How water became public in Progressive-Era New York, 1883--1917
Item
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Title
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How water became public in Progressive-Era New York, 1883--1917
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:288a0095c247:11596
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identifier
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12167
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Creator
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Malin, Gwynneth C.,
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Contributor
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Thomas Kessner
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Date
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2013
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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American history | Environmental studies | Croton | municipal politics | New York City | public health | sanitation | water
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Abstract
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Four distinctive features of this historical period prompted the City of New York to undertake water management. First, the severe drought of 1881 forced the city to expedite construction of the New Croton Aqueduct in 1883. While the city was building the new aqueduct, the urban public began to spend their leisure time at the High Bridge, which monumentalized the Old Croton Aqueduct and raised awareness of public water. Second, the cholera scare of 1892 prompted the city to protect the Croton watershed from pollution. Third, the high-profile derailment of an intricate scheme of graft, in 1899, drove city officials to begin to eliminate private water companies and to increase vigilance about municipal corruption related to water. Fourth, the consolidation of Greater New York increased city and state power and improvements in municipal finance facilitated a new public water bureaucracy, which allowed the city to build, manage, and pay for its own water system, marked by the completion of the Catskills system in 1917.;The management of water serves as an early example of government intervention in New York, which began before public schools, before the subway, and before government regulation of private gas and electric companies. Support for the idea of public water emerged as early as 1835 when the public voted in favor of building the city-run Croton water system, but public water was not on solid ground until much later. In fact, the idea of public water preceded the necessary infrastructure, bureaucracy, and finances required to make it possible. While no municipal operation is ever wholly public or private, between 1883 and 1917, the notion of public management of water triumphed in New York. It was during this long historical moment that city officials and New Yorkers began to think of, and to treat, water as a public resource. By providing a new synthesis of the cultural, economic, political, and social history of water in New York during this critical period, this study emphasizes the complexity and contingency in the story of how New York's water became public.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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History
