American Space: The Centennial Years, 1865-1876.

by J.B. Jackson

American Space chronicles "the development of the rural and urban landscape in various regions of the United States during the crucial decade following the Civil War". "The author is concerned not only with what were largely unplanned changes in the environment, such as the effects of the advent of wheat raising and railway transportation in the Northwest and the growth of steam-powered factory towns in much of New England, but also with the response of what he calls 'the reformers', the landscape architects and others who attempted to give amenity and shape to the landscape".

256 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1972

About the author

John Brinckerhoff "Brinck" Jackson, J. B. Jackson, (September 25, 1909, Dinard, France - August 28, 1996, La Cienega, NM) was a writer, publisher, instructor, and sketch artist in landscape design. Herbert Muschamp, New York Times architecture critic, stated that J. B. Jackson was “America’s greatest living writer on the forces that have shaped the land this nation occupies.” He was influential in broadening the perspective on the “vernacular” landscape.

Reviews

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

“In those days there must have been at least seven or eight million buffalo grazing across the vacant land between the Rocky Mountains and the Missouri. Once there had been several times that number, and the range stretched all the way to the Blue Ridge Mountains; it was near the Potomac, in 1607, that Englishmen saw their first buffalo. But at the rate of about ten miles a year the herds had been pushed westward across the Mississippi, and with the coming of the nineteenth century buffalo were being hunted and killed in increasing numbers. The broad path or series of routes across the continent, made by Americans on their way to the Pacific—on horseback, in wagons, and finally by rail—had divided the great mass into two distinct herds: one centered in the South in the Texas Panhandle , the other far to the north in the Dakotas and Montana” (167).

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't remember the last time I learned this much from such a small volume. Anyone interested in how the topography of America has been shaped, and why, through the pragmatic choices immediately following the Civil War owes it to themselves to seek this one out. Though I spotted a few minor inaccuracies, for the most part it exposes forces I'd never even considered before. An essential read.