and could hardly be induced to speak of it.’

With a number of copied newspaper extracts concerning the collapse and the subsequent inquiry.