Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00271

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21800

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, burgeoning American cities like New Orleans and Philadelphia seemed increasingly chaotic. Noise, odors, and a feverish level of activity on the streets threatened to overwhelm the senses. Growing populations placed new demands on every aspect of the urban landscape—streets, parks, schools, asylums, cemeteries, markets, waterfronts, and more. In this unique exploration of the early history of urban architecture and design, leading architectural historian Dell Upton reveals the fascinating confluence of sociological, cultural, and psychological factors that shaped American cities in the antebellum years.

Through contemporary travel accounts, diaries, and correspondence, as well as maps, architectural drawings, paintings, and prints—many previously unpublished—Upton investigates not only how buildings were designed, streets were laid out, and urban space was put to use, but also why. He offers original insights into the way cities were imagined, and an extensive selection of illustrations recreates the various features of the urban landscape in the nineteenth century.

*This eBook is available exclusively on the A&AePortal.*

*Many of the black-and-white images in the original print edition have been replaced by color images in this ePortal version."

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Print publication date September 2008 (in print)

Print ISBN 9780300124880

EISBN 9780300265828

Illustrations 164

Print Status in print

Publisher (in print)

WorldCat

Google Books

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List of illustrations

Map of the City of New-York in 1808
Proposed 200 block Spruce Street Row, Philadelphia
202 Spruce Street
Julia Row ("Thirteen Sisters")
Plan for the Friends Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason
Merchants' Exchange
Plan of the Improved Part of the City of Philadelphia
Plan of the City and Suburbs of Philadelphia
Map of the City of Philadelphia
800 block of North American Street
A Court for Mr. Davi's [sic] in Queen Street Lott no 30, Philadelphia
Carpenter's Court, Philadelphia
South East Corner of Third, and Market Streets, Philadelphia
James Lane's Stove Store
Old Almshouse, Philadelphia
Pennsylvania Institution for the Deaf and Dumb
U.S. Naval Asylum (Marine Asylum)
The Girard College, Philadelphia
Plan of New Orleans
Plan of the City and Suburbs of New Orleans
Meat Market ("French Market")
Madame John's Legacy
Rear courtyard, 917 St. Ann Street, New Orleans
Creole cottages, St. Peter and Orleans streets, New Orleans
Row houses, 921–19 Dumaine Street
500 block of Canal Street, South Side, New Orleans
New-York as It Is, Respectfully dedicated to the Corporation of the City of New York by Serrell & Perkins
Colonel Blackburn's Specific against Muskitoe bites in the Month of July
Melloy & Ford, Wholesale Tin Ware Emporium
Life in Philadelphia: A Crier Extraordinary
Sanitary Map of the City of New Orleans
The Oysters Man
Ronaldson's Row
Bunn the Blacksmith, at a Campmeeting near Georgetown
The Night Watch-Men
H. B. McCalla Hat and Manufactory, Philadelphia
Scott's Fashions, for the Summer 1847
Philadelphia Fashions, 1837
Zip Coon
Life in New York: Inconveniency of Tight Lacing. St. John's Park, September 28, 1829
Sunday Morning in front of the Arch Street Meeting House, Philadelphia
High Street, from Ninth Street, Philadelphia
Jim Crow
Promenade in Washington Square, Philadelphia
Two of the Killers
A Bowery Boy, New York
Sash
Native American women vendors, French Market, New Orleans
The Killer's Attack on the California House, October 9, 1849
Map of the City and Districts of Moyamensing and Southwark, From the River
Pre- and post- 1789 seals of Philadelphia
Pre- and post- 1789 seals of Philadelphia
A Portraiture of the City of Philadelphia in the Province of Pennsylvania
Nos. 114 & 116 North Water St.
Stephens Plan of the City of Philadelphia
Interior of Peale's Museum
Plan of the City of Philadelphia, 1800
Beacon Hill From the Present Site of the Reservoir between Hancock & Temple Streets
Philadelphia Arcade
Philadelphia Arcade, first-floor rental plan
Philadelphia Arcade, second-floor rental plan
Philadelphia Arcade, third-floor rental plan
Drawing of White's Store, Isle of Wight County, Virginia
B. T. Walshe, Men's Furnishing store
The Ruins of Phelp's & Peck's Store, Fulton St., New York, as they appeared in the morning after the Accident of the 4th May 1832
John McAllister's store, 48 Chestnut Street
