Today, America’s east coast teems with people each summer, and oceanfront property demands top dollar. As Wells shows in this book, such was not always the case. Until the mid-nineteenth century, America’s east coast was uninhabited, remote, and generally avoided by people. Wells argues that this “coastal frontier” transformed into the “modern beach” within a single generation because of shipwrecks (2). These coastal disasters disrupted the “physical, social, and cultural world,” acting as a catalyzing force that first rationalized and later popularized the beach (34).
American coasts were largely isolated or uninhabited spaces until the turn of the nineteenth century. Shipwreck survivors lucky enough to wash ashore often froze to death before help arrived. Investment from the American federal government served as the impetus for initial growth on beaches. Given that approximately 90 percent of federal revenue came from customs duties, the young federal government became heavily invested in protecting...