Another City : Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic

by Dell Upton

• ISBN13: 9780300124880
• ISBN10: 0300124880
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2008-09-02
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, burgeoning American cities like New Orleans and Philadelphia seemed increasingly chaotic. Noise, odors, and a feverish level of activity on the streets threatened to overwhelm the senses. Growing populations placed new demands on every aspect of the urban landscapestreets, parks, schools, asylums, cemeteries, markets, waterfronts, and more. In this unique exploration of the early history of urban architecture and design, leading architectural historian Dell Upton reveals the fascinating confluence of sociological, cultural, and psychological factors that shaped American cities in the antebellum years. Through contemporary travel accounts, diaries, and correspondence, as well as maps, architectural drawings, paintings, and printsmany previously unpublished--Upton investigates not onlyhowbuildings were designed, streets were laid out, and urban space was put to use, but alsowhy. He offers original insights into the way cities were imagined, and an extensive selection of illustrations recreates the various features of the urban landscape in the nineteenth century.

Author Biography

Dell Upton is professor of art history at UCLA. His books include Holy Things and Profane: Anglican Parish Churches in Colonial Virginia, published by Yale University Press and winner of the Alice Davis Hitchcock Book Award, the John Hope Franklin Publication Prize, and the Abbott Lowell Cummings Award.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
The Lived City
Cities of Perpetual Ruin and Repair	p. 19
The Relics of Civilized Life	p. 41
The Smell of Danger	p. 54
Noise and Gabble	p. 64
Seeing and Believing	p. 84
Metropolitan Improvements
The Grid and the Republican Spatial Imagination	p. 113
Gridding Consumption	p. 145
Permutations of the Pigeonhole: Architecture as Memory	p. 180
Gridding the Graveyard	p. 203
Gridded utopias	p. 242
Public Spaces and Private Citizens
On the Waterfront	p. 281
In Public Walks	p. 306
Conclusion	p. 335
Abbreviations	p. 339
Notes	p. 341
Index	p. 387
Plates follow page 278
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