different takes on "reverence for the past"

The Kilgore House before its recent demolition.

Some of the Kilgore House's turn of the century student-residents.

I received the students’ responses to the long, convoluted question I gave them last week on whether the American spirit is evident in the “city people” Gunther Barth describes, the story of the Kilgore House and a designer’s plans for a building.  I was pleased to receive a range of thoughtful responses. Most of the students saw the American spirit in at least one of these things though a few did so while seeing the complexities of such an idea. It was quite interesting to see them engage the many sides to this issue. Anne Marie was drawn to how the Kilgore House “was used in so many different ways as the needs for it evolved over the years…Not only was it used for a home, but also for a dorm and a magazine office.  Its way of evolving evokes the American spirit." Via such many functions, as Michael maintained, “this single building provided…more life and possibility than many buildings in

Coco Chanel, a modern woman.

the Tuscaloosa area.” A.J. said he saw “the American spirit in how  Bryce patients built the Kilgore House.” He noted how "they were not only laborers. These were human beings just like any of us.” Lauren said she saw the American spirit in the Kilgore House, “especially after glimpsing the photographs…taken there. The women who were student and residents there look so at home. When I think of the American spirit, I think of freedom, liberty and a touch of ruggedness. These women represent that spirit by attending college during a time when this was rare for women.”

Ryan said he thought he saw the American spirit, especially in relation to “growth ... [and] great buildings” and pondering “what [these buildings] mean to… people.” But then he watched the America: The Story of Us documentary and thought more deeply about the assignment. Wrote Ryan, “I saw how America was thriving and moving on to bigger and better…But I wondered how could the American Spirit really be evident when building new and bigger things occurred on the sweat and blood of ... slaves? I read and saw many examples of the success of ‘free workers’ including workers in the newspaper business. There were even women workers in factories. So in a sense I did see the ‘American spirit’ with such advancements in our country,…but…several chapters of our history contradict the promises of that spirit.” Evelyn also saw the American spirit and especially in“the labor of Irish immigrants” who helped build the Erie Canal. Evelyn noted, too, how “southern slaves built the cotton industry.” They along with the Irish, she said, “were the ‘mass producing machines’ at a time when there were no mass producing machines.”  Thinking of modern city life across time, David turned to the demolition of the Kilgore House, saying, “It’s my perception that people in Europe and elsewhere have more reverence for the past. In Sweden and Denmark, very  old buildings have been retooled and repaired…There seems to be something very American in looking at old buildings as being obsolete, or in need of replacing….Perhaps it is because we are such a young country and have space to build that we respond in this way. While Americans in general look at old buildings as landmarks…they do not look at them as living buildings that can still be very functional.” Added Byron, “All too often people in this country see historical sites neglected or destroyed because of capitalistic endeavors that only look at the ‘bottom line’.” Aaron, who was among the UA students who protested the demolition and even helped salvage what could be saved said he ultimately saw the “duality in the situation...The grassroots effort that surrounded the protests [embodied] the American spirit. However, I also see this same spirit in the…greed surrounding the demolition. Still, he acknowledged that “striving for what is ‘new and modern’ … has been a recurring theme throughout American history…as especially evident in the Industrial Revolution.” Indeed, A.J. sees such spirit in “people working in construction on campus to bring money home to their families.” Summing up, perhaps,  three weeks of reading City People, Regan said, “I found it very interesting to learn about the evolution of city life. I think that Barth's mention of the constant improvements in architecture …was an awesome way to show how America keeps growing and improving. So much work goes into  building and improvement of buildings done by so many American who work in different professions.”


Next week, I will post the students responses to yesterday's assignment, which pushed their thinking about the last two chapters of Barth's book, one on baseball, the other on the vaudeville house. They listened intently as Dr. Richard Megraw of UA's American Studies department did a lecture on baseball. I presented a summary on everything discussed to date while also sharing more information about the vaudeville house. At the request of one student who desired to see tensions between the United States and other countries during the 19th century, I showed them a portion of Coco Before Chanel, which sheds light on the cafe-concert profession in which Coco Chanel worked before becoming a fashion designer.

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?

on what it means to see "america"

Where are mass and void in this stock photo  house?

