focus on New York City. Weidner's family had tieen displaced by the Catskill Aqueduct and, as a result, his work, though it still remains urbarvcentered, shows more concern for these kinds of issues. 2. Edward Wegmann's The Water Supply of The CityofNeu York IbiH^lSVf (New York: John Wiley, 1896) underscores the sense of urgency about the City's quest for water. Wegmann was a member of the engineering staff responsible for devel- oping New York's water supply and wrote several books on dams and waterworks. 3. Wegmann, pp. 6-7: Weidner, p. 18. 4. Wegmann. pp.13-14; Weidner, p. 24; Blake, p. 110. 5. The experience of John B. Jervis. the chief engineer, underscored this concep- tual link. Prior to becoming chief engineer on the Croton project Jervis served his apprenticeship on the Erie, the Delaware and Hudson and the Chenango canals. 6. Weidner, p.26. 7. Blake, p.l32. 8. Ibid., pp.28-29. 9. Weidner, p.26. 10. Ibid., p.29. 11. Ibid., p.36. 12. Blake, p.l42. 13. Westchester Herald, 7 March 1837. 14. Blake, p.148. 15. Ibid. 16. Weidner. p.38. 17. The ideas of the Westchester protesters are detailed in their 1837 "Memorial to the New York State Legislature" which was printed in the March 7 and 14, edi- tions of the Westchester Herald. 18. Westchester Herald, 7 March 1837. 19. Theodore I. Steinberg, "Dam Breaking in the 19th Century Merrimack Valley: Water, Social Conflict, and the Waltham Valley," The Journal of Social History v.24 (Fall 1990). #1, 31. The argument is more fully developed in Steinberg's Nature Incorporated: Industrialization and the Waters of New England (New York: Cambhdge University Press. 1991). 20. Blake. p.l48. 21. Hudson River Chronicle, 12 January 1841. 22. Alva P. French, History of Westchester County, iVcii' York (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co.. 1925). vol. I. 348 also see Renada Hoffman, "The Night the Dam Broke," Westchester /!isi<,r,.„i. vol. 44 (Fall 1968) #4, pp.87-89. 23. John F. Kasson, Technology and Republican Values m America. 1776-1900 (New York: Grossman Publishers, 1976). p. 165. 24. F. Daniel Larkin, John B. Jervis: An American Engineering Pioneer (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1990). p. 70. 25. Westchester Herald, 14 March 1837. 26. Ihid. 27. Ibid 28. Herbert B. Howe, "The Croton Valley,' Westchester County Historical Society Bulletin, vol. 25 (July 1949) #3, 77-86. 29. French, p.348. 30. Frederick A. Underhill, "The Underhill's Mill on the Croton," Westchester County Historical Society Quarterly Bulletin (July 1943) #*4, 4048. 31. Weidner, pp.52-58. 32. Blake, pp.269-270. Jean-Pien^ Goubert, in Tie Conquest of Water (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1989), examines the social and cultural conquest of water in France. Goubert, in the first part of his work, "Water, Purity and Hygiene." discusses many of the health issues which troubled the French and also beset American cities. 33. French, I. 351. 34. Frank E. Sanchis, American Architecture: Westchester County, New York. Colonial to Contemporary (North River Press, 1977), p.485. 35. Susan Cochrane Swanson and Elizabeth Green Fuller, Westchester County: A Pictorial History (Elmsford: Westchester County Historical Society, 1989), p. 52; Richard M. Lederer, Jr., "Population Tables for Westchester County 1698-1980," The Historian (Westchester County Historical Society). 36. One local historian concluded that the strongest bond between the metropolis and Westchester in 1841 was the Croton River. Howe, p.83. figure 44. above: Fayette B. Tower. Croton Aqueduct at Clendinning |sic] Valley, c.1842. ink on paper Courtesy Mrs. Helen Tower Wilson. Photo: T. Harnik figure 45. below: Fayette B. Tower. Croton Aqueduct at Clendlnning [sic] Valley, fronn Illiistratumi of the Cmiou Ar/iuJiic!. 1843. engraved by William James Bennett Courtesy Mrs. Helen Tower Wilson (different version in exhibition) Photo: T. Harnik Hardin The Old Croton Aqueduct was built during the period when the appreciation of American landscape and landscape painting came of age. Though Thomas Cole's first trip to the Catskills and the public notice of his resultant "Hudson River School" paintings occurred over 10 years before ground was broken on the Aqueduct, the debate over the value of American versus European landscapes and art continued for many years. ^ The enduring popularity of pas- toral imagery alongside more sublime expressions of American landscape painting reflected a nationalistic ideal to reconcile progress with nature, to preserve a "middle ground" between wilderness and urban life.^ At the same time, Americans longed to place the United States in a cultural continuum of noble historical progress, and aqueducts symbolized the achievements of great civi- lizations. Technological progress was avidly desired, yet on some level, viewed with ambivalence.^ Thomas Cole depicted the fate of corrupt nations in his Course of Empire series for the art gallery of New York City art patron Lumen Reed (1833-36, now in the collec- tion of The New- York Historical Society). The Croton Aqueduct's imagery — in public celebration, written accounts, popular engraving and advertisements, as well as fine art