Incidental Architect: William Thornton and the Cultural Life of Early Washington, D.C., 1794-1828 - Brossura

Brown, Gordon S.

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0821418637 ISBN 13: 9780821418635

Casa editrice: Ohio Univ Pr, 2009

Riassunto

While the majority of scholarship on early Washington focuses on its political and physical development, in Incidental Architect Gordon S. Brown describes the intellectual and social scene of the late 1700s through the lives of a prominent couple whose cultural aspirations served as both model and mirror for the city’s own.

When William and Anna Maria Thornton arrived in Washington, D.C., in 1794, the new nation’s capital was little more than a raw village. The Edinburgh–educated Thornton and his accomplished wife brought with them the values of the Scottish Enlightenment, an enthusiasm for the arts, and a polished urbanity that was lacking in the little city emerging from the swamps along the Potomac. Thornton’s talents were manifold: He is perhaps best known as the original architect of the Capitol building, but he also served as a city commissioner and as director of the Patent Office, where his own experimentation in steam navigation embroiled him in a long-running dispute with inventor Robert Fulton.

In spite of their general preoccupation with politics and real estate development, Washington’s citizens gradually created a network of cultural institutions—theaters, libraries and booksellers, music venues, churches, schools, and even colleges and intellectual associations—that began to satisfy their aspirations.

Incidental Architect is a fascinating account of how the city’s cultural and social institutions were shaped by its earliest citizens.

Su questo libro

L'autore

Retired diplomat Gordon S. Brown is the author of The Norman Conquest of Southern Italy and Sicily and Toussaint’s Clause: The Founding Fathers and the Haitian Revolution.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Ohio Univ Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0821418637
• ISBN 13: 9780821418635
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero edizione: 1
• Numero di pagine: 141