Meet the Students

first radio commercial invited people to leave the "congested city"

The first radio commercial advertised a new apartment complex.

Gunther Barth points to, among other things, the apartment house as a way to announce the arrival of urban living. Yesterday, the students understood that such living could be traced in part to Parisan flats. This morning, Writer's Alamanac mentioned how the first radio commercial in the United States advertised apartments in the Jackson Heights section of Queens in 1922. Given that we can look at emerging urban life occurring between the 1830s and 1910, give or take a decade, this radio advertisement barely falls short of fitting the bill. 

The real estate developer for Hawthorne Court via this commercial told listeners who were tired of congested living in Manhattan the following: "Friend, you owe it to yourself and your family to leave the congested city and enjoy what nature intended you to enjoy." Again, we can see not only the tensions between our rural past and urban life, but also the class politics that may be apparent in this invitation to leave the city. For more about the technology that made this commercial possible, listen to this story on NPR. If you listen closely, you will hear another thing that allows us to see emerging urban life: department stores.

Postscript: Learn about Dr. Susan Reynold's recent visit to our class on Alabama Heritage magazine's Facebook page.

Dr. Susan Reynolds lectures on the Kilgore House

Dr. Susan Reynolds of Alabama Heritage lectures on the Kilgore House.

The students gather for a photo after Dr. Reynolds' lecture.

Great class today. We visited the former site of the Kilgore House and then headed back to tenHoor Hall to meet Dr. Susan Reynolds, Associate Editor of Alabama Heritage magazine. She lectured on this deeply-missed historical house. Before its demolition last year, the magazine was the house's final tenants. We appreciate Dr. Reynolds for sharing her first-hand accounts of completing her dissertation and later, working in this powder blue dwelling that helped introduce co-ed living to the University of Alabama.

On the way to and from the Kilgore House, we made progress on gathering footage for our music video, this year's class project. While last year's class made a short film, we will try our hand at unveiling our growing knowledge of American urban living, nineteenth century style, in a video. We will see how it all goes. By the way, we have a new student. I look forward to Caroline's contributions to this course!

 Next week, we will visit Gorgas House, which in some ways feels like a book end to today's campus tour. While the Kilgore House was constructed in 1890, the Gorgas House opened in 1829 while the University of Alabama was still being organized (the University opened in 1831). 

Stay tuned for more details about the Gorgas House and how its opening coincided with the emergence of urban life in the United States, according to Gunther Barth who looks at America's initial urban life almost as an abstraction, bearing no real start date. While exploring the arrival of apartment houses, metropolitan newspapers, department stores, baseball and vaudeville houses, he is able to see it emerging between the 1830s and 1910 give or take a decade.  He writes that unlike churches and schools, these institutions had a uniquely urban prong. Next week, we will return to Barth to understand his methods in making such a claim. Is it possible to insert higher education as seen, above all, in Tuscaloosa into his narrative?

how can one house help us piece a story together?

It may be counterintuitive, but tomorrow we will start at the end of the nineteenth century and look backwards to witness the transformation in American life on many fronts, but above all, the "urban" one by thinking about one house - the Kilgore House.

The class will meet tomorrow at the former site of this Queen Anne Victorian style house, which was constructed in 1890 in Tuscaloosa for a Bryce Hospital administrator and his family. The house  figuratively opens the door for many discussions that will take place throughout this semester.

Some background: the Kilgore was demolished in May 2013 to make way for a university dining hall. All that remains on the property, which is now called Hackberry Park, is this little structure, which was once used as a schoolhouse and storage space.

How do we insert the Kilgore House into the story of emerging urban life in and outside of Tuscaloosa? To find answers, it will be helpful to read Gunther Barth's opening thoughts in City People. It is also helpful to be curious about what Tuscaloosa looked like in the 1890s and wonder how class, gender and maybe even race can push our thinking.

