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Common Landscape of America, 1580-1845
Looks at the ways Americans have altered the landscape from the arrival of early Spanish settlers to the beginning of the country's rapid urbanization. — Yale University Press
444 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 1982
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About the author
John R. Stilgoe
23 books31 followersJohn Stilgoe is an award-winning historian and photographer who is the Robert and Lois Orchard Professor in the History of Landscape at the Visual and Environmental Studies Department of Harvard University, where he has been teaching since 1977. He is also a fellow of the Society of American Historians. He was featured on a Sixty Minutes episode in 2004 entitled "The Eyes Have It."
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
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December 19, 2020Re-read of an old fave - still has a lot of great material, but really needs an update (especially with more on Indigenous landscapes).
April 13, 2014
As geographer George L. Henderson would categorize it in his article “What (Else) We Talk About When We Talk About Landscape: For a Return to Social Imagination,” John R.Stilgoe’s Common Landscape of America, 1580 to 1845 uses the term “Landscape as Landschaft” to discuss cultural spaces shaped and used by particular human communities. Landscape here is not cityscape, but rather, it is the rural farmsteads and village-scale communities that share agrarian European building traditions and customs. Stilgoe organizes his book into broad themes—Landscape, Planting, National Design, Agriculture, Community, and Artifice—and attempts to move chronologically and geographically within those themes to include Spanish, English, Dutch, German, and other European influences that contribute to land use patterns and vernacular buildings common to the early American landscape. Basically, Stilgoe argues that “common landscape” in America persisted with a characteristic national identity with slight regional variations until the 1840s when “traditional design contested with innovation, common buildings with professional engineering, regional identity with national form.” At this point, urbanization and industrialization radically altered landscape in favor of cityscapes and suburban landscapes that maintained “keepsakes” from landscape but nevertheless departed.
The strengths and weaknesses of Stilgoe’s arguments, like those of J.B. Jackson, are bound up in his broad generalizations and assertions that help landscape scholars categorize broadly but also have a form work to critique and test against. For example, in Jacksonian �fashion, Stilgoe speaks conclusively about human relations and experiences by asserting broad claims that are clever but sometimes challenging to accept. For example, he asserts the importance of and defines the 18th century “neighborhood” as the “property in which [locals] had vital interests, close knowledge, and frequent reason to travel….the familiar area within one-hour’s walk from the family residence.” Surely this is a helpful way to understand what “neighborhood” meant in an 18th century landscape with vastly different form and transportation abilities than the present, but without evidence for the claim the distance seems arbitrary. Furthermore, he uses Jackson's invented terms such as “eunomic” and “isonomic” to help contrast changes and periods of town planning in America. Stilgoe asserts that “Unlike the eunomic New England and southern landscapes, Philadelphia’s space was essentially isonomic: land was apportioned without regard for a person’s religious and social standing.” Again, these terms can do a lot of work for comparing general shifts from colonial settlement to settlement in the early national period following the Land Ordinance Act of 1785 that instituted the national grid west of the Ohio River. However, there is a lot to be said about limitations and exceptions to these orders of the landscape that do not get proper treatment and justification.
In the end, Stilgoe does part by warning against the marginalization of cityscapes and industrial landscapes at the expense of the persistent “landscape as landschaft” mentality, but his primary purpose in writing this book is to identify how this mentality shaped early American land use and experiences among early Americans. Sometimes his organization seems a little sloppy and meandering, he has a discussion about “roads” and “farming” and a few other topics several times throughout, but overall it is a very clever and useful encyclopedic book.
The strengths and weaknesses of Stilgoe’s arguments, like those of J.B. Jackson, are bound up in his broad generalizations and assertions that help landscape scholars categorize broadly but also have a form work to critique and test against. For example, in Jacksonian �fashion, Stilgoe speaks conclusively about human relations and experiences by asserting broad claims that are clever but sometimes challenging to accept. For example, he asserts the importance of and defines the 18th century “neighborhood” as the “property in which [locals] had vital interests, close knowledge, and frequent reason to travel….the familiar area within one-hour’s walk from the family residence.” Surely this is a helpful way to understand what “neighborhood” meant in an 18th century landscape with vastly different form and transportation abilities than the present, but without evidence for the claim the distance seems arbitrary. Furthermore, he uses Jackson's invented terms such as “eunomic” and “isonomic” to help contrast changes and periods of town planning in America. Stilgoe asserts that “Unlike the eunomic New England and southern landscapes, Philadelphia’s space was essentially isonomic: land was apportioned without regard for a person’s religious and social standing.” Again, these terms can do a lot of work for comparing general shifts from colonial settlement to settlement in the early national period following the Land Ordinance Act of 1785 that instituted the national grid west of the Ohio River. However, there is a lot to be said about limitations and exceptions to these orders of the landscape that do not get proper treatment and justification.
