Thursday, August 29, 2013

meet the students




Four features of city life are presented in City People
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Yesterday this class of ten students shared their thoughts on the first two chapters of Gunther Barth’s City People via a short essay assignment. In the first chapter, Barth describes the “modern city culture” emerging in the United States during the nineteenth century. For him, modern means “present.” "Culture" generally refers to institutions like the apartment house that first appeared in urban areas in the U.S. during the nineteenth century, giving places like New York, Chicago and other urban areas a particular identity. Interestingly, Barth, a Harvard-trained historian who died in 2004 after teaching for years at the University of California, defines city as an abstraction even as he considers it a real space in which people came up with solutions to new problems, among them the isolation felt from residing in an area different from their more rural past, or previous life in another country.  I was curious about whether the students perceived the city that Barth describes as a hopeful place. About half of them seemed to feel as much. The rest generally saw a bit of hope, but also despair.  Anne Marie honed in on how people’s “sense of identity” often came from opportunities to work. Michael saw cities as places where one could “find yourself” and begin “anew.” Regan noted that improvements in technology led to sturdier buildings that made cities better through the years. Byron was attuned to the challenges of city living, saying those who moved to cities often did so to “survive.” Evelyn was drawn to the ways in which people adapted to city life. She mentioned the gridiron streets that helped city dwellers live in a more orderly way. Electric street cars “brought efficiency to transportation,” she also wrote. These and other factors such as dividing one’s home from one’s work place and one’s sources of entertainment figured into the “harmony” urban dwellers needed, she added. Ryan was attentive to the ways in which city life posed hurdles for women, especially those who “left farm life” to contend with “hard factory work.” Lewis understood the degree to which new arrivals were “strained by urbanization and industrialization” while they dealt with “Old World concerns” and “rivalries.” Aaron realized that the tensions felt caused some groups to become more cohesive and gave them “a sense of place.” Similarly, A.J. noted how individuals residing closely beside each other forced them to become a “community,” albeit not always a “close-knit one.” Aaron noted the “poetic” quality of Barth’s writing, saying his use of “great minds and great poets’ helped flesh out his view of the city. Finally, Lauren detected that cities were places where one could find “high culture” even as “the immense amount of people and buildings crammed into” small spaces left “many with a dirty impression” of urban living. I thought the responses from the students were generally a good start. I look forward to seeing them deepen their thinking as we look at some of the institutions Barth believes helped define city life in the United States. We start next week with the metropolitan press and the department store. Along the way, we will be very attentive to how race, class and gender, and ethnicity sharpen our view of city life. From time to time, per the suggestion of one student who was struck by how some of the architecture in the States receives influence from older cultures/civilizations, we will also focus briefly on nineteenth century city life outside of this country. My colleagues have steered me to readings about places as different as Germany, Mexico, France, Cuba and Brazil that should be helpful. In the meantime, please meet the students via the short video pictured here. Music provided in part by Weldon Burger, native of Greensboro, NC.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

the "so what"

Map courtesy of the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, University of Texas- Austin

I learned via an alumni newsletter that as many as 70 percent of the world's population may reside in cities by 2050. A UN chart , which I shared with the students in this class, tries to capture this projection. The chart helped me get to one of the "so-what's" of this course. If asked, "Why does learning about the emergence of city life during the nineteenth century in the United States matter?," one possible answer could be the following: Because the advancements in technology and the sheer will of human beings to conquer space during this century was a critical rupture - or forever changed  things -  in their lives in many ways.  Many revolutionary inventions in the years surrounding that century such as the cotton gin, steamships, steel (and many sorrows, including the westward relocation of Native Americans  and slavery) figure into that response. We might also consider how the growing ability of people to move through space, grow and build things, play and enjoy themselves more, eat better, and extend their mortality rate though sometimes at the expense of others figure in, too. By 1920, more Americans lived in cities than on the countryside even though rural communities and farms , as one recent NPR report tells us, continue to be a key way that many individuals form their identities. So what will figure into the rising urban international growth rate in the coming forty years? Many of us will be around to witness it. It is worth it to think about this if only for a moment.

