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“Rural” Cemeteries and Urban Context in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia

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“Rural” Cemeteries and Urban Context in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Parceling the Picturesque: "Rural" Cemeteries and Urban Context Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6493s78s Author Wunsch, Aaron Vickers Publication Date 2009 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Parceling the Picturesque: “Rural” Cemeteries and Urban Context in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia by Aaron Vickers Wunsch A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in Charge: Professor Margaret Crawford, Chair Professor Paul Groth Professor David Henkin Fall 2009 Parceling the Picturesque: “Rural” Cemeteries and Urban Context in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia © 2009 by Aaron Vickers Wunsch 1 Abstract Parceling the Picturesque: “Rural” Cemeteries and Urban Context in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia Aaron V. Wunsch Doctor of Philosophy in the History of Architecture University of California, Berkeley Margaret Crawford, Chair Moving beyond traditional studies of the picturesque as a European-born artistic phenomenon, this dissertation connects the naturalistic treatment of landscape to a particular city’s cultural and economic transformation in the early industrial age. Three narrative strands unite the project. The first traces the arrival of garden-like graveyards on Philadelphia’s periphery. Known after 1830 as “rural” cemeteries, these places were incubators for new conceptions of home, community, and outdoor aesthetic propriety. Closely related to this geographical shift was a vocational one. Beginning in the antebellum decades, several occupations involved in the division and depiction of land recast their services in new terms. Although Philadelphia’s landscape architecture profession eventually emerged from this ferment, my focus is on the period just prior to coalescence – a period when surveyors, horticulturists, and “rural architects” competed for legitimacy (and commissions) in a field without clear-cut boundaries. Embedded in these stories is a third, involving the city as built and imagined. In the early nineteenth century, Philadelphia was America’s grid city par excellence. As such, it exemplified a uniform and “neutral” approach to land division – one initially lauded as compatible with the aims of a republican society but increasingly derided as a speculator’s instrument of convenience. Coded “rural” by its proponents, the picturesque curve seemed to offer an alternative. Its pedigree was aristocratic but its meaning grew less stabile with the dawn of mass culture. A metropolitan picturesque had emerged by mid century. With it came new ways of thinking about art, commerce, and urban community. i Acknowledgements Edward North, a professor of ancient languages at Hamilton College, once declared: “Every burial-place is a repository of unorganized history.” The same is true of many doctoral theses and this one now joins their ranks. A project too long in the making creates deep debts and high expectations. I don’t pretend to have satisfied either in the pages that follow. Still, those who have contributed advice, questions, source materials, and moral support deserve to be thanked. They have made this opus possible and will have to live with the consequences. Veterans of my original committee may have forgotten they served in that capacity but I have not. Mary Ryan, now of John Hopkins, and Kathleen James-Chakraborty, now of University College Dublin, provided early guidance. Paul Groth and David Henkin survived the entire journey. Friends and mentors, they have set an example I hope to emulate with my own students. Despite successive appointments at other universities, Dell Upton remained a source of inspiration through his scholarship and written comments. I trust he will see the stamp of his ideas on these pages. Andrew Shanken graciously stepped into the breach for a time. When Margaret Crawford’s turn came around, she, too, gamely took the lead and I am grateful for it. In addition to an official committee, I was lucky enough to have a shadow committee whose members did as much heavy lifting as if they were being paid for the job. Daniel Bluestone and Barbara Clark Smith read chapters, challenged me at every turn, and kindly supplied me with an office in their house. Jeffrey Cohen of Bryn Mawr College and Michael Lewis of Williams both served as de facto advisors. Peter Onuf of UVA and Michael Zuckerman of Penn read sections and offered valuable suggestions. One of the pleasures of prolonged research is meeting librarians and archivists who know just what you’re getting at or are willing to play along. At the Library Company of Philadelphia, James Green and Cornelia King went out of their way to pull relevant sources. Their colleagues Sarah Weatherwax, Jenny Ambrose, Erika Piola, Linda Wisniewski, and Charlene Peacock were also similarly motivated. At the National Archives’ Mid-Atlantic Branch, Jefferson Moak helped me think about J. C. Sidney and Philadelphia mapmaking. Susan Olsen guided me through Sidney-related records at Woodlawn Cemetery. Patricia O’Donnell and Christopher Densmore of Swarthmore College’s Friends Historical Library put their hands on materials I would otherwise have failed to locate. Diana Peterson and Ann Upton did the same in Haverford College’s Quaker Collection. Winterthur’s Jeanne Solensky made sure I knew about Deborah Norris Logan’s diary – a major service as it turned out. Sandra Markham discovered key documents while processing the Smith Papers at the Library Company. Rachel Onuf and Jack Gumbrecht tracked down manuscripts and articles at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Scholars in a variety of fields came to my aid throughout the project. During a stint at the University of Pennsylvania’s McNeil Center for Early American Studies, made possible through a Barra Foundation Fellowship, I received good counsel from the Center’s director, Daniel Richter. Fellow doctoral students Matthew Osborn, Sarah Rivett, Andrew Heath, Martha Schoolman, Kyle Farley, Julie Kim, Justine Murison, and Amanda Moniz assisted me in the same period, as did Purdue University’s John Larson and Christopher Iannini, now of Rutgers. A 2004 Lois F. McNeil Dissertation Fellowship at Winterthur Library introduced me to Elise ii Ciregna, Linzy Brekke (now Brekke-Aloise), and Briann Greenfield, all of whom made valuable suggestions. Earlier still, a Mellon Foundation Fellowship at the Library Company of Philadelphia and Historical Society of Pennsylvania acquainted me with the staffs of those institutions and with materials I would use in years to come. Outside of sponsored time, I have benefitted from conversations with Johann Neem, Blanche Linden, Donna Rilling, Elizabeth Milroy, and Emily Cooperman. At the University of Delaware, Wendy Bellion asked the question, “What comes next?,” that appears in the Introduction. At the National Park service, my former colleagues pitched in, too. Timothy Davis, Catherine Lavoie, Jamie Jacobs, Virginia Price, and Timothy Long all deserve mention. Attendees of UVA’s Early American Seminar sometimes wondered what I was doing in their midst but made useful observations nonetheless. William Ayres of 19th Century read the opening section of Chapter Four and helped me turn it into an article for that magazine. Friendship, moral support, and intellectual stimulation came from many quarters. At Berkeley, Don Choi, Tamsen Anderson, and Claire Tichi (now Tichi-Grezemkovsky) were allies. In Charlottesville, Hal Sharp read drafts and provided encouragement. Clifton Ellis and Judith Kucharski offered ideas when in town, as did Phil Krone. Of the many people who put me up or found me shelter during research trips, Dorsa Russell, Linda May, and Winterthur’s Pat Elliott were especially considerate. To their ranks I must now add Randy Mason, my colleague at the University of Pennsylvania, who supplied the hermitage in which the final pages emerged. He, Frank Matero, John Hinchman, Judy Peters, and Suzanne Hyndman made it a pleasure to teach in Penn’s Preservation Program while laboring on this project. My greatest debt is to my wife, Jillian Galle. She gave me the time, encouragement, keen insight, and stern discipline needed to get through the hardest parts. She also gave me Elias Galle Wunsch, a delight to both of us. My parents, Lydia Vickers and David Wunsch, and their spouses / partners Mark White and Mary Morgan, buoyed me, too. My brother, Oliver Wunsch, has learned so little from my example that he has embarked on a similar academic journey. I wish him luck and look forward to years of discussions. iii Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………. i LIST OF ILUSTRATIONS………………………………………………………. iv INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………… ix Chapter 1 Death and Life in the Walking City, 1793-1825………………………….. 1 2 Towards New Homelands……………………..…………………………... 37 Quakers, Commerce, and Crisis……………………………………….. 51 The First True Homeland: Urban Chaos and the Rise of Laurel Hill Cemetery………………………………………………………………. 65 3 Dream Houses of the Dead and the Living……………………………….. 88 Institutions and the Villa Ideal………………………………………... 90 Laurel Hill: The Landscape of Genteel Literature……………………. 102 Monument Cemetery: The Rational City……………………………... 123 Communities, Commodities, and the Picturesque: the case of Woodlands Cemetery………………………………………………….. 129 4 Sorting Things Out: Mass Culture
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