building the american landscape - Univerza v Novi Gorici

of a nineteenth century company‐town was the town of George Pullman (1831‐
1897), the rich industrialist who invented the well‐known sleeping cars. The Pullman
company‐town (1880), 4000 acres of land on the shores of Lake Calumet, south of
Chicago, thought to be a model city and attraction during the World Columbian
Exposition in 1893, was designed by the architect, Solon Spencer Beman (1853‐
1914) in answer to the new demands for profit. The dreams of laissez faire were to
be abruptly interrupted, not only by contradictions within the system (which
regularly off‐loaded social costs on to the workers in times of crisis), but also by the
strikes triggered by the trade unions at the end of the century. This made Pullman’s
experiment appear to be a paternalistic experience, incapable of pacifying or
calming class conflict. Another example was the case of the company‐town of
Lowell 157 (1820s), Massachusetts, which not only preceded Pullaman’s birth by
more than half a century, but also appears to be of great interest for the
implications it presupposed for the landscape [Figure 67].
Designed as a town for the textile sector and planned to exploit the hydraulic force
of the rapids of the River Merrimack, Lowell became one of the largest industrial
complexes of the United States in just a few decades 158 , and was far more
competitive in its own right than a very large number of southern territories. The
importance of the geographical location of Lowell also explains the town’s
commercial success. The reason why no similar towns existed in the South of the
United States was tackled by Stephen Goldfarb in his essay “A Note on Limits to the
Growth of the Cotton‐Textile Industry in the Old South” (1982), in which he also
clarifies the economic motivations behind the previous affirmations:
During the antebellum period the cotton‐textile industry in the South
was far smaller than that in the North. As late as 1860 factories in
Lowell, Massachusetts, operated more cotton spindles than factories in
the eleven southern states combined.[…]The South's early
industrialization was impeded by its geography, which separated sites
157 To study the Lowell case in depth cf. COOLIDGE, John, Mill and mansion: a study of architecture
and society in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1820‐1865, New York, Columbia University Press, 1942; we
recommend referring to the bibliography in this publication. For further details, see LOWELL Trades
and Labour Council (ed.), Lowell, a city of spindles, Lowell, Lawler & Company, printers, 1900
158 See CLARK, Victor S., History of Manufactures in the United States 1607‐1860, 3 vols., New York,
published for the Carnegie Institution of Washington, McGraw‐Hill book company inc., 1916
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