Awards

• Nominated for Abbott Lowell Cummings Prize 2017
• Nominated for David Montgomery Award 2017
• Nominated for Longman-History Today Awards 2017
• Nominated for New-York Historical Society American History Book Prize 2016

Overview

The word ""shantytown"" conjures images of crowded slums in developing nations. Though their history is largely forgotten, shantytowns were a prominent feature of one developing nation in particular: the United States. Lisa Goff restores shantytowns to the central place they once occupied in America's urban landscape, showing how the basic but resourcefully constructed dwellings of America's working poor were not merely the byproducts of economic hardship but potent assertions of self-reliance. In the nineteenth century, poor workers built shantytowns across America's frontiers and its booming industrial cities. Settlements covered large swaths of urban property, including a twenty-block stretch of Manhattan, much of Brooklyn's waterfront, and present-day Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. Names like Tinkersville and Hayti evoked the occupations and ethnicities of shantytown residents, who were most often European immigrants and African Americans. These inhabitants defended their civil rights and went to court to protect their property and resist eviction, claiming the benefits of middle-class citizenship without its bourgeois trappings. Over time, middle-class contempt for shantytowns increased. When veterans erected an encampment near the U.S. Capitol in the 1930s President Hoover ordered the army to destroy it, thus inspiring the Depression-era slang ""Hoovervilles."" Twentieth-century reforms in urban zoning and public housing, introduced as progressive efforts to provide better dwellings, curtailed the growth of shantytowns. Yet their legacy is still felt in sites of political activism, from shanties on college campuses protesting South African apartheid to the tent cities of Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.

Full Product Details

9780674660458

Table of Contents

Reviews

Lisa Goff guides us energetically and engagingly through the shanties and shantytowns of the United States. These ubiquitous, ever-present settlements have rarely attracted more than a passing glance and quick condemnation from outsiders. Goff's prodigious detective work and empathy restore a significant corner of the American landscape to our view and our understanding.--Dell Upton, Professor of Art History, University of California, Los Angeles Lisa Goff's Shantytown, USA is not your ordinary American Studies cuppa joe. But it's one of those books you might pick up in a loose-change moment of curiosity and find yourself utterly unable to put down because it's so unexpected, so smart, so good.--Dana D. Nelson American Literary History (10/01/2016) Goff's book excavates the long, untold history of American shantytowns from their emergence in the 1820s to the present day, providing a vivid look at an easily overlooked yet omnipresent and consequential American urban phenomenon. Her engaging work reveals much about the working poor, urban growth, and changing ideas about public space.--William A. Gleason, author of Sites Unseen: Architecture, Race, and American Literature

Lisa Goff's Shantytown, USA is not your ordinary American Studies cuppa joe. But it’s one of those books you might pick up in a loose-change moment of curiosity and find yourself utterly unable to put down because it's so unexpected, so smart, so good. -- Dana D. Nelson * American Literary History * In her broadly researched debut book, Goff traces the history of shanties in America, beginning with Thoreau’s famous cabin on Walden Pond. * Kirkus Reviews * Goff’s book excavates the long, untold history of American shantytowns from their emergence in the 1820s to the present day, providing a vivid look at an easily overlooked yet omnipresent and consequential American urban phenomenon. Her engaging work reveals much about the working poor, urban growth, and changing ideas about public space. -- William A. Gleason, author of <i>Sites Unseen: Architecture, Race, and American Literature</i> Lisa Goff guides us energetically and engagingly through the shanties and shantytowns of the United States. These ubiquitous, ever-present settlements have rarely attracted more than a passing glance and quick condemnation from outsiders. Goff’s prodigious detective work and empathy restore a significant corner of the American landscape to our view and our understanding. -- Dell Upton, Professor of Art History, University of California, Los Angeles

Lisa Goff guides us energetically and engagingly through the shanties and shantytowns of the United States. These ubiquitous, ever-present settlements have rarely attracted more than a passing glance and quick condemnation from outsiders. Goff's prodigious detective work and empathy restore a significant corner of the American landscape to our view and our understanding.--Dell Upton, Professor of Art History, University of California, Los Angeles Goff's book excavates the long, untold history of American shantytowns from their emergence in the 1820s to the present day, providing a vivid look at an easily overlooked yet omnipresent and consequential American urban phenomenon. Her engaging work reveals much about the working poor, urban growth, and changing ideas about public space.--William A. Gleason, author of Sites Unseen: Architecture, Race, and American Literature Lisa Goff's Shantytown, USA is not your ordinary American Studies cuppa joe. But it's one of those books you might pick up in a loose-change moment of curiosity and find yourself utterly unable to put down because it's so unexpected, so smart, so good.--Dana D. Nelson American Literary History (10/01/2016)

<b>Lisa Goff</b> guides us energetically and engagingly through the shanties and shantytowns of the United States. These ubiquitous, ever-present settlements have rarely attracted more than a passing glance and quick condemnation from outsiders. Goff s prodigious detective work and empathy restore a significant corner of the American landscape to our view and our understanding.--Dell Upton, Professor of Art History, University of California, Los Angeles

Lisa Goff's <i>Shantytown, USA</i> is not your ordinary American Studies cuppa joe. But it s one of those books you might pick up in a loose-change moment of curiosity and find yourself utterly unable to put down because it's so unexpected, so smart, so <i>good</i>.--Dana D. Nelson American Literary History (10/01/2016)

Lisa Goff guides us energetically and engagingly through the shanties and shantytowns of the United States. These ubiquitous, ever-present settlements have rarely attracted more than a passing glance and quick condemnation from outsiders. Goff s prodigious detective work and empathy restore a significant corner of the American landscape to our view and our understanding.--Dell Upton, Professor of Art History, University of California, Los Angeles

Author Information

Lisa Goff is a member of the Department of English and of the American Studies Program at the University of Virginia.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available