Friday, August 23, 2013

van antwerp building, mobile's first skyscraper

Van Antwerp Building, Mobile, AL
Pictured here are two photos of the Van Antwerp building in Mobile, Alabama. Just 11 stories high, the building was completed in 1907 and was considered the city's first skyscraper. The building, which has lovely details, is currently being renovated. My husband and I once ate in the restaurant on its first floor. In it, one can see signs of a pharmacy that once occupied the place. Back in the day, professionals revealed their clout if they had an office in this building. I am thinking of using these images in a "Meet the Students" video, which will be shortly visible on this site. As the students will learn in Gunther Barth's City People, the first text before us, by the time this building was constructed many Americans were already fleeing the decay seen in cities. The affordability of automobiles in the early 20th century made it possible for many individuals to move to less congested areas. The tensions between the city and quieter places that might be described as either the suburbs or the countryside are always before us. For example, during this class's first meeting this past Wednesday, we introduced ourselves by announcing our names, where we were from and whether we thought our birthplace could be described best as the city or country. Depending on how we answered, we then had to name something "uncountry" or "uncity" about ourselves. It was interesting to hear how we dealt with stereotypes concerning either space. As we continue probing such ideas, we are witnessing enthusiastic
Detail of Van Antwerp building, Mobile, AL
interest and support from many among them, Professor Jeremy Butler from UA's College of Communication & Information Sciences; Telecommunication & Film, who made me aware of a Library Congress link featuring archival photos of nineteenth century Tuscaloosa buildings. As mentioned in a previous blog entry, UA Research Librarian Brett Spencer kindly added this link on a digital Library Guide to which the students have access. In addition to Dr. Richard Megraw, who, as also mentioned, will share his expertise on the linkages between baseball and nineteenth century American cities, as a guest speaker, Sarah Riches, who has a Masters in Architecture, will also join us as a guest speaker. Riches will help the students understand how old buildings have stories to tell. Susan Reynolds, Associate Editor of Alabama Heritage, another guest speaker, will share her memories of working in the Kilgore House, which was recently demolished. Next week, Emily Jamison of UA's Special Events will give the students a tour of the President's Mansion. That same day, the students will visit Hoole Library where postdoctoral fellow Dr. Amy Chen will introduce them to resources that will help them complete their first essay on a local building. Ian Crawford, House Manager of the Jemison Mansion, has also offered to aid the students with their research and invited them to tour that mansion. We look forward to sharing what we learn along the way. Stay tuned.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

what baseball has to teach us about city life


I know very little about baseball, but was intrigued to learn that it is a sport that we can look at to learn more about the beginnings of city life in the United States.  In his book City People: The Rise of Modern City Culture in Nineteenth-Century America, Gunther Barth tells us that in the 1840s a group of "New York gentlemen" spent their "sunny days" playing ball on one Madison Avenue corner. As ball clubs sprung up in New York, Brooklyn and other cities like Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, the everyday man became fascinated, needing a distraction from work life. The earlier development of newspapers drew more attention to the sport, which is actually a descendant of British ball games, one of them dating back to the 1700s. Spectators welcomed hearing stats. Rules eventually governed this game just as they had governed what happened outside of ballparks.This morning, NPR had a great story about the Birmingham Barons breaking the racial divide in baseball in the early 1960s. It is worth listening to in order to learn more about a sport that became big business although always one about which the public has had some say. Think about what umpires often hear. I don't even want to share what I once heard in the stands at a Cubs game. This semester, students enrolled in this course will learn more about this game as we make discoveries about American culture and the story of the nineteenth century city. Baseball fan and scholar Dr. Richard Megraw of Alabama's American Studies Department will join us September 11 as we explore this topic.

