Remaking Boston: An Environmental History of the City and it
Posted: 24 Apr 2014, 09:34
Remaking Boston: An Environmental History of the City and its Surroundings. Edited by Anthony N. Penna and Conrad Edick Wright. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009. 333 pages. $40.00 (hardcover).
Remaking Boston: An Environmental History of the City and its Surroundings is a collection of thirteen short essays documenting the environmental history of Boston from prehistoric to modern times. The essays are a product of the Boston Environmental History Seminars produced by the Massachusetts Historical Society. They are skillfully edited to retain their academic character in a concise and readable format that the casual student of history will readily appreciate. Stylistically the essays are presented almost with one voice. They emphasize short, precise chapters that highlight fascinating nuggets of information; often shattering preconceived notions of the reader.
The book is organized into three main sections: The Harbor, The Town and the Countryside, and The Climate and the Weather. The casual reader may be tempted to skip a chapter based on their normal reading preferences. But each essay is interesting in it’s own right, often containing gems of information that the reader would otherwise never encounter. For example, much of the Boston harbor was fortuitously saved from further environmental degradation through the application of an incorrect scientific theory of the time. Until the late nineteenth century, it was believed that the deep ship channels so essential for Boston to remain a vital port were formed and maintained by the constant scouring of the harbor by rivers and tides. Any diminution of the volume of water scouring the harbor would therefore result in the silting of the ship channels, with predicted disastrous results. For decades this theory helped to minimize the environmental damage of land making, although it didn’t stop it entirely. This process leveled many hills in the city, which at the time were impediments to the prevailing modes of transportation then available. The displaced soil was used to fill many salt marshes and flats. At the time this seemed reasonable for two reasons. The most obvious was the need for more for valuable commercial and residential land. A less apparent motive was that this land was considered useless by many to begin with, and had been consigned for use as refuse dumps long before. One way to eliminate the resulting noxious smells and supposed disease causing “miasma” emanating from this land was to cover it with the surplus soil and turn it into desperately desired useable land. We now understand that the deep ship channels of Boston Harbor were actually created by the glaciers millions of years ago, and that the action of tidal scour has little affect on their configuration. Hundreds of acres of tidal wetlands so important to our environmental health were saved by a scientific theory since proven to be baseless, though it was seen as definitive at the time.
A common preconceived notion is that large mid-western dairy farms and railroads combined to flood Massachusetts with cheap dairy products during the middle of the nineteenth century, destroying the dairy economy and leading to the first great reforestation of the state. This book convincingly shows that there was a direct cause and effect involved, but for different reasons and with different results. At this point in time refrigeration was not advanced enough to bring fresh milk cross-country. But cheap mid-west grain did become available to the farmers of Boston. This in turn led to vastly higher milk yields and favored stall-feeding over free range feeding. This reduced the need for pasturage land, resulting in reforestation. The dairy industry actually thrived in the Boston as a result. An unintended additional benefit accrued to the farmer. The predominant white pine that carpeted his unused pastureland grew to maturity at the exact time that there was a huge demand for boxwood to feed the emerging packaging industry. So counter-intuitively mid-western farming initially proved a huge boon to Boston farmers, increasing their productivity and providing them with an unintended and unanticipated second crop. The advent of refrigerated trucking and the tremendous increase in twentieth century Boston land values finally decimated the local dairy industry. The insatiable demand for additional area land being the most telling factor, witness the still viable Vermont dairy industry.
Another fascinating section of the book deals with how Boston first polluted and then saved its beautiful harbor. Initially the Back Bay was used as a refuse pit until it became unbearable to it’s abutters, when it was then filled in and turned into valuable real estate. Subsequent sewer systems were built that pumped millions of gallons of refuse into the harbor. Each time the pollution became intolerable the solution became to pump the refuse further out into the harbor. Forced to act by the federal government in the late 1980’s, Boston finally built modern day treatment facilities to clean the wastewater before pumping it far out into Massachusetts Bay. The harbor has been transformed, and is now a recreational and tourism center. In an ironic twist of fate the Boston Harbor islands that were largely spared from development because of their once surrounding pollution are now part of the National Park System and attract thousands of visitors each year.
The final section of the book documents the weather changes to Boston over the centuries. It shows irrefutable evidence that Boston’s climate has been gradually and continuously warming. From the time of the “Little Ice Age” encountered by the earliest settlers until the present day the evidence is overwhelming. Using various forms of historical documentation such as journals, letters, and photographs the authors have documented earlier migration patterns, tree flowering, crop maturity, and planting seasons. This surplus of evidence suggests that global warming is indeed real, and leaves an open question as to what the future holds for the City of Boston.
Remaking Boston: An Environmental History of the City and its Surroundings is both readable and enjoyable. There is much fascinating information in this book that could not be included in the space of this review. It stands alone as an overall survey of Boston’s environmental history, or can be read as an introduction to the various topics presented for those who want to explore a particular subject in depth. Either way it is valuable addition to the literature of Boston history.