Last week, I wanted to push the students’ thinking about what it means see "America," or be "American." Thinking about this is important because we are discussing American culture during the nineteenth century. I gave them a prompt that reeled in information they received from various sources including Gunther Barth’s City People, a lecture on the recently demolished Kilgore House, and a lecture on narrating buildings. The prompt was “When I think of Barth's 'city people' and institutions, the triumphs and failure of human beings as seen in the story of the Kilgore house, and the ability to build structures designed - successfully or not - to have an impact on others, I see/don’t see the American spirit because…” They had to select "see" or "don't see" and then fill in the blank. Since it was a challenging prompt, it is only fair that I try to answer it, too. Today I decided to do as much while incorporating some of their answers to last week’s homework assignment. I wrote, "I do see the American spirit because each of those things - Barth’s take on the emergence of 'city people' in the United States during the nineteenth century, the Kilgore House, a structure that was built on UA’s campus in the late 19the century, and the ways in which buildings can have an impact on our ability to see great complexity. Complexity is a concept that is very American." To work backwards, Sarah Riches told us how we can see both mass, or something hard and very present, but also space, or something that is empty and almost non-existent, in the built environment (Her lecture was helpful because each student randomly selected a building that existed in Tuscaloosa during the nineteenth century. They will, among other things, be asked to “narrate” that building. She gave them a vocabulary to help them do as much). Two of the concepts she shared  - mass and void - make a building complex. Think about it. How much could we appreciate in a building that was only thickly made of brick? How much more would we appreciate seeing, perhaps, a column or some other interesting feature that interrupts the eye and gives the building real character, or complexity?  This idea of opposites, or complexity, resonates with Sarah Reynolds’s talk on the Kilgore House, a campus structure that was demolished earlier this year amid some public outcry. It once housed a Bryce Hospital administrator and his family as well as some lively young women who attended the University of Alabama at the turn of the century. The gaiety in these women’s lives contrasted sharply with some of the challenges faced by nearby Bryce patients, some of whom, as we learned via Reynolds, may have found some sense of purpose in helping to build the Kilgore House. One can only hope. Moving on, we may detect how Barth, a late urban historian who was initially attentive to the lives of Chinese workers, speaks over and over again about how the city is a place where human beings could be individuals, even aggressively individual in that classic American sense. At the same time, the city that emerges in the nineteenth century was a place where people had to attempt to find a common humanity, something that is very un-individualistic. Last week, the students hopefully saw how such humanity could be glimpsed in the metropolitan press and department stores.  Newspapers, as Barth writes, allowed people to see versions of themselves that were orchestrated by an editor. That they could was quite different from their rural or Old World days when they might have looked to a minister for such orchestration, as Aaron, one student in this class wrote while quoting Barth. Even “immigrants,” as Evelyn wrote, “looked to the papers as a tool to ‘Americanize’ themselves.” Similarly, department stores, as Aaron also wrote, “shaped the identities of 19^th century urban women.” Such stores even seemed to service all people, as Regan wrote, because they were a “central…point” in “downtown life.” These stores, as Ryan wrote while also paraphrasing Barth, created a “higher demand for more manufactured goods” and thus the “consumer market…[which] expanded to [include] lower class people.” Ultimately, both institutions were places where people, as AJ wrote, had “ [an] outlet to get away from their…worries.” I will be interested in seeing what the students have to say about the “common humanity” Barth presents as we move on this week to two more institutions - the ball park (or baseball) and vaudeville. Moreover, will they be able to see whether this “common humanity” included people like Eliza Potter, a mid-nineteenth Cincinnati hairdresser of mixed race, whose memoir we turn to next week, or Clarence and Ada King, an interracial couple who lived in late nineteenth century New York, whose lives are captured in a book we will read in the last third of this semester? Hopefully, they will understand how the imagination, creativity, work ethic and other concepts that describe Americans are often quite true, but are unveiled with complexity when we look very closely at all of the people residing in this country, even ones who were not “city people.” We might ask ourselves why some of them resided outside the urban space. Was it a result of their own choosing, or someone else’s? Did they have the freedom, a very American concept, to flourish like the individuals that Barth often describes?

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?

on inserting higher education and the Gorgas House into America's emerging urban life

The Gorgas House was constructed in 1829 while the University of Alabama was being organized.

Amelia Gorgas became UA's Librarian in 1883.