Saturday, August 17, 2013

rolling on the river

As mentioned, one of the key tasks for students enrolled in this class will be paying close attention to space and place (in other words, how things and people got to be where they are). This idea has lots of resonance with one of their assignments: thinking deeply about how Tuscaloosa fits into the story of modern and urban living. The Black Warrior River, which is pictured here, figures into that narrative. As true of many towns and cities in the United States, the permanent settlement of people here was tied to the presence of water. Katherine Richter, Executive Director of the Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society, shares as much with Amalia K. Amaki, in Images of  America Tuscaloosa, a book they wrote together. The book is filled with images and information about Tuscaloosa from its earliest days as a Native American settlement to the present day. Before whites arrived in the area, indigenous people resided on the south side of the Black Warrior. Below is a photo of the river from a window seat at the Cypress Inn, a Tuscaloosa restaurant. How often do we look at the barges passing by and connect it with a past that in many ways is still with us? This question is one the students will consider in better understanding how the nineteenth century was a time that witnessed great patterns of change for American life on many fronts including cites. Indeed, whether we are speaking about Cincinnati, Louisville, New York and so many other places, it is very difficult to think of them without considering the importance of waterways and their role in the growth of settlement, industry and even American culture. As an aside, Richter will be the keynote speaker at at a public event, which will be held at 4 pm December 4 on campus. Before she speaks, students will present their research on local buildings via a short movie. Stay tuned for more  details.
This tree marks the Black Warrior's flood levels.

Monday, August 12, 2013

still image project


I just attended THATcamp here at the University of Alabama, a two-day marathon of sorts that allowed me to see the possibilities of bringing digital technology into my teaching and research. Being there with others interested in similar possibilities - students, faculty and staff from institutions, educational ones and otherwise, around this state -  helped me think through the aims of one assignment in this course.  Toward the end of this course (and presumably after they have learned much), the students will randomly select a building that existed on or off this campus during the nineteenth century, capture it visually via a photograph and complete a short research paper on it. Their photos and findings will be reformatted into a short movie that presents some of the key ideas in this course. The students will learn about resources at a campus' digital media production center, which will aid our ability to complete this project. We will post it here and may present it publicly on campus. We will be very attentive to what it means to think about space and place "historically" (i.e. we will look for the how's and why's of moments when things and people change). The students will essentially think deeply about how "the nineteenth century city" is still with us. They will hopefully find meaning in why some structures are located in various places in this city. What we learn could be interesting because Tuscaloosa was rarely thought of as a city during the nineteenth century. Even today, some people might call it a "town."  As an aside, this morning a National Public Radio report on the power of still images of "a world at war" affirmed for me the ways in which the act of taking a simple picture can capture much about what is happening around us across time.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

connecting imagined works to historical writings

I am presently "prepping"  for class. Among the tasks before me is making connections between the assigned readings and "imagined works" that will be shown in class. The imagined works include two feature films, documentaries, excerpts from a television series and excerpt from a novel. Because of the era in which they were produced, some of these visual works count as historical sources. Others do not constitute a historical source, but they do demonstrate how familiar some ideas are to modern audiences. There is value in understanding why today's audiences and past ones are more familiar with some ideas than others. I look forward to seeing the students engage many topics, among them culture, landscape, architecture, industry, technology, labor, race, gender and class. Always at stake will be trying to find critical ruptures - or moments when things just change -  around two key concepts: space and place.

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Sloss Furnaces

Sloss Furnaces, Birmingham, Alabama
I am still plotting out the various lessons that will be taught in this course. There is one thing on the horizon that I am especially excited about as a newcomer to the state of Alabama. If all goes as planned, the students and I will  travel  to Birmingham to tour Sloss Furnaces, a national historic landmark. I believe this site will help us understand how industry and technology played a role in America's emerging city life during the nineteenth century. While the original Sloss complex is no longer standing, two 400-ton blast furnaces and some forty other buildings in this complex will aid our ability to think deeply about many issues concerning modern life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We will, among other things, learn about Sloss's role in putting Birmingham on the map as an important American city. As an aside, just as I used a blog while teaching "African Americans in the City" last spring at the University of Alabama during a graduate fellowship, I will use a blog for this course. Please check it regularly to learn more about the issues being discussed in this class.