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.
""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)""