Town House: Architecture And Material Life In The Early American City, 1780-1830 - Couverture rigide

Herman, Bernard L.

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0807829919 ISBN 13 : 9780807829912

Editeur : The University of North Carolina Press, 2005

Synopsis

What houses tell us about the lives of those who dwelled within? In this abundantly illustrated volume, Bernard L. 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.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

BERNARD L. HERMAN is Edward F. and Elizabeth Goodman Rosenberg Professor of Art History at the University of Delaware. He is author of three previous books, including Architecture and Rural Life in Central Delaware, 1700-1900; The Stolen House; and, with Gabrielle M. Lanier, Everyday Architecture of the Mid-Atlantic: Looking at Buildings and Landscapes.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: The University of North Carolina Press
• Date d'édition: 2005
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0807829919
• ISBN 13: 9780807829912
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 320
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible