A Greene Country Towne: Philadelphia’s Ecology in the Cultural Imagination

Published by Penn State University Press 2016

A Greene Country Towne

Philadelphia’s Ecology in the Cultural Imagination

Edited by: Alan C. Braddock and Laura Turner Igoe

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780271078946

Overview
Contents

About this book

An unconventional history of Philadelphia that operates at the threshold of cultural and environmental studies, A Greene Country Towne expands the meaning of community beyond people to encompass nonhuman beings, things, and forces.

By examining a diverse range of cultural acts and material objects created in Philadelphia—from Native American artifacts, early stoves, and literary works to public parks, photographs, and paintings—through the lens of new materialism, the essays in A Greene Country Towne ask us to consider an urban environmental history in which humans are not the only protagonists. This collection reimagines the city as a system of constantly evolving constituents and agencies that have interacted over time, a system powerfully captured by Philadelphia artists, writers, architects, and planners since the seventeenth century.

In addition to the editors, contributors to this volume are Maria Farland, Nate Gabriel, Andrea L. M. Hansen, Scott Hicks, Michael Dean Mackintosh, Amy E. Menzer, Stephen Nepa, John Ott, Sue Ann Prince, and Mary I. Unger.

Author / Editor information

Braddock Alan C. :

Alan C. Braddock is Ralph H. Wark Associate Professor of Art History and American Studies at the College of William and Mary as well as Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and the Humanities at Princeton University. He is the author of Thomas Eakins and the Cultures of Modernity (2009) and coeditor of A Keener Perception: Ecocritical Studies in American Art History (2009).Igoe Laura Turner :

Laura Turner Igoe is the Maher Curatorial Fellow of American Art at Harvard Art Museums. She is completing a book manuscript titled Art and Ecology in the Early Republic.

Reviews

“Performing remarkable syntheses of environmental history and recent materialist cultural theory, the essays in A Greene Country Towne confirm Philadelphia’s centrality to the political, commercial, scientific, artistic, and natural history of the United States. A milestone in the multidisciplinary environmental humanities.”
—Michael Ziser, author of Environmental Practice and Early American Literature

“There are moments of wonder and insights scattered throughout, including the English professor Maria Farland’s ecological reading of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and the art historian Laura Turner Igoe’s environmental interpretation of the work of Charles Willson Peale.”
—Peter C. Mancall, Winterthur Portfolio

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
List of Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction Imagining Urban Ecology Alan C. Braddock and Laura Turner Igoe Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 Ink and Paper, Clamshells and Leather Power, Environmental Perception, and Materiality in the Lenape-European Encounter at Philadelphia Michael Dean Mackintosh Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
2 “Processes of Nature and Art” The Ecology of Charles Willson Peale’s Smoke-Eaters and Stoves Laura Turner Igoe Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	34
3 Mapping The Quaker City’s Queer Ecology Mary I. Unger Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	50
4 Visualizing Urban Nature in Fairmount Park Economic Diversity, History, and Photography in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia Nate Gabriel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	65
5 Netted Together Eadweard Muybridge’s Animal Locomotion at the Dawn of Comparative Biology John Ott Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
6 Expansive Exhibitions Agriculture and Environment in Walt Whitman’s Camden-Philadelphia Region Maria Farland Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	96
7 “Our Yard Looks Something like a Zoological Garden” Thomas Eakins, Philadelphia, and Domestic Animality Alan C. Braddock Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	118
8 “A Thorough Study of Causes” W. E. B. Du Bois, The Philadelphia Negro, and Progressive Era Materiality Scott Hicks Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	141
9 Exhibiting Philadelphia’s Vital Center Negotiating Environmental and Civic Reform in a Popular Postwar Planning Vision Amy E. Menzer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	153
10 “Entertainment for All of the Senses” Stephen Starr’s Experience Dining and the Revitalization of Postindustrial Philadelphia Stephen Nepa Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	175
11 “The water flows beneath it still . . .” Remembering and Reimagining Philadelphia’s Old Dock Creek Sue Ann Prince Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	192
12 Remapping Philadelphia’s Postindustrial Terrain A Network in Flux Andrea L. M. Hansen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	208
Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	221
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	225

Language: English
Publisher: Penn State University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 248
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 45
- Images: 45
- Other: 45 illustrations
Keywords: Braddock; Igoe; history; Philadelphia; environmental studies

eBook

Published: December 12, 2016
ISBN: 9780271078946