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Follies in America: A History of Garden and Park Architecture

Online ISBN:
9781501755941
Print ISBN:
9781501755934
Publisher:
Cornell University Press
Book

Follies in America: A History of Garden and Park Architecture

Kerry Dean Carso
Kerry Dean Carso
State University of New York at New Paltz
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Published online:
20 January 2022
Published in print:
15 August 2021
Online ISBN:
9781501755941
Print ISBN:
9781501755934
Publisher:
Cornell University Press

Abstract

This book examines historicized garden buildings, known as “follies,” from the nation's founding through the American centennial celebration in 1876. In a period of increasing nationalism, follies — such as temples, summerhouses, towers, and ruins — brought a range of European architectural styles to the United States. By imprinting the land with symbols of European culture, landscape gardeners brought their idea of civilization to the American wilderness. The book examines both buildings and their counterparts in literature and art, demonstrating that follies provide a window into major themes in nineteenth-century American culture, including tensions between Jeffersonian agrarianism and urban life, the ascendancy of middle-class tourism, and gentility and social class aspirations.

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