The Making of Philadelphia: The Natural Environment and Its Scientific and Artistic Histories

Abstract

As a colonial centre of North America and the first capitol of the United States, the city of Philadelphia was a central participant in the development of American art and science. This essay reviews three recent texts that seek to understand the interconnected nature of art and science in Philadelphia: Elizabeth Milroy’s The Grid and the River: Philadelphia’s Green Places, 1682–1876, Amy R.W. Myers’s Knowing Nature: Art and Science in Philadelphia, 1740–1840, and Alan C. Braddock and Laura Turner Igoe’s A Greene Country Towne: Philadelphia’s Ecology in the Cultural Imagination. Each volume identifies key figures, objects, and texts that are integral to understanding Philadelphia’s natural environment and the flowering of art and science in the city