Taking the land to make the city : a bicoastal history of North America / Mary P. Ryan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ryan, Mary P., author.

Series:

Lateral Exchanges: Architecture, Urban Development, and Transnational Practices

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

City planning--California--San Francisco--History.

City planning.

City planning--Maryland--Baltimore--History.

Social change--Environmental aspects.

Social change.

San Francisco (Calif.)--History--19th century.

San Francisco (Calif.).

Baltimore (Md.)--History--19th century.

Baltimore (Md.).

Genre:

History

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (465 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Austin : University of Texas Press, 2019.

Summary:

The history of the United States is often told as a movement westward, beginning at the Atlantic coast and following farmers across the continent. But cities played an equally important role in the country's formation. Towns sprung up along the Pacific as well as the Atlantic, as Spaniards and Englishmen took Indian land and converted it into private property. In this reworking of early American history, Mary P. Ryan shows how cities--specifically San Francisco and Baltimore--were essential parties to the creation of the republics of the United States and Mexico. Baltimore and San Francisco share common roots as early trading centers whose coastal locations immersed them in an international circulation of goods and ideas. Ryan traces their beginnings back to the first human habitation of each area, showing how the juggernaut toward capitalism and nation-building could not commence until Europeans had taken the land for city building. She then recounts how Mexican ayuntamientos and Anglo American city councils pioneered a prescient form of municipal sovereignty that served as both a crucible for democracy and a handmaid of capitalism. Moving into the nineteenth century, Ryan shows how the citizens of Baltimore and San Francisco molded landscape forms associated with the modern city: the gridded downtown, rudimentary streetcar suburbs, and outlying great parks. This history culminates in the era of the Civil War when the economic engines of cities helped forge the East and the West into one nation.

Contents:

pt. 1. Taking the land

Before the land was taken

The British and the Americans take the Chesapeake

The land of San Francisco Bay: cleared but not taken

pt. 2. Making the municipality: the city and the pueblo

Erecting Baltimore into a city : democracy as urban space, 1796-1819

Shaping the spaces of California : ranchos, plazas and pueblos, 1821-1846

pt. 3. Making the modern capitalist city

Making Baltimore a modern city, 1828-1854

The capitalist "pueblo" : selling San Francisco 1847-1856

pt. 4. These united cities

Baltimore, San Francisco and the Civil War

Epilogue.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-4773-1784-8

OCLC:

1269269431