Sherman's United States Truss & Brace Manufactory, New Orleans
Life in Philadelphia: Silk Stockings
Arcade Hotel, Philadelphia
Philadelphia Arcade, site plan
Banks's Arcade, New Orleans
Surviving portion of Banks's Arcade, New Orleans
Chestnut Street Theater, Philadelphia
Fashionable Shopping in New York
Market Street, from Fifth to Sixth (South side), Philadelphia
Chestnut Street, from Seventh to Sixth (North side), Philadelphia
Merchant
A Merchant's Counting House, Philadelphia
Desk and bookcase, Williamsburg, Virginia
First State Department Office, 13 South Sixth Street, Philadelphia
First Treasury Department building in Washington
Washington City
United States Treasury Building, Washington, D.C., under construction
State Department (Executive Office) Building--second-floor use plan
South Carolina Record Office, Charleston
New Treasury Building--first-floor use plan
New Treasury Building
New Somerset House, London
New Treasury Building, Washington, D.C. site plan in 1869
New Treasury Building--second-floor use plan
Sketches in Louisiana: The French Cemetery [St. Louis No. 2], New Orleans
Catholic grave yard N.O.
St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans
First African Baptist Church burying ground, Philadelphia
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Philadelphia
First- and second-generation Philadelphia cemeteries
Burial Vault
Mausoleums (family tombs)
Private tombs and vaults, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans
Catacombs (fours), St. Louis No. 1
Fours, St. Louis No. 1
Scene At A Cemetery
Fours, Lafayette No. 1
Map of New Orleans cemeteries
Plan of square 1, St. Louis Cemetery No. 2, New Orleans
New Burying Ground (Grove Street Cemetery), New Haven
New Burying Ground (Grove Street Cemetery)
Plot plan of Philadelphia (Ronaldson's) Cemetery
Plan of Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Ground Plan of Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia
Ground Plan of Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia
General view of Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia
Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia
Monument Cemetery, Philadelphia
Cypress Cove Cemetery, New Orleans
Cypress Cove Cemetery, New Orleans
Irad Ferry monument, Cypress Cove Cemetery, New Orleans
Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia
Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania. Near Philadelphia
Plan of Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia
The State Penitentiary for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
Eastern State Penitentiary, section of two-story cell blocks
Walnut Street Jail, Philadelphia
Goal, in Walnut Street Philadelphia
New York State (Newgate) Prison, Greenwich Village, New York
Ground view of the Auburn Prison, Auburn, New York, schematic plan
Auburn State Prison, elevation plan, and interior elevation of north wing
Convicts at dinner, Ohio State Penitentiary, Columbus
Eastern State Penitentiary, cell in cellblock 1
Eastern State Penitentiary, studies for surveillance of inmate
Eastern State Penitentiary, plumbing scheme for one-and two-story cell blocks
Prisoners at the State Prison at Auburn
Convicts retiring to their cells, Ohio State Penitentiary
Tread or Stepping Mill
John Cool Whipping Coker with the Cat, Ohio State Penitentiary
Iron Gag, from Implements of Torture
The Iron Gag (Matthias Maccumsey gagged)
Straight Jacket
Mad, or Tranquillizing Chair
Mode of Showering Prisoners, Ohio State Penitentiary
Cold Head-Bath
New Orleans levee
Faubourg Sainte-Marie batture
Faubourg Sainte-Marie batture
Plan (Sketch) of the City of New Orleans
Philadelphia waterfront from Market to Chestnut Street in 1810
Paul Beck's proposal for redeveloping the Philadelphia waterfront
Philadelphia waterfront from Market to Chestnut Street in 1810
Stephen Girard house and countinghouse, 23 Water Street, Philadelphia
Front Street steps, Philadelphia, after 1831
The Smokers
Inconvenience of Wearing Coffee Bag Skirts
The Ladies of New Orleans before General Butler's Proclamation/After General Butler's Proclamation
Night Life in Philadelphia–Oyster Barrow in front of the Chestnut Street Theater
Worldly Folk Questioning Chimney Sweeps and Their Master Before Christ Church Philadelphia
Smokers' Circle, on Boston Common
State-House garden, Philadelphia
View from the Plantation of Marigny, New Orleans
Landscape plan for the place d'armes, New Orleans
Ancienne Cathédrale
View of Jackson Square, New Orleans
Charles Oakford's Hat and Cap Store, Philadelphia.
Front Street at Market Street, Philadelphia
Independance Hall

