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City Water, City Life

Water and the Infrastructure of Ideas in Urbanizing Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago

Carl Smith

$72.95

Hardback

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English
University of Chicago Press
17 April 2013
A 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.
By:  
Imprint:   University of Chicago Press
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 23mm,  Width: 16mm,  Spine: 3mm
Weight:   595g
ISBN:   9780226022512
ISBN 10:   022602251X
Pages:   344
Publication Date:  
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Further / Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Carl Smith is the Franklyn Bliss Synder Professor of English and American Studies and professor of history at Northwestern University. His books include three prize-winning volumes: Chicago and the American Literary Imagination, 1880-1920; Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief: The Great Chicago Fire, the Haymarket Bomb, and the Model Town of Pullman; and The Plan of Chicago: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American City, the latter two published by the University of Chicago Press.

Reviews for City Water, City Life: Water and the Infrastructure of Ideas in Urbanizing Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago

""City Water, City Life is a gem of a book, a tightly focused meditation on the antebellum city's 'infrastructure of ideas.' By masterfully compressing myriad period sources, Carl Smith makes major contributions to our understanding of American society and culture."" (Harold Platt, Loyola University Chicago)""


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