Inventing the Charles River (review)

Karl Haglund's ambition is to explain how a river once bordered by marshes, mudflats, and farmland became an exploration and then a dream for men (and a few women) of vision and energy, of how a nineteenth-century river crisscrossed by railroad bridges and ringed by abattoirs and factories capable of offending every human sense became a twentieth-century recreational area and retreat from the urban grind. Fortunately, Haglund's talent matches his ambition, and the supporting cast for the book—most importantly the Charles River Conservancy—assisted with funding, research, and other services. The result is not only marked with scholarly distinction but beautifully illustrated—and all at a price that makes the book very competitive in today's market. MIT Press is to be commended.

While Haglund received his Ph.D. in urban design from MIT, he also worked under the urban historian Sam Bass Warner Jr. His focus, therefore, is not on technology, although he does discuss dam construction, bridge building, and dredging and filling operations, but on different notions of conceiving and filling public space. In short, his subject is his profession—urban planning—and he shows how in Boston political, cultural, and intellectual forces filled this space before the spade ever hit the ground. Haglund argues that three "signal interventions" enabled the physical construction of a new Charles River: the acquisition of the riverbanks by the Cambridge and Metropolitan Park Commissions in the 1890s, the construction of the Charles River Dam between 1903 and 1910, and the completion of the Storrow Memorial Embankment in 1936.

Along the way, and extending to the time of the Big Dig (Central Artery Project) at the end of the twentieth century, professional city planners and engineers found that a well-informed public not only did not obstruct good planning, but in fact was essential. Critical, too, were men such as Sylvester Baxter, Charles Eliot, and, of course, Frederick Law Olmstead, who created Boston's famed "Emerald Necklace," of which the filled-in and redesigned Back Bay forms perhaps the principal jewel, one that combines naturalistic landscapes with flood control storage, thus creating a "nonstructural" flood control project two generations before the term actually was coined.

Haglund reaches out to multiple audiences. Abundant footnotes display solid research in archival and published primary sources and a familiarity with relevant secondary literature, thus satisfying the academic audience. The approximately 450 photographs, illustrations, and maps may entice readers simply to thumb through the book, especially since captions often repeat what is in the text. Chapter 12, "Views from the River," offers a kaleidoscope of changing river scenes, while a chronology and glossary at the end of the book offer a guide to the material without having to read the details. Anything other than a thorough reading will not, however, do justice to this work.

Still, historians of technology might seek more comparative analysis. Did Boston's response to the problems of urbanization, industrialization, and public health (especially those brought on by the introduction of the water closet) differ from those of, say, London, New York, Paris, or Washington, all of which also bordered rivers? Did common ideas about public space exist, and what role was the river to play in each city? One might also wish for a closer analysis of the geographical implications. By straight line, the Charles River's mouth is separated from its source by only twenty-five miles, but the river's wending length is about eighty miles. In what ways did such a crunched river contribute to its rebirth? A longer river, winding through numerous competing political jurisdictions and carrying with it sewage and other pollutants, would certainly have caused more problems for Boston's planners.

While technology contributed to discussions of the development of the Charles River, other issues dealing with traffic, recreation, funding, land use, and public vision proved far more intractable. Engineers performed the important role of defining what needed to be known before construction could begin, and their often impressive designs mark bridges, dams...