Laura E. Ruberto and Joseph Sciorra have published “Italian American Stuff: A Survey of Material Culture, Migration, and Ethnicity.” SOAR: The Society of Americanists Review 3 (2021-2022), 1-82 which deals, in part, with vernacular architecture, structures, and landscapes. https://journals.psu.edu/soar/article/view/62731/62214
Dennis De Witt is the author of four books completed and one updated since the beginning of Covid. All are imprints of the Metropolitan Waterworks Museum in Boston. They may be purchased there, through selected bookstores, or ordered from Amazon.
Wachusett Water: Dam ≈ Reservoir ≈ Aqueduct, Construction Photographs 1895-1906 is a 212 page volume with hundreds of detailed photographs made from large format glass plate negatives. It visually documents the construction process of this major civil engineering project, still in use, that eliminated two towns while establishing the model for Boston’s metropolitan infrastructure.
Arthur H. Vinal / Edmund March Wheelwright and the Chestnut Hill Pumping Station was re-released in 2022 in a revised, expanded edition. This 259 page, heavily illustrated study combines monographs and catalogs raisonné concerning two of nineteenth century Boston’s official City Architects, who had very different careers, as well as a study of the imposing Richardsonian Romanesque building that Vinal initiated and Wheelwright seamlessly expanded.
Water Works Pumping Stations in Massachusetts & Rhode Island, 1870-1920 is one of three volumes the author completed in 2020 and 2021 during Covid. It is a 178 page catalog raisonné that draws heavily on colored postcard views from that “golden age" of postcards, reflecting the then widespread civic pride in these buildings. It documents a now little recalled, highly specialized, civic building type that accommodated the very specific needs of steam powered pumping.
Metropolitan Boston Street Views 1896-1920 from Metropolitan Water Works Glass Plate Images is a 164 page volume of selected photographs originally made to document waterworks infrastructure work throughout the Boston metropolitan area. It provides candid views of urban and streetcar-suburban street life just before the automobile would initiate decades of destructive de-urbanization.
The Chestnut Hill Reservoir & Water Works: A Visual History is a richly illustrated, chronologically and topically organized, 193 page, study of Boston’s metropolitan water system, with particular reference to its Chestnut Hill nexus, from the mid-nineteenth century until today, including the complex preservation history of the site and its important buildings.