Who built the house? Who were its initial occupants ? Who was also permitted to live and work here? What did the head of household do for a living? How do the answers to these questions advance our thinking about modern and urban living?

the modern city and madeleine

All weekend I sensed "something is not right" - like the nun in the children's book Madeleine. This morning I realized that comments on the 2010 motion picture The Town from two students, Devon and Jasmine, were missing from my last post. I have now included them.

And since I'm on the subject, if you need a lift to start the week, see this short animated clip from unveiling Madeleine: Lost in Paris (1999), which looks and feels both old and modern for reasons about which the students are learning. I was drawn to the subway, which, along with trains in general, often figure into emerging urban life on both sides of the Atlantic.

And speaking of water, one can learn much about urban life in Paris when one considers how the city exploited the Seine, as Mark Girouard writes. While some cities have since the medieval period used rivers for transportation, supplying industry and drinking water, since at least the seventeenth century Parisians have understood how this river could be visually appreciated. Buildings were constructed with their fronts facing the Seine. I found a YouTube clip in which someone seems to have enjoyed looking at both this river and the people, roads, sidewalks, stone pathways and buildings around it. Check it out above. It reminds me of my river tour in Chicago this past summer. Back then, I learned that for a time, Chicagoans constructed buildings facing away from the Chicago River because it was so filthy.  That, as earlier mentioned on this blog, has now changed. The river is cherished.  In the coming weeks, I look forward to watching this class delve into how waterways and trains help define urban life here in Alabama and especially Tuscaloosa. Stay tuned.

the issue of honoring our past and future "almost to a fault"

We had a good first meeting. Following an overview of what’s ahead, the students were challenged to be alert to the arrival of urban life in the United States in the nineteenth century (and even earlier if we keep Philadelphia, New York and even Mobile, Alabama, in mind).

The Charlestown section of Boston anchors The Town.

I did a brief lecture Wednesday on the tensions between rural and urban life across time as unveiled in our short reading on the opinions of early American leaders like Thomas Jefferson, who cherished agrarian ideals. Next, I offered brief words on how to look for instructive moments in the 2010 motion picture The Town, which is set in Boston. I showed them excerpts from this sometimes troubling movie that revolves around Doug MacRay(Ben Affleck), a young man who has conflicted feelings about participating in a bank robbery ring. The movie’s name draws inspiration from the Charlestown section of Boston, which was notorious for bank robbers.  

From the start, this film presents the ethnic loyalties that often define urban areas, among them the Charlestown community. MacRay is of Irish descent as are all of the young men from the neighborhood who help him with his heists. Wayne, one student in this course,  picked up on how these young men were descendants of Irish immigrants who came to “Boston to escape their old life and find jobs.” His insight is appreciated as we will indeed look at the ways in which nineteenth century urban dwellers in the United States claim power via employment, race, ethnic origins and even gender.

I was more than impressed, too, by other comments from other students who looked for additional tensions between the past and present, urban and rural and the so-called Old and New World:

Undre noted the cobblestone streets in the film, which made him think of  European cities that predate American ones.  

Rae and Devon were both drawn to the Bunker Hill monument, which is shown in an opening scene in The Town. Sitting in the Charlestown section of Boston, this 221-foot stone pillar was dedicated in 1843 to commemorate the first major battle of the American Revolution. Said Rae, “It is very interesting to me…that we build monuments to the past in the middle of an urban [space] that also [honors] technology and advancement.” She added, [we seem to honor] “our past and our ancestry almost to a fault while also searching” for new things “almost to a fault,” too.  Devon wrote: "the monument and the surrounding buildings have a distinct older look [but] when the shot widens you see a more modern city."

Jess noted how the robbers met up in an ice-skating rink after the film’s opening robbery. This was interesting to Jess, who said, “I think ice-skating…is really a rural pastime.” He saw tensions between such a rural setting, i.e. the frozen pond and an urban one - the rink.

Jess also picked up on the anonymity of the city life which shows up in interpersonal interactions including MacRay's personal involvement with Claire Keesey   (Rebecca Hall), the manager of the bank he robbed. There is so much anonymity in a city, even a bank robber on the run “thinks he can get away with” such a relationship, Jess said.

