Follies in America : : A History of Garden and Park Architecture / / Kerry Dean Carso.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Complete eBook-Package 2021
• VerfasserIn: Carso, Kerry Dean,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2021]; ©2021
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (216 p.) :; 52 b&w halftones

Follies in America examines historicized garden buildings, known as "follies," from the nation's founding through the American centennial celebration in 1876. In a period of increasing nationalism, follies—such as temples, summerhouses, towers, and ruins—brought a range of European architectural styles to the United States. By imprinting the land with symbols of European culture, landscape gardeners civilized the American wilderness.Kerry Dean Carso's interdisciplinary approach in Follies in America examines both buildings and their counterparts in literature and art, demonstrating that follies provide a window into major themes in nineteenth-century American culture, including tensions between Jeffersonian agrarianism and urban life, the ascendancy of middle-class tourism, and gentility and social class aspirations.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. The English Landscape Garden in America -- 2. Temples: Neoclassicism and the Nation -- 3. Summerhouses: Nature Meets Culture -- 4. Towers: The Belvedere and the Panoptic Sublime -- 5. Ruins: The Nineteenth-Century Delight in Decay -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index