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Taming Manhattan : environmental battles in the antebellum city / Catherine McNeur.
Author
McNeur, Catherine
[Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/Created
Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2014.
Description
312 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
Availability
Available Online
ACLS Humanities eBook
JSTOR DDA
Copies in the Library
Location
Call Number
Status
Location Service
Notes
Architecture Library - Stacks
HN80.N5 M36 2014
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Details
Subject(s)
Urbanization
—
New York (State)
—
New York
—
History
—
19th century
[Browse]
City planning
—
Environmental aspects
—
New York (State)
—
New York
—
History
—
19th century
[Browse]
Manhattan (New York, N.Y.)
—
Environmental conditions
[Browse]
New York (N.Y.)
—
History
—
1775-1865
[Browse]
Summary note
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.
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references (pages 237-299) and index.
Contents
Mad dogs and loose hogs
Unequally green
The dung heap of the universe
Hog wash and swill milk
Clearing the lungs of the city
Epilogue.
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In
ACLS Humanities E-Book. URL: http://www.humanitiesebook.org
ISBN
9780674725096 ((alk. paper))
0674725093 ((alk. paper))
0674979753
9780674979758
LCCN
2014003557
OCLC
871228508
Hdl
2027/heb.32969
Statement on language in description
Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage.
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Taming Manhattan : Environmental Battles in the Antebellum City / Catherine McNeur.
id
99125340344106421
Taming Manhattan : environmental battles in the antebellum city / Catherine McNeur.
id
9992793313506421