Taming Manhattan
Environmental Battles in the Antebellum City
Seiten
2014
Harvard University Press (Verlag)
978-0-674-72509-6 (ISBN)
Harvard University Press (Verlag)
978-0-674-72509-6 (ISBN)
- Titel ist leider vergriffen;
keine Neuauflage - Artikel merken
From 1815 to 1865, as city blocks encroached on farmland to accommodate Manhattan’s exploding population, prosperous New Yorkers developed new ideas about what an urban environment should contain—ideas that poorer immigrants resisted. As Catherine McNeur shows, taming Manhattan came at the cost of amplifying environmental and economic disparities.
With pigs roaming the streets and cows foraging in the Battery, antebellum Manhattan would have been unrecognizable to inhabitants of today’s sprawling metropolis. Fruits and vegetables came from small market gardens in the city, and manure piled high on streets and docks was gold to nearby farmers. But as Catherine McNeur reveals in this environmental history of Gotham, a battle to control the boundaries between city and country was already being waged, and the winners would take dramatic steps to outlaw New York’s wild side.
Between 1815 and 1865, as city blocks encroached on farmland and undeveloped space to accommodate an exploding population, prosperous New Yorkers and their poorer neighbors developed very different ideas about what the city environment should contain. With Manhattan’s image, health, and property values on their minds, the upper classes fought to eliminate urban agriculture and livestock, upgrade sanitation, build new neighborhoods, demolish shantytowns, create parks, and generally improve the sights and smells of city living. Poor New Yorkers, especially immigrants, resisted many of these changes, which threatened their way of life.
By the time the Civil War erupted, bourgeois reform appeared to be succeeding. City government promised to regulate what seemed most ungovernable about urban habitation: the scourge of epidemics and fires, unending filth, and deepening poverty. Yet in privileging the priorities of well-heeled New Yorkers, Manhattan was tamed at the cost of amplifying environmental and economic disparities, as the Draft Riots of 1863 would soon demonstrate.
With pigs roaming the streets and cows foraging in the Battery, antebellum Manhattan would have been unrecognizable to inhabitants of today’s sprawling metropolis. Fruits and vegetables came from small market gardens in the city, and manure piled high on streets and docks was gold to nearby farmers. But as Catherine McNeur reveals in this environmental history of Gotham, a battle to control the boundaries between city and country was already being waged, and the winners would take dramatic steps to outlaw New York’s wild side.
Between 1815 and 1865, as city blocks encroached on farmland and undeveloped space to accommodate an exploding population, prosperous New Yorkers and their poorer neighbors developed very different ideas about what the city environment should contain. With Manhattan’s image, health, and property values on their minds, the upper classes fought to eliminate urban agriculture and livestock, upgrade sanitation, build new neighborhoods, demolish shantytowns, create parks, and generally improve the sights and smells of city living. Poor New Yorkers, especially immigrants, resisted many of these changes, which threatened their way of life.
By the time the Civil War erupted, bourgeois reform appeared to be succeeding. City government promised to regulate what seemed most ungovernable about urban habitation: the scourge of epidemics and fires, unending filth, and deepening poverty. Yet in privileging the priorities of well-heeled New Yorkers, Manhattan was tamed at the cost of amplifying environmental and economic disparities, as the Draft Riots of 1863 would soon demonstrate.
Catherine McNeur is Associate Professor of History at Portland State University.
Zusatzinfo | 37 halftones |
---|---|
Verlagsort | Cambridge, Mass |
Sprache | englisch |
Maße | 140 x 210 mm |
Themenwelt | Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918) |
Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte | |
Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte | |
Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie | |
Technik ► Architektur | |
ISBN-10 | 0-674-72509-3 / 0674725093 |
ISBN-13 | 978-0-674-72509-6 / 9780674725096 |
Zustand | Neuware |
Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
Mehr entdecken
aus dem Bereich
aus dem Bereich
Europa 1848/49 und der Kampf für eine neue Welt
Buch | Hardcover (2023)
DVA (Verlag)
48,00 €
Giordano Bruno - ein ketzerisches Leben
Buch | Hardcover (2024)
C.H.Beck (Verlag)
29,90 €
Kunst und Gesellschaft an der Schwelle zur globalen Welt
Buch | Hardcover (2024)
Klett-Cotta (Verlag)
42,00 €