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Book Review
Canada and the United States
| John Henry Hepp IV. The Middle-Class City: Transforming Space and Time in Philadelphia, 1876–1926. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2003. Pp. ix, 278. $36.50.
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| John Henry Hepp IV uses Philadelphia to examine the transformation of urban space and middle-class culture at the turn of the twentieth century. The rituals and rhythms of everyday life, the author asserts, reflect the common assumptions that comprise culture. The study focuses on the quotidian interaction of the middle class with three institutions—department stores, newspapers, and urban transit—to examine how the bourgeoisie molded the social and physical space of the city. All three urban institutions developed to attract a middle-class clientele and simultaneously grew to encompass its values. Middle-class men and women, Hepp argues, used contemporary science to shape and order these sites of "consumption, communication, and movement" (p. 8). Science, technology, rationality, and taxonomy fueled urban transformations and the shape they assumed. |
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