This lecture is part of the Hingham Historical Society’s 2023-24 series on the topic of: “Suburbia: The American Dream?”

In the years following World War II, the bulldozer was key to enabling rapid land clearance for new suburban subdivisions, urban renewal construction, and an ambitious highway building program that changed the landscape of America, and where and how people lived. In a program based on her pioneering history, Bulldozer: Demolition and Clearance of the Postwar Landscape, Professor Ammon explores the relationship between destruction and progress in this post-war period.