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Contents

Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic

Contents

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21801

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Acknowledgments

Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic

~A book that has been as long in the making as Another City naturally accumulates many debts to friends, colleagues, and particularly archivists who made the work pleasurable as well as possible.

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21802

Introduction

Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic

~This book explores Americans’ ambivalent attitudes toward their cities during the half century following the founding of the republic. My thesis is simple although my story is complex. Through living the city—through everyday experience in and of the material world of buildings, spaces, and people—American urbanites developed...

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.1-15

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00271.001

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21803

Chapter subject tags:UrbanizationGrid plans (City planning)Social historyInterpersonal relationsMaterial culture

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Part One: The Lived City

Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic

Part One

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21804

Chapter 1. Cities of Perpetual Ruin and Repair

Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic

~As cashier of the Bank of Germantown and then secretary of the Germantown and Norristown Railroad, historian John Fanning Watson was immersed in Philadelphia’s transformation from a modest-sized...

Author

Chapter subject tags:Buildings--Repair and reconstructionSocial classesGrid plans (City planning)Architecture, Domestic--Designs and plansPhiladelphia (Pa.)--HistoryNew Orleans (La.)--HistoryCities and towns--United States--History--19th century

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.19-40

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00271.001

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21805

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Chapter 2. The Relics of Civilized Life

Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic

~Early-nineteenth-century New Yorkers called Broad Street, one of the city’s principal thoroughfares, Smell Street, while Beaver Street was Slaughterhouse Lane, nicknames that acknowledged the oceans of fetor that flooded antebellum American cities. Tanneries, distilleries,...

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.41-53

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00271.002

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21806

Chapter subject tags:Urban sanitationSenses and sensationDiseasesPollutionCities and towns--United States--History--19th century

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Chapter 3. The Smell of Danger

Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic

~One day during New Orleans’s devastating 1853 yellow fever epidemic, the Reverend Theodore Clapp returned to the city. Although he had lived there for three decades, Clapp was overpowered by the “offensive effluvium which filled the atmosphere for miles around, resembling that...

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.54-63

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00271.003

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21807

Chapter subject tags:EthicsUrban sanitationEpidemicsSenses and sensationCities and towns--United States--History--19th century

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Chapter 4. Noise and Gabble

Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic

~Wave after wave of noise broke in the streets of nineteenth-century American cities, growing louder as the century wore on. The “ceaseless rush of the tide of life” engulfed city people in closely built-up city streets that resembled “magnificent canals, deep but...

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.64-83

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00271.004

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21808

Chapter subject tags:PollutionSocial classesSenses and sensationCities and towns--United States--History--19th century

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Chapter 5. Seeing and Believing

Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic

~In “Starting from Paumanok,” Walt Whitman associated his own birth with that of the United States, a nation founded by

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.84-110

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00271.005

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21809

Chapter subject tags:Caricatures and cartoonsFashion--Social aspectsSocial historySelf-presentationStreet lifePhiladelphia (Pa.)--HistoryCities and towns--United States--History--19th century

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Part Two: Metropolitan Improvements

Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic

Part Two

Author

PublisherYale University Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00271.006

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21810

Chapter 6. The Grid and the Republican Spatial Imagination

Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic

~In 1789, after a conservative counterrevolution reversed many of the democratic reforms of the revolutionary years, the Pennsylvania legislature restored Philadelphia’s charter, which had been revoked under the 1776 state constitution. The...

