The Republic of the Future
The United States produced a number of early utopian visions of suburban dispersal, demonstrating that Americans had inherited some of the anti-urban tendencies of their British forebears. An early feminist science-fiction novel by Mary Griffith insisted that cities could be great, but she was decidedly in the minority. After consuming British science fiction in the 1870s, American authors dominated utopian literature in the 1880s, many providing it with new urgency by engaging head-on with the rise of the industrial corporation. These writers were a heterogeneous bunch—ranging from math teachers to Spiritualist bohemians—but while they were often politically opposed to one another, they were consistent in their concept of utopia: life in large, complex cities such as New York or Boston was maddening, and a new world of glass, metal, synthetic stone, whirring machines, and, most importantly, endless greenery, needed to rise in place of the terrible city.