In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

notes Introduction 1. “Aquaria” is not a plural of “aquarium” but is more inclusive. Admittedly a bit arcane, it is used by enthusiasts to indicate discourses, accoutrements, and other supporting structures for the hobby. Throughout the book, “aquaria” is used to describe this broader set of structures; “aquariums” is used as the plural of “aquarium.” 2. Rustic Adornments for Homes of Taste is the title of one of the most in›uential British aquarium books, discussed in detail in chapter 2. 3. David Allen, “Tastes and Crazes,” in Cultures of Natural History, ed. N. Jardine , J. A. Secord, and E. C. Spary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 405. 4. Ibid., 406. 5. The formulation “cultural work” was used by Jane Tompkins to discuss noncanonical works of American literature as they impacted the public sphere. See Jane Tompkins, Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790–1860 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). 6. Walter Lippmann, Drift and Mastery: An Attempt to Diagnose the Current Unrest (1914; New York: Henry Holt, 1917), 211. See also Michael Clarke, These Days of Large Things: The Culture of Size in America, 1865–1930 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007); Tom Lutz, American Nervousness, 1903: An Anecdotal History (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991). 7. Marshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), 345. 8. Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity (Cambridge: Polity, 2000), 119–20. 9. Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Life (Cambridge: Polity, 2005), 9. 10. For a history of the aquarium, including its antecedent the Ward Case, see Albert J. Klee, The Toy Fish: A History of the Aquarium Hobby in America; The First One-Hundred Years, rev. ed. (Pascoag, RI: Finley Aquatic Books, 2003). 11. For an extensive survey of aquarium types with particular attention to variations patented in the United States, see Albert J. Klee, A History of Aquarium Inventions : The First Hundred Years (Pascoag, RI: Finley Aquatic Books, 2007). 12. Arthur M. Edwards, Life Beneath the Waters; or, The Aquarium in America (New York: H. Balliere, 1858), 22. 13. Ibid., 111. Edwards was speci‹cally challenging the anemone-centered tank so enthusiastically advanced by H. Noel Humphreys in his book Ocean and River Gardens, discussed in detail in chapter 2. 14. Klee indicates that the ‹rst American patent for a mechanical aerator went to James Ambrose Cutting, Henry Butler’s partner in the Boston Aquarial Gardens, in 1861 (Aquarium Inventions, 5). 227 15. H. Noel Humphreys, River Gardens (London: Sampson Low, 1857), 17. 16. Nina Quart, “Keeping Your Aquarium Alive,” Tropical Fish Hobbyist, June 1959, 39. 17. Ibid. See also J. M. Bellanca, “Designs for Aquarium Décor,” Tropical Fish Hobbyist, October 1968, 93–94; M. D. Bellamy, “Dyeing Your Anemones,” Aquarium Journal, December 1960, 592. 18. James A. Secord, Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception , and Secret Authorship of “Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation” (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 439. 19. For two especially noteworthy critical studies of public aquariums, see Susan G. Davis, Spectacular Nature: Corporate Culture and the Sea World Experience (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); Jane C. Desmond, Staging Tourism: Bodies on Display from Waikiki to Sea World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 144–250. 20. Paul Krugman uses the distinction between freshwater and saltwater aquariums to answer the question “How did economists get it so wrong?” (New York Times Magazine, September 6, 2009, 40). The “it” here is the great recession of 2008. In Krugman’s article, two stacked cartoons illustrated by Jason Lutes feature, ‹rst, a “freshwater” economist in a white suit writing on a blackboard and, below, a “saltwater ” economist in a black suit writing on a white board; the latter seems unaware of a nearby shark ‹n. Both economists draw curves that, in their optimistic upward trajectories , are essentially the same. The terms freshwater and saltwater here stand in for a distinction without a difference, something with which many dedicated aquarists might disagree. 21. Erma Bombeck was an American humorist whose work centered on the absurdities of suburban family life and, particularly, the irritants, absurdities, and triumphs confronting the modern housewife. 22. Hayden White, “Bodies and Their Plots,” in Choreographing Histories, ed. Susan Leigh Foster (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 234; emphasis in original. 23. It is not clear if gold‹sh are included in the category “freshwater ‹sh.” See http://www.americanpetproductions.org/press_industrytrends.asp. 24. http://www.census.gov/econ/census02/data/industry/E45391.HTM. Chapter...

Share