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.113-144

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00271.007

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21811

Chapter subject tags:Philadelphia (Pa.)--HistoryGrid plans (City planning)UrbanizationNatural historyCities and towns--United States--History--19th century

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Chapter 7. Gridding Consumption

Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic

~Pedestrians ambling along Philadelphia’s Chestnut Street in the late 1820s encountered a building unlike any ever seen in the...

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.145-179

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00271.008

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21812

Chapter subject tags:Grid plans (City planning)Stores, RetailArchitecture--Designs and plansArchitecture, Modern--19th centuryPhiladelphia (Pa.)--HistoryCities and towns--United States--History--19th century

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Chapter 8. Permutations of the Pigeonhole: Architecture as Memory

Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic

~In the early republic merchants lived by their memories, for trade was a thoroughly personal activity. They took intense pride in their involvement in their businesses, and they tended to limit their scope to that of which they could maintain an intimate grasp. As...

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.180-202

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00271.009

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21813

Chapter subject tags:Banks and bankingArchitecture, Modern--19th centuryPublic buildings--United StatesInterpersonal relationsCities and towns--United States--History--19th century

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Chapter 9. Gridding the Graveyard

Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic

~At noon every November first—All Saints’ Day—the Roman Catholics of antebellum New Orleans paraded to their cemeteries. The holiday brought out people “of every age, color and condition” in crowds ranging from a thousand to as many as three...

Author

Chapter subject tags:Grid plans (City planning)Laurel Hill Cemetery (Philadelphia, Pa.)St. Louis Cemetery #1 (New Orleans, La.)Mount Auburn Cemetery (Cambridge, Mass.)Cities and towns--United States--History--19th centuryCemeteries--United States--History--19th century

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.203-241

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00271.010

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21814

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Chapter 10. Gridded Utopias

Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic

~Philadelphia boasts one of the most significant architectural monuments of the early republic, one that embodied all that its builders thought was best about their society, as well as their fondest hopes for its future. That monument is not Independence Hall or any of the other landmarks associated with the Revolution, but the...

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.242-278

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00271.011

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21815

Chapter subject tags:Philadelphia (Pa.)--HistoryCities and towns--United States--History--19th century

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Part Three: Public Spaces and Private Citizens

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Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic

Part Three

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21816

Chapter 11. On the Waterfront

Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic

~Urban elites fired by the republican spatial imagination built a systematic urban landscape to articulate and, when necessary, enforce social solidarity and political unity. Each new building type tested this project, straining materialist assumptions about the relationship between the physical environment and human conduct. When the men who founded asylums and...

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.281-305

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00271.012

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21817

Chapter subject tags:City PlanningStores, RetailPublic spacesNew Orleans (La.)--HistoryCities and towns--United States--History--19th century

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Chapter 12. In Public Walks

Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic

~In the late 1780s a French visitor to New York was astonished by the ubiquity of cigars, objects unfamiliar enough to his European readers that he described them as “leaves of tobacco, rolled in the form of a tube, of six inches long, which are smoked without the aid of any...

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.306-333

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00271.013

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21818

Chapter subject tags:Public spacesLandscape architecture--Designs and plansUrban parksSocial classesCities and towns--United States--History--19th century

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Conclusion

Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic

~Two favorite Philadelphia lithographs bring this work to a close. The first is a trade card for Charles Oakford’s Hat and Cap Store at 104 Chestnut Street, drawn by James Queen and printed by P. S. Duval, two of the Quaker City’s most...

Author

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.335-338

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00271.014

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21819

Chapter subject tags:Public spacesGrid plans (City planning)Social classesInterpersonal relationsUrbanizationCities and towns--United States--History--19th century

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.