In the end, Stilgoe does part by warning against the marginalization of cityscapes and industrial landscapes at the expense of the persistent “landscape as landschaft” mentality, but his primary purpose in writing this book is to identify how this mentality shaped early American land use and experiences among early Americans. Sometimes his organization seems a little sloppy and meandering, he has a discussion about “roads” and “farming” and a few other topics several times throughout, but overall it is a very clever and useful encyclopedic book.
July 22, 2009
I warmed up to this as it went on.
The book is merely an overview of all the factors that created the early American landscape. It explains why America has worm-rail fences, rectilinear mid-western farm plots, New England town greens, state-built canals, and a number of other distinctive features. With such a broad subject some of it is pretty rudimentary, and the author has a maddening habit of not quoting sources and not mentioning when he is going off on a speculative fancy. But he turns up some real gems here.
I didn't know that early American gristmills were treated like public utilities with regulated monopoly prices, or that graveyards were often leased out to pasture cattle (grave-grass was thought to be the best around), or that the American agricultural fair is distinctive from all other fairs in the world and was only invented around 1809.
Not as good as some of his other books (Metropolitan Corridors, Borderlands) but a good place to start.
The book is merely an overview of all the factors that created the early American landscape. It explains why America has worm-rail fences, rectilinear mid-western farm plots, New England town greens, state-built canals, and a number of other distinctive features. With such a broad subject some of it is pretty rudimentary, and the author has a maddening habit of not quoting sources and not mentioning when he is going off on a speculative fancy. But he turns up some real gems here.
I didn't know that early American gristmills were treated like public utilities with regulated monopoly prices, or that graveyards were often leased out to pasture cattle (grave-grass was thought to be the best around), or that the American agricultural fair is distinctive from all other fairs in the world and was only invented around 1809.
Not as good as some of his other books (Metropolitan Corridors, Borderlands) but a good place to start.
July 20, 2015
17 Everything had to be within walking distance.
43 Interesting discussion on how land was colonized in New England.
77 The settling of Penn by various groups.
82 Friendship destroyed by cities but strengthened by neighborhoods.
96 Philly grid as a model for town layouts.
120 Canals created towns.
153 Pennsylvania German barns.
169 Farmers needed lots of children.
171 Discussion of making/clearing land.
181 No colonial farmer expected to live long enough to.
184 Preferred crops in Pennsylvania.
187 Pennsylvania farmers were more innovative.
211 Description of neighborhoods in 18th century.
257 The connection between agricultural prosperity and village making.
264 Good passage about rural mindset.
309 Sawmills.
312 Sawmill is a powerful weapon against wilderness.
43 Interesting discussion on how land was colonized in New England.
77 The settling of Penn by various groups.
82 Friendship destroyed by cities but strengthened by neighborhoods.
96 Philly grid as a model for town layouts.
120 Canals created towns.
153 Pennsylvania German barns.
169 Farmers needed lots of children.
171 Discussion of making/clearing land.
181 No colonial farmer expected to live long enough to.
184 Preferred crops in Pennsylvania.
187 Pennsylvania farmers were more innovative.
211 Description of neighborhoods in 18th century.
257 The connection between agricultural prosperity and village making.
264 Good passage about rural mindset.
309 Sawmills.
312 Sawmill is a powerful weapon against wilderness.
May 17, 2017
Stilgoe details the American cultural rural landscape as it was shaped in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries, with an interdisciplinary explication of how and why features developed with regional variation. The book is arranged thematically, with broad assertions to establish a generalized understanding.
July 29, 2011
Good study of the landscape of early America broked down by type.
September 2, 2012
Indispensable. A great work. If you want to understand what this country used to look like and why Americans think the way they do about the land, then Common Landscape is a must read.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews