THE OPULENT CITY AND THE SYLVAN STATE: ART AND ENVIRONMENTAL EMBODIMENT IN EARLY NATIONAL PHILADELPHIA A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by Laura Turner Igoe August 2014 Examining Committee Members: Ashley West, Advisory Chair, Art History, Temple University Therese Dolan, Art History, Temple University Andrew Isenberg, History, Temple University Alan C. Braddock, Art History and American Studies, The College of William & Mary Wendy Bellion, External Member, Art History, University of Delaware © Copyright 2014 by Laura Turner Igoe All Rights Reserved ii ABSTRACT This dissertation investigates the ways in which Philadelphia artists and architects visualized, comprehended, and reformed the city’s rapidly changing urban environment in the early republic, prior to the modern articulation of “ecology” as a scientific concept by late nineteenth-century naturalists such as Ernst Haeckel. I consider a variety of different media—including popular depictions and manifestations of Penn’s Treaty Elm, fireplace and stove models by Charles Willson Peale, architectural designs for the Philadelphia Waterworks by Benjamin Henry Latrobe, and a self-portrait bust by the sculptor William Rush—in order to demonstrate that the human body served as a powerful creative metaphor in Philadelphia circa 1800, not only for understanding and representing natural processes in political or aesthetic terms, but also for framing critical public discourse about the city’s actual environmental conditions. Specifically, I reveal how this metaphorical framework produced a variety of effects in art and architecture of the period, sometimes facilitating and at other times obscuring an understanding about the natural world as an arena of dynamic transformation. I use the emerging discourse of ecocriticism to reframe complex embodied perceptions of the urban environment in early national Philadelphia. Briefly summarized, ecocriticism expands the scope of scholarly inquiry by recovering lost or neglected evidence of environmental conditions that bear on politics, society, and culture. Ecocritical art history offers a more self-critical approach to visual and material culture, questioning the prevailing anthropocentrism of art history by recognizing the agency of the environments and nonhuman entities with which artworks engage. Through an investigation of my case study objects’ previously overlooked engagement with their iii physical surroundings, I challenge the traditional separation of culture and nature, art and environment, in the interpretation of nineteenth-century art history. By revealing the previously unexplored environmental significance of the objects in question, my dissertation asserts that ecological change played an instrumental role in shaping artistic production and urban development in the decades following United States independence. iv For my grandparents v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation has benefitted immensely from the advice, feedback, and assistance of many individuals and institutions and I am indebted to them for their generous support. I owe a great deal to the art history department at the Tyler School of Art, Temple University, which encouraged and accommodated my research throughout my graduate career. I am very lucky to have had two excellent advisors during my tenure at Temple. Alan Braddock introduced me to the exciting possibilities of ecocriticism and new materialism, which allowed me to view nineteenth-century American art history in a new—and I believe, necessary—light. Alan continued to serve as my advisor after leaving Temple for a prestigious position at the College of William & Mary and this dissertation would only be a shell of its current state without his insightful prompts and provocations. Ashley West graciously stepped in as my primary advisor at Temple after Alan’s departure and her deep knowledge of the historical intersections of art, science, and intellectual discourse became invaluable to this project. Both Alan and Ashley have helped me become a more rigorous and thoughtful scholar and for that I am extremely grateful. Many other faculty members have also supported this project by offering advice at various stages, attending and evaluating practice conference talks, writing letters of recommendation, and assisting with applications. Thank you especially to Elizabeth Bolman, Tracy Cooper, Therese Dolan, Susanna Gold, Marcia Hall, Adele Nelson, and Gerald Silk for their involvement in this regard. Particular gratitude is due to my external committee members, Andrew Isenberg and Wendy Bellion, for the expertise on environmental history, urban studies, and art history of the early republic that they bring vi to this project. I hope the fruitful discussions I’ve had with Drew and Wendy in the past will continue in the future. I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to present an early version of my chapter on Charles Willson Peale’s fireplace and stove designs at the Anatomy/Academy Graduate Student Symposium at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2011, where I received valuable feedback from Wendy, Rachel DeLue, Kathy Foster, Michael Leja, Anna Marley, and Tanya Sheehan that informed my dissertation going forward. I wish to also thank the members of the now defunct Temple University Americanist Reading Group (TUAReG), whose regular meetings from 2009- 2011 inspired stimulating interdisciplinary debate and proved an excellent venue to test out early chapter ideas. Several institutions have provided important material support for this dissertation. I am extremely grateful to the American Council of Learned Societies and the Henry Luce Foundation for funding a final year of research and writing with a Dissertation Fellowship in American Art. Thanks to an Ailsa Mellon Bruce Predoctoral Fellowship for Historians of American Art to Travel Abroad from the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, I spent four weeks in the summer of 2011 viewing art and science collections and Wunderkammern in the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria, which helped situate my project within a broader transatlantic framework. Residential fellowships have also been instrumental to this project’s development by facilitating invigorating scholarly exchange and access to important resources. I spent an incredibly productive and rewarding year as a predoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) from 2012-13. Amelia Goerlitz, Amanda Rothstein, and Elizabeth Willson worked tirelessly to arrange seminars, talks, and tours during my vii fellowship term and made the Fellowship Office a very welcome and comfortable environment in which to work. I am also indebted to librarian Anne Evenhaugen for humoring my excessive use of the Smithsonian’s interlibrary loan system. While at SAAM, my dissertation benefitted greatly from thought-provoking conversations with curators and staff, especially Karen Lemmey, Emily Shapiro, Bill Truettner, and David Ward. SAAM’s fellowship program truly supports a remarkable group of perceptive and intelligent scholars and it was a privilege to work among a cohort of peers who engaged critically and creatively with American art. I am incredibly grateful to my fellow fellows—Susanneh Bieber, Emily Burns, Agathe Cabau, Katelyn Crawford, Catherine Holochworst, Miri Kim, Shana Klein, Nicholas Miller, Erin Pauwels, Berit Potter, Adam Thomas, Luis Vargas-Santiago, and Gregory Zinman—who encouraged me to clarify and more forcefully articulate the larger stakes of my dissertation. A dissertation research fellowship from the Pennsylvania Area Center for the History of Science funded a month of intense archival research at the American Philosophical Society, Historical Medical Library at the College of Physicians, Historical Society of Philadelphia, Franklin Institute, and Library Company of Philadelphia. Thank you especially to Babak Ashrafi and Simon Joseph for facilitating introductions and organizing networking events during this fellowship term. This past year, the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania welcomed my affiliation as a research associate and I am obliged to Dan Richter for the opportunity to participate in that interdisciplinary community of early American scholars. I also wish to thank the Terra Foundation for American Art for supporting a summer residency in viii Giverny, France and fostering a lively exchange of ideas and discussion of interpretive models with other doctoral candidates, senior scholars, and artists. The assistance and guidance of the knowledgeable library, archive, and museum staff I contacted and visited these past few years have been essential to this project’s realization. These individuals fielded numerous inquiries and facilitated the viewing of countless objects, archives, and books that became integral components of my dissertation. Kathy Foster and Mark Mitchell at the Center for American Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where I had a summer fellowship in 2008, became important resources and mentors to me throughout my graduate career. I spent a year cataloging the museum collection of the American Philosophical Society from 2009-2010 and this dissertation was inspired by that institution’s unique, and at times, baffling, collection of fine art and scientific objects. Thank you especially to Sue Ann Prince, Merrill Mason, Mary Grace Wahl, and the library staff for their guidance and support. My many hours