This Wednesday, the students will visit the Gorgas House, one of four remaining campus buildings from the seven that survived  the Civil War. Over the years, the house has functioned in several ways. It was initially built as a multi-purpose dwelling before the University of Alabama's 1831 opening. A dining hall, storage room and pantry were located on the first floor. The second floor was a hotel and the living quarters for the university's steward. The building was also used as a residence for university faculty beginning in 1845. Its present name is a homage to Josiah Gorgas, the university's eighth President, who resided there with his wife, Amelia, daughter of John Gayle, Alabama's Governor (1831-1835). Suffering a stroke in 1878 after a brief stint as UA President, Josiah, a Pennsylvania native and Confederate general, became the university's Librarian. His wife assumed the position of UA Librarian following his death in 1883. She retired in 1906. Their family remained in the house until 1953 when it was preserved as a museum.

How do we insert the Gorgas family and this house into a bigger narrative concerning the emergence of urban life in the United States during the 1830s? While some observers are hard pressed even today to consider Tuscaloosa a "city," by the time the state capital moved from here to Montgomery in 1845, it was just that. To be sure, only 2,500 people are needed for an area to be considered a "city" in the United States and Tuscaloosa had a little over 4,000 at the time.

This week, we will make thoughtful connections between local history and Wednesday's assigned readings from Gunther Barth's City People. We will work hard, too, since Barth looks at five things - apartment and vaudeville houses, metropolitan newspapers, baseball, and department stores - to define what he sees as an emerging urban culture in a uniquely American context. He says these five things more than schools, churches, factories and political machines, announce the ways in which very different people from many places coped with the demands of an increasingly urban America. 

With Tuscaloosa in mind, it is worth it to wonder if Barth was too hasty in dismissing schools. For example, Tuscaloosa Female Academy opened in 1830 as one of the state's first educational facilities for women. Indeed, long before the University of Alabama opened it doors to women in 1893, this academy did as much. Interestingly, a lot of the cosmopolitan thinking to which Barth seems to point was  likely present in this academy, which had a literary society in 1831 and more than 400 volumes of books in its library a year later. Other pressing social issues - such as the lives of indigenous and African American people - notwithstanding, early on the state of Alabama sensed a need to educate its young women. Other schools for women in the area during the nineteenth century included Alabama Female Atheneum, later called Alabama Central Female College. It opened in 1845 in the state's old Capitol building. Why were these schools opened when they were opened? Who opened them and why here? And how do these young women fit into the "public feminine" story to which we will turn in the weeks ahead?

Additionally, given all the seeming advancements in a still young nation, among the topics will want to ponder is whether the emerging city life that Barth describes is a "happy" space. The students should be prepared to answer this particular issue via a short written reflection this Wednesday. Essentially, they should be asking themselves "What is Barth really saying in the opening pages of his book?" and  "Am I always persuaded by his arguments and his evidence?" 

Also, can the Gorgas House and the Kilgore House, which was constructed on UA's campus later in the century, serve as bookends to Tuscaloosa's initial urban evolution nineteenth century-style? Must higher education be omitted from the narrative of an industrializing country if we consider Tuskegee Institute's opening in 1881? Although known for focusing on agricultural education as well as its students' intellectual and moral life, the institute eventually received funding from Andrew Carnegie, one of the most prominent steel barons in the country. Tuskegee was thus inserted into an industrial narrative that, by late century, also included Birmingham, the so-called Pittsburgh of the South.

One aside: Gorgas House is presently celebrating the opening of the Panama Canal with an exhibit on Josiah and Amelia's eldest son, William. He was the Chief Office of the Sanitation for the United States Military in the Canal Zone. In fact, yellow fever and malaria were eradicated under his leadership. This exhibits features Panama Canal memorabilia and items for the Gorgas Family Collection. An earlier exhibit on William and his wife, Marie, also presents opportunities to think about many topics urbanization in Latin America and related topics, among them the significance of transportation and fashion. 

on richard strauss and mourning buildings

I thought about our recent discussions on the Kilgore House  while listening to today's episode of Performance Today, an NPR show. This episode mentioned Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen, which was reportedly composed to mourn the bombing of Munich during World War II. A YouTube clip of the song is posted here. After the war, Strauss was especially sadden to see the loss of buildings including the Munich Opera House. Some have questioned why he musically mourned a building and not the lives of people. Such an idea may have meaning for students enrolled in this course. They randomly selected buildings that existed in Tuscaloosa during the nineteenth century. The Kilgore House is the only structure selected that is no more. I am curious about how we will visually consider its absence via a short movie that brings together the students' individual research.

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.