Imagining Philadelphia : travelers' views of the city from 1800 to the present / Philip Stevick.

Main entry:

Stevick, Philip.

Title & Author:

Imagining Philadelphia : travelers' views of the city from 1800 to the present / Philip Stevick.

Publication:

Description:

204 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-199) and index.
Introduction -- 1. Mastering Philadelphia -- 2. Walking Philadelphia -- 3. Mythic Places -- 4. The Great Granite Experiment -- 5. Public Utility as Theme Park -- 6. Urban Woods -- 7. American Athens -- 8. Loathing Philadelphia -- 9. Dreaming Philadelphia -- L'Envoi: Thirty-six views of Philadelphia.

Summary:

In travel narratives, in correspondence, in diaries, and even in fiction, travelers to Philadelphia have bequeathed to us a bounty of "as many Philadelphias as there are observers." Philip Stevick's collection of outsiders' observations captures what the visitors thought they saw and how it felt to have engaged the life of the city. Some travelers visited the classic destinations of earlier times, such as the great waterworks complex, and some reacted generally to the tone and temper of the city. Together, these accounts fall into patterns that often convey a mythic reading of the city, as a place of uncommon order and symmetry, for example, or a place of great torpor and dullness, or a city extraordinary for the way in which elements of wilderness interpenetrate the metropolitan core. These attempts to make sense of the city are highly subjective yet vividly compelling versions of Philadelphia. Stevick's analysis of these accounts offers a way to make sense of the patterns, to understand their significance as alternate visions of an extraordinary city. In so doing, he finds that "the city has inscribed itself on the imaginations of two centuries of visitors in ways that are often compelling but unpredictable, a parallel city to the place on the map and the street under foot, a city of the mind, an imagined Philadelphia."

ISBN:

0812233778 (alk. paper)
9780812233773 (alk. paper)

Subject:

Travelers Pennsylvania Philadelphia.
Voyageurs Pennsylvanie Philadelphie.
Travel.
Travelers.
Philadelphia (Pa.) Description and travel.
Philadelphie (Penns.) Descriptions et voyages.
Pennsylvania Philadelphia.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 126463
Call No.: ID:97-B1081
Status: Available

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