City Water, City Life: Water and the Infrastructure of Ideas in Urbanizing Philadelphia, Boston, and ChicagoA city is more than a massing of citizens, a layout of buildings and streets, or an arrangement of political, economic, and social institutions. It is also an infrastructure of ideas that are a support for the beliefs, values, and aspirations of the people who created the city. In City Water, City Life, celebrated historian Carl Smith explores this concept through an insightful examination of the development of the first successful waterworks systems in Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago between the 1790s and the 1860s. By examining the place of water in the nineteenth-century consciousness, Smith illuminates how city dwellers perceived themselves during the great age of American urbanization. But City Water, City Life is more than a history of urbanization. It is also a refreshing meditation on water as a necessity, as a resource for commerce and industry, and as an essential—and central—part of how we define our civilization. |
Contents
| 1 | |
Bringing Water to Philadelphia Boston and Chicago | 11 |
Water Urban Society and the Public Good | 53 |
Water and the Reconciliation of the Natural and the Urban | 121 |
The Sanitary Movement the Temperance Crusade and the Water Cure | 161 |
Other editions - View all
City Water, City Life: Water and the Infrastructure of Ideas in Urbanizing ... Carl Smith Limited preview - 2013 |
City Water, City Life: Water and the Infrastructure of Ideas in Urbanizing ... Carl Smith No preview available - 2014 |
Common terms and phrases
American Annual Report aqueduct bathing Benjamin Henry Latrobe Benjamin Latrobe Board of Public body Bostonians Bradlee building Canal celebration Centre Square Chesbrough Chicago River Chicago Tribune citizens City Council City Document City of Boston City of Chicago City of Philadelphia city water city's civic Common Council Company construction cost Daily Advertiser Daily Evening Transcript debt Fairmount Fairmount Park Fairmount Water Faneuil Hall Fiscal Year Ending fountain future gallons Henry Latrobe human hydrants hydropathy individual Introduction of Pure John Josiah Quincy Jr Lake Cochituate Lake Michigan lake tunnel Latrobe's Long Pond Massachusetts Municipal Fiscal nature nineteenth century November phia Philadel Philadelphia Watering pipes population pumping Pure Water reservoir residents River Sanitary Schuylkill Schuylkill Canal Select and Common Shattuck Society Spot Pond streets temperance tion University Press urban Walter Channing Water Commissioners water cure water supply water system Water-Cure Watering Committee waterworks William York