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Research Summary
Current Status
PhD (full-time) - currently registered
Research Topic
Landscaped parks and urban development in nineteenth-century America
Research Summary
My project examines the proliferation of landscaped urban parks as they relate to the rise of industrial cities in nineteenth-century America. Often understood as corrective measures implemented to reign in unchecked urbanization, these 'natural' spaces also played a central role in solidifying the perception of the city as the realm of industrial economic activity. Large public parks gained immense popularity in the mid-nineteenth century, and were quickly seen as integral components of the modern city. I examine this trend from a regionalist approach, focusing on case studies from the Northeast, Midwest, West, and South, in order to analyze the ways in which the park idea was communicated, adopted, and adapted according to various contexts within the United States.
Research Interests
- Gilded Age and Progressive Era history
- Urban history
- American industrialization
- Technological history
- Nature studies
- 19th-century visual culture
- Cultural history
- Intellectual history
Research Supervisor/s
Doctor Matthew Pethers
Doctor Robin Vandome
Primary Funding Source/s
Vice-Chancellor's Scholarship for Research Excellence (International)
Research Institutes, Centres and/or Research Clusters Memberships
- Print and Visual Culture
- British American Nineteenth Century Historians
- British Association for American Studies
Conference Papers & Presentations
"Illuminating Illusion: Recreating the Sublime at Niagara Falls with Electric Light", British American Nineteenth Century Historians Conference, October 2016