The American Built Environment
History 8630 Class Objectives: Students will develop the practical skills of place-based historical research by studying change over time in the Atlanta region. We will also think about the city and suburb as artifacts of materials culture, looking at both archival and physical evidence to construct spatial biographies. We will use historical walking tours as a tool and a resouce for using the built environment as primary source /evidence to develop historical narritives and interpretations about the past.
Preamble: The American Built Environment has such a propensity to become a controversial topic in that it inherently reflects the culture and the vision of the most dominant culture, race, gender notwithstanding, the contribution to labor, ideas or construction of any other groups. The term built environment refers to the architecture the landscaping the social environment made manifest in society. For example, the photo above represents enslaved Blacks that were the builders and constructors of the Capitol building, the central governing building of the United States. U.S. history has been slow to offer any recognition of their contribution to this nations built environment or the achievement of these workers, nor any women, nor indigenous persons or immigrant worker in a time where the very nature of being an American was less than a 40 year old concept.
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The American Built Environment is an amalgamation of stolen lands, captured by war or by trick, land that was illegal for individuals to own or to inherit, because of the system of chattel slavery and then Jim Crow or because of prejudices against women. Buildings were built on lands in a system that did not recognize the craftsmanship, carpentry, ironwork, masonry or style of any edifice designed or created by certain individuals who were only attributed as laborers and thought to be incapable of the higher level thoughts that involved in building structures and urban planning. The American built environment was promulgated in a system that relegated some individuals to low standard dwellings with no hope of improvements, and kept those same persons out of parks, restaurants, banks, schools, and offices.
How can we talk about the built environment without acknowledging that the entire American built environment was made possible only because of the immoral and deprave institution of chattel slavery? Explain how a simple trace in history will reveal that every park, every mansion, every factory and promenade is sitting on land stained with the blood of the enslaved Black or the indigenous person. If we historians started our inquiries from that point when attempting to make decisions on advising urban planning, describing elements of design, and even preservation. Maybe it would change everything. Maybe it would change nothing but because it is my truth it is the lense through which I will interpret the American Built Environment.