American Towns: An Interpretive History (review)

In American Towns: An Interpretive History, David J. Russo looks at the history of town life in America, from before European settlement through the twentieth century. Using a vast array of secondary sources, Russo presents the patterns of town life over the course of four centuries. Russo emphasizes the common story towns share with one another rather than the distinctive experiences which make them unique. The result is a far-reaching, comprehensive narrative that conveys the complex and changing nature of the lives experienced by most Americans well into the twentieth century.

Drawing on the writings of historians, anthropologists, economists, geographers and sociologists, Russo examines the patterns evident in the foundings of towns, the siting and building of towns, as well as the political, economic, social and cultural lives of their inhabitants. Each chapter explores its theme chronologically, usually beginning with a brief explanation of the landscape before the arrival of the Europeans and ending with a description of the twentieth century experience. Although most of the chapters deal with a single theme, such as economic or political life, the chapters on social and cultural life are divided into sections in order to deal with multiple themes, each of which is handled chronologically. The chapter on social conditions delves into such aspects of town life as the nature of prevailing social hierarchies, how town dwellers spend their leisure time, and their common experiences concerning health, family and marriage. The chapter on cultural life looks at not only the important cultural institutions of churches and schools, but also how communities pursue artistic activity and community celebrations.

Although Russo covers the period from before European settlement to the present, the bulk of his analysis concentrates on the material involving the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when, according to Russo, towns "were of great historical importance." (p. xiii) Russo effectively justifies this imbalance in coverage by noting that during the first three centuries of American history towns "were the primary community for a largely rural population and were the locations for early industrial production," but by the twentieth century, they had "lost their primacy to the cities." (p. xiii) Although the material concerning pre-European settlement is scanty and any student of Native American settlement patterns or community life would need to go elsewhere for a more detailed discussion, even its mere inclusion in this work is an important recognition of the fact that European, and later, American town settlement did not occur in a vacuum.

Russo concentrates on telling an expansive narrative of the common story of American towns, although he provides a great deal of specific detail concerning individual towns as evidence for his broad generalizations and he takes into account regional variations. Thus, Russo's conclusions about town foundings by the English in New England in the seventeenth century are grounded in the well-documented cases of Dedham and Springfield, Massachusetts, and are contrasted with English settlements in Virginia. The inclusion of specific detail from the case studies he synthesizes adds a level of concreteness to his overall generalizations. In addition, his inclusion of personal narratives from published reminiscences, particularly in the chapters on social and cultural life, help bring the descriptive narrative to life.

American Towns is truly comprehensive, both in the manner in which Russo dissects the nature of town life in America, and how he tries to account for the wide variety of experiences found there. Russo not only explores the patterns of what we might consider typical town foundings, by European colonists for example, but he also surveys the wide variety of kinds of towns founded in each of the centuries he explores, including utopian towns, industrial towns founded by mining companies and railroads, and all-black towns founded as racial enclaves. Even as Russo examines the various social characteristics and cultural institutions common to towns, he includes how these specialty towns are similar to or different from towns with more typical origins or in different regions of the country. This emphasis...