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TT: Re: re: the history & ideology of "the lawn"
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Richard,
When my family and I moved in our house, the 1st project I
tackled was to remove the fence. I caught flack from my wife and neighbors.
Thanks for the support.
craig/athens,ga.
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> From: RT Ellsberry <rtells@Flora.Com>
> To: Community Forestry <TreeTown@Majordomo.Flora.Com>
> Cc: Alice Ingerson <ingerson@arnarb.harvard.edu>
> Subject: TT: re: the history & ideology of "the lawn"
> Date: Tuesday, February 03, 1998 9:51 AM
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 09:47:49 -0500
> From: Alice Ingerson <ingerson@arnarb.harvard.edu>
> To: Richard@Flora.Com (Thank you so much, Alice Ingerson!)
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> This may be more than TreeTowners want on this subject, but--
>
> Frank Jessup Scott Scott began advocating a uniform setback from the
> street, and no fences between neighbors, for new suburban developments in
> the 1870s, and put his ideas into practice first in Toledo. His major
> ideas can be found in his book, <italic>The Art of Beautifying Suburban
> Home-Grounds</italic> (New York: D. Appleton Co., 1879, reprinted in 1886
> by John B. Alden Co. of New York).
>
>
>
> For a broader perspective on Scott, see James L. Machlor,
> <italic>Pastoral Cities: Urban Ideals and the Symbolic Landscape of
> America</italic> (University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), esp. ch. 4,
> "Landscape as Cityscape: Urbanization and the Western Garden";
>
>
> and
>
>
> Fred E. H. Schroeder, <italic>Front Yard America: The Evolution and
> Meanings of a Vernacular Domestic Landscape</italic> (Bowling Green State
> University Popular Press, 1993), esp. parts 4 ("The Coming of the
> Lawnmower") through 6 ("As Toledo Goes, So Goes the Nation").
>
>
> Schroeder's book is a fun read (it came out of the long-running program
> on "popular culture" at Bowling Green State in Ohio). It has lots of
> great photos and drawings showing how the front yard evolved from a
> place to grow food or pen animals into a purely ornamental place that, to
> the delight of some (who thought sharing views was democratic) and the
> disgust of others (for whom this violated their sense of individual
> liberty and private property), seemed to "belong to the neighbors" more
> than to the homeowner.
>
>
> That might be the aspect of greatest interest to treetowners,
> actually--since ecosystems can't function and evolve if they are managed
> one property, or even one owner's tenure on a given property, at a time.
> Yet many Americans still feel those should be the fundamental units of
> space and time for making land use decisions.
>
>
> ==============================(TreeTown)===============================
==============================(TreeTown)===============================
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