Taming Manhattan: Environmental Battles in the Antebellum City

by Catherine McNeur

With pigs roaming the streets and cows foraging in the Battery, antebellum Manhattan would have been unrecognizable to inhabitants of today’s sprawling metropolis. Fruits and vegetables came from small market gardens in the city, and manure piled high on streets and docks was gold to nearby farmers. But as Catherine McNeur reveals in this environmental history of Gotham, a battle to control the boundaries between city and country was already being waged, and the winners would take dramatic steps to outlaw New York’s wild side. Between 1815 and 1865, as city blocks encroached on farmland and undeveloped space to accommodate an exploding population, prosperous New Yorkers and their poorer neighbors developed very different ideas about what the city environment should contain. With Manhattan’s image, health, and property values on their minds, the upper classes fought to eliminate urban agriculture and livestock, upgrade sanitation, build new neighborhoods, demolish shantytowns, create parks, and generally improve the sights and smells of city living. Poor New Yorkers, especially immigrants, resisted many of these changes, which threatened their way of life. By the time the Civil War erupted, bourgeois reform appeared to be succeeding. City government promised to regulate what seemed most ungovernable about urban the scourge of epidemics and fires, unending filth, and deepening poverty. Yet in privileging the priorities of well-heeled New Yorkers, Manhattan was tamed at the cost of amplifying environmental and economic disparities, as the Draft Riots of 1863 would soon demonstrate.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Urban Studies, Nature, School, New York

320 pages, Hardcover

First published November 3, 2014

Reviews

[Andres Villatoro · Rating 4 out of 5]

So funny story, I initially received this book as a Christmas present when it first came out years ago after hearing the author on NPR and tweeting about it, however I just now sat down and read it this year. I started it as a placeholder while i waited on my next book but I ended up reading the entire thing. I never read it because didn't expect to enjoy this book as much I did. Particularly given that environmental studies are not necessarily my forte or passion. However, McNeur's books is really well researched and super interesting. This is an excellent book about urban history and the contestation over urban space in 19th century New York City. A majority is about social class which is probably what kept me drawn to the book but also about immigration and poverty in the 19th century. It was critical and nuanced.

[Anabel Giacobbi]

Offensive when read over breakfast, as I tend to do with my schoolwork. I liked the chapter titles. "Mad Dogs and Loose Hogs." That's good stuff.

[Christian Bergland · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm torn between 3 and 4 stars here. This is an exceptionally well researched work, and very interesting to those who are interested in public policy and planning, particularly in the context of New York City. That said, it's pretty dense and dry at times, and can get very repetitive. Definitely a book worth reading, but you should go into it recognizing that much of it will read like a dissertation.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating look at how NY became the city we know--without pigs, cows, and horse manure all over the streets. We often take our clean city for granted, but here is the story of how dirty it was and how politicians tried to keep it that way! Yes, money.

For all you NYC buffs and sanitation fans, you'll enjoy this one.

[Ian Gere · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 - This is an excellent work of environmental history and I loved learning new information about NYC’s history! I wished the introduction was a bit longer to give more context about the specific time frame she’s examining and what NYC’s environment was like prior. I think it’s hard writing an environmental history for an urban setting, but I think McNeur does an expert job at this!

[Text Addict · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent, if occasionally revolting, book about what 19th-century cities were REALLY like. It's not pretty and it's a good thing books don't come with relevant embedded smells.

[claire cleary · Rating 3 out of 5]

i mean ok interesting but could’ve been 40 pages

[Sage · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly really entertaining. Just crazy shit going on in the antebellum period.

[Samuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Catherine McNeur chronicles here how New York was cleaned up and transformed from a health hazard to an emerging world city during the nineteenth century. There are some great stories here that are well told and well illustrated.

“With Manhattan’s image, health and property values on their minds, the upper classes fought to eliminate urban agriculture and livestock, upgrade sanitation, build new neighborhoods, demolish shantytowns, create parks, and generally improve sights and smells of city living. Poor New Yorkers, especially immigrants, resisted many of these changes, which threatened their way of life” (Inside Book Sleeve).
Manhattan was tamed—epidemics, fires, filth, poverty(failed promise?)—at the cost of amplifying environmental and economic disparities as embodied by the draft riots of 1863.

“This is a study that is as much about that battles to maintain or erase urban agriculture and other uses of the city’s urban environment as it is about the development of our modern conception of what properly belongs in the city versus the country” (3).

Loose hogs and mad dogs in the street to struggles over the development of Central Park. The diversity of characters cases and outcomes demonstrate not only the changing role of nature in the city but also the social, cultural, legislative, and economic underpinnings of environmental inequality (4).
This is a history of the inextricable ties between social and environmental control in antebellum New York. “Whether rich or poor, urban Americans are fighting against the boundaries drawn in the nineteenth century when they plead with their municipal governments to permit them to keep chickens, pigs, goats, or bees. Today proponents argue that urban agriculture and local food sources promote ‘sustainable cities.’ In the nineteenth century, many Americans would have believed the opposite” (5).

Commissioner’s map of 1811—gridiron over Manhattan sealed its urban fate—some green space held over—not Central Park (1850s carve out) but the Grand Parade—Madison Square

“Controlling the urban environment held the promise of controlling what seemed most uncontrollable about the city: the overwhelming flow of immigrants, the deepening pits of poverty, and the upheavals of constant change.” Reform movements continued as did social tensions, and thus one is left wondering if the city was ever truly tamed at all” (235).

[Ellen]

"Mad Dogs and Loose Hogs" and "Clearing the Lungs of the City" for HI568

[Morgan Sellden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall this is a great look at antebellum Manhattan and the first two chapters are incredibly interesting! The descriptions of the natural environment and the impacts of human interactions are vivid and transports the reader to 1850 New York. Past that the book gets a little repetitive and was the last two chapters took me significantly longer to get through

[AskHistorians]

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[Emily Bragg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, though it tended to repeat itself quite frequently. Can't promise I would have been as interested if I wasn't living here though.

[Murphy Knapp · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like this could have been a lot shorter. Hearing about the same things over and over was lowkey boring.