| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.1

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Robert M. Fogelson. Bourgeois Nightmares: Suburbia, 1870–1930. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2005. Pp. 264. $30.00.
Many American suburbs have cherished their reputation as exclusive retreats, exemplars of good taste and good breeding. Robert M. Fogelson's book explores how Americans created these restricted havens. Examining the years 1870 to 1930, Fogelson traces the gradual acceptance of restrictive covenants as a tool to protect homeowners from undesirable people and activities. Others have discussed racial restrictions, but Fogelson goes further, considering covenants that also limited the use of property and the nature and design of the structures to be built. As such he presents an authoritative and thorough account of this phenomenon in American suburban history.	1
Fogelson finds that Americans were slow to accept restrictive covenants. Both prospective homeowners and the courts at first viewed restrictions on the rights of property holders as offensive to notions of American liberty. By the beginning of the twentieth century, however, fears of eroding property values and perceived threats to the quality of life outweighed concerns about infringement on the right to use one's property as one wished. Consequently, the list of restrictions grew longer. Not only did subdivisions exclude African Americans, East Asians, and sometimes Jews, they prohibited the operation of any business and the keeping of farm animals including chickens. Restrictive covenants also regulated fences, fixed setback lines, established the minimum price for houses, and in some cases provided for architecture juries to pass judgment on proposed structures. The idea was to insure against ugly structures, undesirable uses, and unwanted neighbors.	. . .

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