Reconstructors: Land, Work, and Engineering After the Civil War - Softcover

Davis, John Dean

 
9780226850931: Reconstructors: Land, Work, and Engineering After the Civil War
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0226850935 ISBN 13: 9780226850931
Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2026

Synopsis

Explores the institutional and environmental transformations that occurred during the Reconstruction Era.

While the Reconstruction Era in America saw a paradigmatic realignment of the country’s core institutions and values, there was a physical quality to Reconstruction as well: the country was not only rebuilding the South after the Civil War, but flat-out building as it expanded westward.

In Reconstructors, John Dean Davis details how the Army Corps of Engineers and its subcontractors designed and redesigned the infrastructural landscape to support the republic’s rebirth. The Corps’ projects not only transformed the landscape; they created markets, fostered a distinctive expansionist culture, and—for a time—enacted a less discriminatory economic and social agenda across the South and West. Davis aims to bring federal power, environmentalism, and capitalism into a frame that reveals the landscape's power to further ideology.

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About the Author

John Dean Davis is assistant professor of landscape architecture in the Knowlton School at Ohio State University.

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Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Publication date
2026
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0226850935
ISBN 13 
9780226850931
Binding
Paperback
Edition number
1
Number of pages
281