Elizabeth B. Greene - Buildings and Landmarks of 19th-Century America

BUILDINGS AND
LANDMARKS OF
19TH-CENTURY
AMERICA

AMERICAN SOCIETY REVEALED

Elizabeth B. Greene

Copyright 2017 by ABC-CLIO, LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Greene, Elizabeth B., author.
Title: Buildings and landmarks of 19th-century America: American society revealed / Elizabeth B. Greene.
Description: Santa Barbara, California: Greenwood, an Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016054222 (print) | LCCN 2017014334 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440835728 (alk. paper) | ISBN 9781440835735 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: ArchitectureUnited StatesHistory19th century. | Historic buildingsUnited StatesHistory19th century. | Architecture and societyUnited StatesHistory19th century.
Classification: LCC NA710 (ebook) | LCC NA710 .G74 2017 (print) | DDC 720.973/09034dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016054222

ISBN: 978-1-4408-3572-8
EISBN: 978-1-4408-3573-5

21 20 19 18 17 1 2 3 4 5

This book is also available as an eBook.

Greenwood
An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC

ABC-CLIO, LLC
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Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911
www.abc-clio.com

This book is printed on acid-free paper
Manufactured in the United States of America

This volume, Buildings and Landmarks of 19th-Century America: American Society Revealed , examines 45 separate buildings and landmarks in the United States. These structures span the entire century and the entire breadth of the nation as it continued to expand westward. At the birth of the 19th century, the United States consisted of a handful of states stretching along the eastern coast from Massachusetts (which included Maine at the time) to Georgia. Although Kentucky and Tennessee had recently become states, Florida and the Louisiana Territory (which included the Great Plains states up to Canada) were still owned by Spain. The Midwestern states west of New York and Pennsylvania were known as the Northwest Territories, and they were still frontier country. By the end of this historic century, the nation spanned from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast. In its bid for manifest destiny, the United States extended all the way to California. There were a handful of states that entered the Union after 1900, and they included Alaska and Hawaii. But both Alaska and Hawaii were already territories of the United States by 1900. In 100 years, the countrys land mass had more than tripled, and its population had grown more than tenfold.

Any discussion of buildings and landmarks of the United States in the 19th century is sure to reveal the transformations that occurred over the course of that momentous 100 years. Great buildings were built on the East Coast at the dawn of the century, like the Capitol Building and the White House in Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, settlers of the Great Plains were still building houses constructed out of sod at the end of the same century, as can be seen in the Dowse Sod House in Nebraska. With the Industrial Revolution came a reaction to its effects. Numerous religious sects were born during the first half of the century, many of them setting off into the frontier to create their own utopian societies. Architectural styles on the East Coast may have stuck to the tried and true, but in burgeoning Chicago, a completely new style was born after a devastating fire destroyed most of the city. While cities were becoming ever more congested, housing conditions spiraled downward for the swelling immigrant population. Reformers of various types looked for ways to accommodate them, often including moral lessons in the package. A rural cemetery built in Massachusetts in the early 19th century became the prime influence on public park design and led to the construction of New Yorks Central Park. The millionaire industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie built many of the first free public libraries in the country, which led to the development of municipal public library systems. The huge success of 19th-century worlds fairs, like the 1876 Centennial Exhibition and the 1893 Worlds Columbian Exposition, had lasting effects on society through the many new products that they introduced to the public. Throughout the book, buildings and landmarks are analyzed to elucidate their influence on many aspects of 19th-century society, including the treatment of the mentally ill, impact of religious revivals, growth of leisure and vacation time, and housing for the poor and the western homesteader. The book is organized in chronological order within five categories: Civic Architecture, Commercial Architecture, Domestic Architecture, Fortifications, and Religious and Funerary Architecture . The Civic Architecture category comprises buildings and landmarks that promote civic life, and they include government buildings, bridges and canals, museums, educational and other institutions, and buildings from worlds fairs. The Commercial Architecture category comprises buildings and landmarks that are built for a commercial interest such as department stores, office buildings, factories, and entertainment venues. The Domestic Architecture category comprises all types of dwellings, whether single-family or multiple dwellings, and they range from the simplest of frontier homes to the mansions of the Gilded Age. The Fortifications category deals specifically with forts built by the U.S. military. The Religious and Funerary Architecture category comprises buildings and landmarks that include both churches and cemeteries and also landmarks from utopian communities that were founded by religious leaders.