Town House Architecture and Material Life in the Early American City, 1780-1830

Author/creator Herman, Bernard L. Author
Format Electronic
Publication InfoChapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press
Description320 p. 09.000 x 08.500 in.
Supplemental ContentFull text available from JSTOR University of North Carolina Press Publisher Collection (Backlist)
Subjects

SeriesPublished by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press Ser.
Summary Annotation In this abundantly illustrated volume, Bernard Herman provides a history of urban dwellings and the people who built and lived in them in early America. In the eighteenth century, cities were constant objects of idealization, often viewed as the outward manifestations of an organized, civil society. As the physical objects that composed the largest portion of urban settings, town houses contained and signified different aspects of city life, argues Herman.Taking a material culture approach, Herman examines urban domestic buildings from Charleston, South Carolina, to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, as well as those in English cities and towns, to better understand why people built the houses they did and how their homes informed everyday city life. Working with buildings and documentary sources as diverse as court cases and recipes, Herman interprets town houses as lived experience. Chapters consider an array of domestic spaces, including the merchant family's house, the servant's quarter, and the widow's dower. Herman demonstrates that city houses served as sites of power as well as complex and often conflicted artifacts mapping the everyday negotiations of social identity and the display of sociability.
Access restrictionAvailable only to authorized users.
Technical detailsMode of access: World Wide Web
Genre/formElectronic books.
LCCN 2005005918
ISBN9781469633527
ISBN1469633523 (Trade Paper) Active Record
Stock number00027332

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