Just as the internet has, over past decades, prompted reconsiderations of the nature of human sociability (among other things), the water systems of the nineteenth century represented a new way of both bonding and dividing people, and urban dwellers thought actively about the implications. As Smith moves from Philadelphia to Boston to Chicago, Smithexamines a staggeringly broad range of sources from public health reports to poetry, demonstrating that water delivery was not just a core urban technology it was at the very core of the American imagination. This book will be of great interest to those interested in the history of culture, technology, and the environment, as well as to those who are concerned about rights and sustainability in the cities of today."