The Alleys and Back Buildings of Galveston: An Architectural and Social History (review)

g6Southwestern Historical QuarterlyJuly Robert Bullard and by environmental historian Elizabeth Blum demonstrates die mobilization of African-Americans and others in response to discriminatory polluting. Other essays examine the relationship between Houston and Galveston, showing each city's rise and decline, deforestation with the explosive growth of suburbs as well as the creation of the infrastructure designed to support such rapid and unmanaged growth. These are generally well written and effectively researched. While some charts, maps, and images are used effectively, they are distributed unevenly in the collection. The audience of this book will likely include readers who do not reside in Houston or the surrounding area, so more maps and images would have been useful. Ending with articles focused on environmental protest efforts is certainly appropriate, but the collection would have been strengthened with a final essay examining the power emerging from this city. To what extent has the political economy of Houston, with its focus on resource extraction with maximum profits at any cost and strong resistance to government regulation, extended itself into national politics? Maybe a collection tided Energy Metropolis has some responsibility to show not only how wealth is created and the environment polluted but also the degree to which those who have profited from this great wealdi have extended their worldview into die national economy and federal government. Energy Metropolis is required reading for anyone living in die Houston and Gulf Coast area and it will also be of interest to anyone concerned with contemporary industrial and urban environmental issues and history. This collection could be effectively used in college senior-level courses on environmental and Texas history and can also be enjoyed by nonacademics as well. Energy Metropolis does a good job of detailing the exciting rise of Houston, which is one of the great economic success stories in American history, while also doing justice to the resulting environmental crises and the efforts to resolve them. Sam Houston State UniversityJeff Crane The Alleys and Back Buildings of Galveston: An Architectural and Social History. By Ellen Beasley. (2nd ed. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007. Pp 182. Illustrations, maps, tables, appendices, notes, index. ISBN 9781585445820. $39.95, cloth.) This meticulously researched book discusses the architectural, historical, and social significance of the alleys and associated buildings of Galveston, Texas. "The book . . . relies upon a mixture of written and pictorial documents, oral interviews , and the buildings themselves to tell its story. The bulk of the historical narrative covers the years of the founding of the city to the early 1890s" (p. xi). In 1838John Groesbeck laid out a plan for Galveston, which included a system of alleys through the blocks. This led to the practice of building "back buildings " on the alleys, which, in addition to being shops and storage facilities, often 2??8Book Reviewsg7 housed the less affluent residents of the city, many of whom were African American , at first slaves, then servants after the Civil War, and later blue collar workers. The author uses a wide range of primary sources including Sanborn insurance maps, city directories, and personal interviews to ferret out the fragments of information on alley dwellers that can be found in the historical record. The historical narrative is spiced with firsdiand accounts and brief stories about individual alley dwellers taken from personal interviews, period newspapers, and court records. The book also includes information on how to use Sanborn insurance maps and historic "bird's eye views" of cities to research historic buildings and cityscapes, which is particularly useful. Beasley's book seems primarily aimed at readers who live in or otherwise have a close connection with the city of Galveston. While the book covers its subject very thoroughly, Beasley's story of die Galveston alleys could have been more meaningful. The research is impeccable, but more social history and fewer details of alley planning and physical conditions would have made the book more interesting . If die author had included more background on alley life in die United States in general during die periods covered, the specifics about alley life in Galveston would have had more significance for the reader. In addition, the more fascinating social realities of alley life such as prostitution, labor...