Reconciling City and Citizen: The 19th Century Urban Environmentalism and Republicanism of Frederick Law Olmsted and Jane Addams

Abstract

The civic republican tradition in the U.S. began with a strong anti-urban bias, as the Jeffersonian republicans saw cities as fundamentally corrupt and championed the yeoman farmer as an exemplar of civic virtue. However, this anti-urban bias in U.S. republicanism was eventually challenged. This paper argues that the nineteenth century urban environmentalism of Frederick Law Olmsted and Jane Addams fundamentally involved an effort to re-urbanize American republicanism. Both tied betterment of the urban environment (whether with regard to parks in the case of Olmsted or public health, housing, and working conditions in the case of Addams) with a recovery of urban civic space, individual civic character, and communitarian, democratic values. Both also presage the fusion of republican political values and concerns about environmental quality that is evident in the contemporary environmental justice and civic environmentalist movements.