| This dissertation examines the relationship between prescriptive ideals and the actual suburban development of the Germantown section of Philadelphia from the 1830s through the early 1860s. Exemplifying many small towns on the outskirts of larger cities, Germantown's growth in this period was characterized by unplanned development, a speculative real estate market, and the involvement of numerous small-scale entrepreneurs. Germantown's suburban neighborhoods were not the product of a simple evolution but of a complex and conflicted process of community building and cultural change. Local privatism and ruralism gave way to a kind of progress that gradually overcame a strong disinclination to abandon the city for year-round residency in the suburb.;Germantown's evolving grid of streets, rectilinear lots, and new suburban houses differed significantly from the picturesque landscape ideals and house designs promoted by pattern-book authors. Pattern-book authors exploited cultural anxiety over tasteful expression and inappropriate displays of social ambition as a way to promote the services of professional architects. They encouraged custom-built, individualized homes with picturesque plans that would carefully express the character of their owners and be a source of long-term sentimental attachment. These ideals largely ignored the means, motives, and mobility of most middle-class, suburban residents. Moreover, Germantown's truly customized, architect-designed houses not only were exceptional examples but they also varied significantly in their reception of pattern-book ideals.;Pattern-book authors sought to separate the real estate market from the sentimental idea of the home, but the two spheres were inseparable and effectively reconciled in Germantown's grid development and popular suburban house types. Developers and proprietors may have embraced the moderate level of sentimental individuation available in the new styles popularized by pattern-book authors, but they thwarted prescriptive rhetoric by employing a limited number of conventional house forms. They modernized the side-passage plan, center-passage plan, and twin dwelling, modifying these types for a suburban context in a way that combined urban symbolism and rural sensibility. Germantown's middle-class builders and buyers thus avoided the social uncertainties and market liabilities entailed by new-fangled, picturesque plans. They favored fashionable but standardized homes that were easily marketed, acquired, and sold again. |
