Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston Review

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(More customer reviews)Seasholes must have combed every archive and walked every inch of Boston to produce this monumental book. Not only is it exhaustive, but it is entertaining as well. Although this is a handsome book it is not a cooffe table enterprise. This is a book you will want to take with you as you walk the streets of Boston. This book is destined to become dog eared and underlined. It is simply a must for anyone interested in the history of this great city.

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Fully one-sixth of Boston is built on made land. Although otherwaterfront cities also have substantial areas that are built on fill, Bostonprobably has more than any city in North America. In Gaining Ground historian NancySeasholes has given us the first complete account of when, why, and how this landwas created.The story of landmaking in Boston is presented geographically; eachchapter traces landmaking in a different part of the city from its first permanentsettlement to the present. Seasholes introduces findings from recent archaeologicalinvestigations in Boston, and relates landmaking to the major historicaldevelopments that shaped it. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, landmakingin Boston was spurred by the rapid growth that resulted from the burgeoning Chinatrade. The influx of Irish immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century prompted severallarge projects to create residential land--not for the Irish, but to keep thetaxpaying Yankees from fleeing to the suburbs. Many landmaking projects wereundertaken to cover tidal flats that had been polluted by raw sewage dischargeddirectly onto them, removing the "pestilential exhalations" thought to causeillness. Land was also added for port developments, public parks, and transportationfacilities, including the largest landmaking project of all, the airport.A separatechapter discusses the technology of landmaking in Boston, explaining the basicmethod used to make land and the changes in its various components over time. Thebook is copiously illustrated with maps that show the original shoreline in relationto today's streets, details from historical maps that trace the progress oflandmaking, and historical drawings and photographs.

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