Please answer one of the following questions in an essay of five pages. You sho

Please answer one of the following questions in an essay of five pages. You should utilize course readings and lectures to your advantage in answering the question but focus your paper on the book. Be sure that you answer each segment of the prompt. The essay should be constructed using formal essay guidelines (12 pt Times New Roman font or standard equivalent and one inch margins) and part of your grade will depend on grammar, spelling, and mechanics. Please consult the General Essay Guidelines or email me with any questions about format or content. Please use Chicago Manual of Style footnotes for all citations. Be sure to use citations whenever you include information that is neither common knowledge nor your own and be aware that improper citations will be penalized. You do not need a Works Cited page unless you use outside sources (websites, other articles or books, textbooks that we have not used in class).
Choose ONE of the following:
Catherine McNeur argues that “this is a story about the inextricable ties between social control and environmental control.”[1] What does she mean? How is this idea of control central to the book and why does it help us understand this history of antebellum America?
Catherine McNeur writes often about contested space and battles between various groups of New Yorkers. Why did these battles occur? Who was involved in them and why? Pick at least two examples and explain why they are important. What do these contests over space tell us about the United States during this period?
[1] Catherine McNeur, Taming Manhattan: Environmental Battles in the Antebellum City (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014), 5.