From the Philadelphia Record Photograph Morgue [V07]. 

A native of South Philadelphia and educated in Philadelphia’s public schools, Harry Batten was a dynamic civic leader described as “a sparkplug of new ideas and a continuous driving force behind the scenes” in a movement to revitalize and reform Philadelphia, sometimes described as the “Philadelphia renaissance.”  Active in numerous civic organizations, Batten was called the vital “initiator, energizer, catalyzer, expediter” who got things done.  He had “a truly remarkable ability to inspire others,” according to a 1966 profile in the Philadelphia Bulletin, entitled “A Practical Idealist.”