Wayne was tuned into how the word “Charlestown” was shown on the screen at the beginning of the film. The word “faded in and out and thus seemed to highlight the word “town” as if to also highlight ideas about community and what it means to belong to a particular neighborhood or space. This is an idea everyone will want to continue to think about as we turn to the opening pages of Gunther Barth’s City People for our next meeting.

Jasmine noted the tensions between urban life and nature as revealed in Keesey's presence first, in the bank and later, beside the ocean where she was freed. 

Emily homed in on how the movie showed “the dissonance between the family business of robbery” and “typical familial relations.” Said Emily, “The old ideas of trying to work hard to afford the city are being achieved, but the means of doing so are illegal.”

Voni offered an impressive list of tensions between the past and present as presented in this film, among them her awareness that Boston has “Old World charm,” but “New World problems” as evident in how “young guys target and overpower old” ones.

Ben Affleck stars in The Town (2010).

Ben astutely noted “a very literal conflict” between the modern moment in which the initial bank robbery takes place and the “old style combination lock” on the bank vault. He also noted historic parts of Boston and paid attention to how even the city itself was a “huge character” in this film. 

As Ben watched MacRay’s unease with his old life as a robber and his desire to get out of his old neighborhood  - the scene between MacRay and James Couglin (Jeremy Renner) is powerful in this regard -  Ben decided, “The idea of living in one place for most of your life [and] moving somewhere [else] for a better life is modern."

Offering summary thoughts, Will said, “There is an urban feel in this movie with the setting being in Boston. The Old World [also] comes into play with the florist [who is a] mob ruler (Pete Postlethwaite).  Will reminded us, too, about how Charlestown "as a whole is close” as seen in the number of regulars in the “town bar." That said, any apparent closeness in this bar was not unchallenged. Class tensions in this community affected MacCray's relationship with Keesey.

Next week, we will meet in front of Gorgas Library at 3 pm. We will then walk over to the former site of the Kilgore House on campus before heading back to our classroom in tenHoor to hear a lecture by Dr. Susan Reynolds, Associate Editor of Alabama Heritage magazine, which was once housed in this now-demolished house. 

The students are invited to be curious about how the Kilgore house and the University of Alabama figure into emerging urban life in the United States. They can start by watching the short film located on the right hand side of this blog. This short was completed by students enrolled in this course last fall. 

One aside: this fall, the class has set out to do a music video that will also address nineteenth century urban life. Among the music options they are considering is a song called “Queen City” from the Junkyard Kings, a local band. Indeed, Tuscaloosa, not unlike Cincinnati, was once known as Queen City. We will learn why in the weeks ahead.

jefferson had no idea

Thomas Jefferson is known for having agrarian ideals.

Landscape painter George Innes completed this painting in Rome in 1869.

Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, had no idea how critical urban life would be to the United States. Like many of this country's early leaders, he believed the significance of this then-new republic rested in open rural spaces.

By mid-nineteenth century, the ongoing fondness for the countryside was seen in not just in this nation's politicians and intellectuals, but in its artists. The 1869 painting by George Innes presented here serves as one example of this phenomenon.

When do we see the growing importance of the metropolitan space? How does the ongoing debate about the role of cities manifest in everyday life, past and present? How does the Old World  figure into a modernizing and urbanizing America? We will explore these questions and more on the first day of class. See you soon!

musings on mo'ne and the historically "urban" sport called baseball

Mo'ne Davis, star Little League pitcher

Where have I been? I only learned about Mo'ne Davis, a star Little League pitcher yesterday. Her accomplishments have gotten me more excited than ever about our field trip to Rickwood Field in Birmingham. UA's Dr. Richard Megraw, scholar of baseball and other American matters, will oversee our visit with Dr. John Beeler, a UA historian and baseball enthusiast, also in tow.The class will travel there on September 27 to learn about the Birmingham Barons, a minor league baseball team, but also about how baseball figures into the emergence of urban life.