Stephen Donnelly is a consultant for the insurance industry and a Westfield State College alumnus.
Remaking Boston: An Environmental History of the City and its Surroundings is a collection of thirteen short essays documenting the environmental history of Boston from prehistoric to modern times. The essays are a product of the Boston Environmental History Seminars produced by the Massachusetts Historical Society. They are skillfully edited to retain their academic character in a concise and readable format that the casual student of history will readily appreciate. Stylistically the essays are presented almost with one voice. They emphasize short, precise chapters that highlight fascinating nuggets of information; often shattering preconceived notions of the reader.
The book is organized into three main sections: The Harbor, The Town and the Countryside, and The Climate and the Weather. The casual reader may be tempted to skip a chapter based on their normal reading preferences. But each essay is interesting in it’s own right, often containing gems of information that the reader would otherwise never encounter. For example, much of the Boston harbor was fortuitously saved from further environmental degradation through the application of an incorrect scientific theory of the time. Until the late nineteenth century, it was believed that the deep ship channels so essential for Boston to remain a vital port were formed and maintained by the constant scouring of the harbor by rivers and tides. Any diminution of the volume of water scouring the harbor would therefore result in the silting of the ship channels, with predicted disastrous results. For decades this theory helped to minimize the environmental damage of land making, although it didn’t stop it entirely. This process leveled many hills in the city, which at the time were impediments to the prevailing modes of transportation then available. The displaced soil was used to fill many salt marshes and flats. At the time this seemed reasonable for two reasons. The most obvious was the need for more for valuable commercial and residential land. A less apparent motive was that this land was considered useless by many to begin with, and had been consigned for use as refuse dumps long before. One way to eliminate the resulting noxious smells and supposed disease causing “miasma” emanating from this land was to cover it with the surplus soil and turn it into desperately desired useable land. We now understand that the deep ship channels of Boston Harbor were actually created by the glaciers millions of years ago, and that the action of tidal scour has little affect on their configuration. Hundreds of acres of tidal wetlands so important to our environmental health were saved by a scientific theory since proven to be baseless, though it was seen as definitive at the time.
A common preconceived notion is that large mid-western dairy farms and railroads combined to flood Massachusetts with cheap dairy products during the middle of the nineteenth century, destroying the dairy economy and leading to the first great reforestation of the state. This book convincingly shows that there was a direct cause and effect involved, but for different reasons and with different results. At this point in time refrigeration was not advanced enough to bring fresh milk cross-country. But cheap mid-west grain did become available to the farmers of Boston. This in turn led to vastly higher milk yields and favored stall-feeding over free range feeding. This reduced the need for pasturage land, resulting in reforestation. The dairy industry actually thrived in the Boston as a result. An unintended additional benefit accrued to the farmer. The predominant white pine that carpeted his unused pastureland grew to maturity at the exact time that there was a huge demand for boxwood to feed the emerging packaging industry. So counter-intuitively mid-western farming initially proved a huge boon to Boston farmers, increasing their productivity and providing them with an unintended and unanticipated second crop. The advent of refrigerated trucking and the tremendous increase in twentieth century Boston land values finally decimated the local dairy industry. The insatiable demand for additional area land being the most telling factor, witness the still viable Vermont dairy industry.
Another fascinating section of the book deals with how Boston first polluted and then saved its beautiful harbor. Initially the Back Bay was used as a refuse pit until it became unbearable to it’s abutters, when it was then filled in and turned into valuable real estate. Subsequent sewer systems were built that pumped millions of gallons of refuse into the harbor. Each time the pollution became intolerable the solution became to pump the refuse further out into the harbor. Forced to act by the federal government in the late 1980’s, Boston finally built modern day treatment facilities to clean the wastewater before pumping it far out into Massachusetts Bay. The harbor has been transformed, and is now a recreational and tourism center. In an ironic twist of fate the Boston Harbor islands that were largely spared from development because of their once surrounding pollution are now part of the National Park System and attract thousands of visitors each year.
The final section of the book documents the weather changes to Boston over the centuries. It shows irrefutable evidence that Boston’s climate has been gradually and continuously warming. From the time of the “Little Ice Age” encountered by the earliest settlers until the present day the evidence is overwhelming. Using various forms of historical documentation such as journals, letters, and photographs the authors have documented earlier migration patterns, tree flowering, crop maturity, and planting seasons. This surplus of evidence suggests that global warming is indeed real, and leaves an open question as to what the future holds for the City of Boston.
Remaking Boston: An Environmental History of the City and its Surroundings is both readable and enjoyable. There is much fascinating information in this book that could not be included in the space of this review. It stands alone as an overall survey of Boston’s environmental history, or can be read as an introduction to the various topics presented for those who want to explore a particular subject in depth. Either way it is valuable addition to the literature of Boston history.
Stephen Donnelly is a consultant for the insurance industry and a Westfield State College alumnus.