I have to admit baseball moves a little too slow for me. As a spectator, I love the energy of football and basketball more. I say this even though I can be found walking around campus wearing a New York Yankees cap in honor of my Mississippi-born, former sharecropping grandfather who - egads! - loved both the Yankees and the New York Jets.

With Mo'ne now front and center in the public's imagination, I will be more attentive. Certainly her name came up this morning in an National Public Radio wrap-up on sports. She also made the New York Times. It was interesting to see how so many of the readers made more of her skill and gender in the comment section than her race (I cautiously think that's progress). The NPR piece tackles race, however, especially as it relates to how economics figures into who gets to  and who doesn't get to play little league sports,which sometimes involves more money for travel and uniforms than low-income families have.

For me, such a topic brought the story of baseball full circle. Unlike football, which began with Ivy League schools, baseball was initially a product of the the urban space (this, too, is quite interesting as the diamond evokes a "pastoral setting," as Gunter Barth writes). As aristocrats turned to horse racing and cricket, mid-nineteenth century working class men turned to this sport to get away from their daily routines in an industrializing and urbanizing America. Race, ethnic and class divisions became more evident as baseball grew in popularity. By the 1890s, there was a growing interest in not just this sport, but other ones. Throughout it all, people built for a moment, if not a lifetime, a sense of community. We will learn more about the idea of community in the urban space via baseball and other things that transformed small town American life in the coming weeks. There will also be room to reflect on how the idea of what it means to be "urban" has changed across time. I  mean, Thomas Jefferson, one of the "Founding Fathers," saw America's future not in cities, but on the countrysides. When did cities become significant spaces in the United States? What leads to their decline and for some, a seeming revival? How do race, ethnicity, class and gender figure into the answers to such questions?

Finally, we will want to be curious about how baseball history seems to slip unnoticed into everyday life. In an earlier blog post, I certainly mentioned how one of my favorite scenes in the movie Love and Basketball finds a young man (Omar Epps) jokingly asking his future basketball-playing girlfriend (Sanaa Lathan) if she's taking "Spalding" to the spring dance. Spalding, the name on her basketball, is none other than A.G. Spalding, nineteenth century pitcher for the Boston Red Stockings and  Chicago White Stockings and later, a businessman.

 Baseball player A.G. Spalding went on to become a businessman.

the idea of cities predates the nineteenth century

It is next to impossible to not  keep "The Nineteenth Century City" (HY 300) course in mind as I write lectures  for "American Civilization to 1865" (HY 103), a survey class that I am also teaching this fall. For sure,  what we call American civilization predates the nineteenth century. Maybe the idea of what it means to be "urban" predates the nineteenth century, too.  For example, I just finished writing a lecture on the Aztec Empire for the American Civilization class. The Aztecs lived in what is now known as Mesoamerica, an area that is essentially from central California down to northern Costa Rica. Some Mesoamericans had cities that were often laid out on a grid much like the grids you see in many large cities today, among them New York.  Here, one could find Teotihuacán, a city that flourished between 150 B.C. and 700 A.D. 

  

Before the Spanish arrived here in the early sixteenth century, the Teotihuacán had an incredibly sophisticated culture.  These once-nomadic people wandered south from northern Mexico and built towering stone temples, broad paved avenues, some 70,000 adobe huts, complete with markets. 

Among the things the students enrolled in this course will want to ponder is why the emergence of urban life in the nineteenth century in the United States was unique. Such a task requires us to think about what means to think historically. Historians are deeply interested in a particular moment, but also how it compares to other moments. What did we have in the nineteenth century that we did not have in, say, 700 A.D.? To what do we look to  distinguish antebellum and postbellum cities in the United States from a city that predates Christopher Columbus' 1492 arrival? Culture? Technology? Nationhood? What do we mean when we say  "culture,"  "technology" and "nationhood"?