Chicago's Mecca Flat Blues

1998 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 382-403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Bluestone
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Architectural History ◽  
Chicago School ◽  
Single Family ◽  
Domestic Ideology ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Point Of Departure

This essay explores the Mecca, one of Chicago's largest nineteenth-century apartment houses. Designed in 1891, the Mecca's innovative plan incorporated an exterior landscaped courtyard and two monumental interior atria. The form and meaning of these spaces diverged in important respects. The exterior courtyards appropriated aspects of the single-family residential form and domestic ideology. The interior atria relied on Chicago skyscraper models and their cosmopolitan approach to the possibilities of density. Exterior courtyards later proliferated, while atria appeared in only two other local residential buildings. Nevertheless, the Mecca's atria possessed a sense of place that deeply etched the building into Chicago's cultural and political landscape. The building became the subject of 1920s blues improvisation-the "Mecca Flat Blues." In the 1940s and 1950s tenants waged a decadelong Mecca preservation campaign. Housing rather than Chicago School aesthetics provided the preservationists with their point of departure. Race interesected with space and Mies van der Rohe's vision of modern urbanism to seal the Mecca's fate. The essay's methodology develops the social and cultural meaning of form. Moreover, it demonstrates the importance of pushing architectural history beyond the nexus of meaning created by original patrons and designers. We stand to learn a great deal about architectural and urban history by studying how people have defined and redefined, valued and devalued, their buildings, cities, and landscapes.

Charles Dickens and the Properties of Fiction

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ushashi Dasgupta
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Real Estate ◽  
Charles Dickens ◽  
Dense Network ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Domestic Ideology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Literary Collaboration ◽  
Economic Relationship

This book explores the significance of rental culture in Charles Dickens’s fiction and journalism. It reveals tenancy, or the leasing of real estate in exchange for money, to be a governing force in everyday life in the nineteenth century. It casts a light into back attics and landladies’ parlours, and follows a host of characters—from slum landlords exploiting their tenants, to pairs of friends deciding to live together and share the rent. In this period, tenancy shaped individuals, structured communities, and fascinated writers. The vast majority of London’s population had an immediate economic relationship with the houses and rooms they inhabited, and Dickens was highly attuned to the social, psychological, and imaginative corollaries of this phenomenon. He may have been read as an overwhelming proponent of middle-class domestic ideology, but if we look closely, we see that his fictional universe is a dense network of rented spaces. He is comfortable in what he calls the ‘lodger world’, and he locates versions of home in a multitude of unlikely places. These are not mere settings, waiting to be recreated faithfully; rented space does not simply provide a backdrop for incident in the nineteenth-century novel. Instead, it plays an important part in influencing what takes place. For Dickens, to write about tenancy can often mean to write about writing—character, authorship, and literary collaboration. More than anything, he celebrates the fact that unassuming houses brim with narrative potential: comedies, romances, mysteries, and comings-of-age take place behind their doors.

scholarly journals Przestrogi dla utopistów. Wizje optimum dóbr w historii idei w książce Andrzeja Waśkiewicza

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-167
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Sokół
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
New Materialism ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Social Orders

The subject of this essay is Andrzej Waśkiewicz’s book Ludzie – rzeczy – ludzie. O porządkach społecznych, gdzie rzeczy łączą, nie dzielą (People–Things–People: On Social Orders Where Things Connect Rather Than Divide People). The book is the work of a historian of ideas and concerns contemporary searches for alternatives to capitalism: the review presents the book’s overview of visions of society in which the market, property, inequality, or profit do not play significant roles. Such visions reach back to Western utopian social and political thought, from Plato to the nineteenth century. In comparing these ideas with contemporary visions of the world of post-capitalism, the author of the book proposes a general typology of such images. Ultimately, in reference to Simmel, he takes a critical stance toward the proposals, recognizing the exchange of goods to be a fundamental and indispensable element of social life. The author of the review raises two issues that came to mind while reading the book. First, the juxtaposition of texts of a very different nature within the uniform category of “utopia” causes us to question the role and status of reflections regarding the future and of speculative theory in contemporary social thought; second, such a juxtaposition suggests that reflecting on the social “optimal good” requires a much more precise and complex conception of a “thing,” for instance, as is proposed by new materialism or anthropological studies of objects and value as such.

Agricultural Protection in Wilhelminian Germany: Forging an Empire with Pork and Rye

1982 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven B. Webb
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Animal Husbandry ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Material Interest ◽  
The Social

During the last two decades of the nineteenth century protection for agriculture became an important feature of the economic and political landscape in Germany. The large landlords, who specialized in arable agriculture, used their political power to get high levels of protection. Peasants, who specialized in animal husbandry, received lower but substantial and rising levels of protection. Material interest can thus help explain the peasants' political alliance with the landlords. Protection encouraged German agriculture to modernize along intensive lines, bringing to the countryside the social and political developments dreaded by the same conservative elites who promoted protection.

Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century England: the social context of illegitimacy in rural Kent

Rural History ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Reay
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
General Phenomenon ◽  
Local Study ◽  
The Past ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject

More bad history has been written about sex than any other subject. Our ignorance about the sexual attitudes and behaviour of people in the past is compounded by a desire to rush to rash generalisation. This is unfortunate, for (consciously or not) our perceptions of the present are shaped by our assumptions about the past. Britain's current preoccupation with ‘Victorian values’ is but a politically visible example of a more general phenomenon. And, more specifically, we do not know a great deal about lower-class sexuality in nineteenth-century England. There are studies of bourgeois desires and sensibilities, but little on the mores of the vast bulk of the population.As Jean Robin has demonstrated recently, one of the most fruitful approaches to the subject is the detailed local study – the micro-study. It may not appeal to those with a penchant for the broad sweep, but such an approach can provide a useful entry into the sexual habits of the people of the past. This article is intended as a follow-up to Robin's work. It deals with a part of rural Kent and, like Robin's work, it covers an aspect of nineteenth-century sexuality – in this case, the social context of illegitimacy. More particularly, this study (and here I differ from Robin) will question the usefulness of the concept of a ‘bastardy-prone sub-society’ (more of which later), a term still favoured by many historical sociologists. The experience of rural Kent suggests that bearing children outside marriage should be seen not as a form of deviancy but rather as part of normal sexual culture.

XIV. The Social Status of Chaucer's Franklin

PMLA ◽  
1926 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon Hall Gerould
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Social Position ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
The Social ◽  
Edward Iii ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Subject

An uncertainty as to the social position of franklins in general, and of Chaucer's Franklin in particular, has occasionally manifested itself since the early part of the nineteenth century. In 1810, Todd quoted an elaborate note from Waterhous's Commentary on Sir John Fortescue's De Laudibus Legum Angliae, which tended to show that franklins did not belong to the gentry. Todd was unable to square this with the fact that (Chaucer's Franklin was “at sessiouns,” since by a statute of Edward III, which he cited, justices were seigneurs, and that he was “ofte tyme” a knight of the shire, since by another statute members of parliament were “chivalers et serjantz des meulz vaues du paies.”) Todd was thus left in doubt as to the gentility of the Franklin. As a later examination of Fortescue's remarks will show, it is not he but his commentator who must be blamed for lowering the status of Chaucer's sanguine country gentleman. If Todd had been of firmer mind, or if he had studied the subject more deeply, he would not have left the matter in doubt—a trap for unwary feet in later times.

scholarly journals The memory of brazilians and guyaneses about the rupununi uprising in the frontier Brazil – Guyana

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariana Cunha Pereira
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Military Dictatorship ◽  
Political Event ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
The Social ◽  
Oral Speech ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Military

In this text, I re-elaborate the narratives and oral speech of some of the social subjects (Guyanese Negroes, Macushi Indigenous and Wapishana, regional Brazilians) about the Rupununi Uprising. The narratives and oral speech of the interviewees on the subject are partially constituted by the fieldwork that originated the Ethnography built as a doctorate thesis in the frontier Brazil-Guyana. The intention is to contextualize, by means of these narratives, the realms of memory that make up the political landscape of the 60s in these two countries, since the political event called Rupununi Uprising, characterized as one of the most polemic period in Guyana’s history. In Brazil, milestones of this decade were the military dictatorship and the leftist movements.In Guyana it is a moment of the process of independence and of secession fights.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachael Kiddey
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Social Connectedness ◽  
Homeless People ◽  
Well Being ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Nuanced Understanding

An archaeological approach to contemporary homelessness contributes to existing literature on the subject by materializing this familiar yet alien social status in a number of ways. Globally, homelessness continues to suffer from being conceptually constructed according to essentially British nineteenth-century ideologies that are class-based and heavily gendered, whilst, increasingly commonly, manifesting physically as a diverse and phenomenological experience. Approaching homelessness using participatory cultural heritage methodologies enabled those involved in the Homeless Heritage project to collectively destabilize some of the pernicious myths that surround homelessness, present alternative perspectives, and identify practical ways in which homeless people might be better helped to survive and recover. Positive outcomes from the Homeless Heritage project include the ways in which people involved experienced increased social connectedness and enhanced well-being. Homeless colleagues actively chose to (re)engage with existing social and public services with more robust commitment than had previously been the case, while reconnecting with family also emerged as a strong and important outcome from the Homeless Heritage project. There were theoretical implications too. Where archaeology may be considered an ‘intervention’—a methodology for engaging with the material world— heritage is the human context by which such engagement is made possible. Heritage, a mode of cultural production, has an important role to play in facilitating redemptive and cathartic conversations about difficult or distressing human experiences and could powerfully affect the course of social policies in the future. Conversations facilitated through Applied Heritage can produce more nuanced understanding, which could feasibly be used to improve and enhance social justice on local levels and promote tolerance, understanding, and peace on the wider international stage. The initial aim of the project was to see whether an archaeological cultural heritage approach to contemporary homelessness might contribute to wider understanding of the social condition. A significant outcome was a more nuanced understanding of homelessness in the twenty-first century. This helped to powerfully counter definitions and rationalizations of homelessness in terms of nineteenth-century constructions of vagrancy. A more surprising outcome concerns evidence that Applied Heritage can function as a powerful therapeutic form of social intervention. In approaching homelessness archaeologically, from the perspective of a range of individual agents, the Homeless Heritage project clearly showed why a homeless person might ‘choose’ to appropriate, for example, space beneath a willow tree or a bin cupboard over conditions in temporary accommodation deemed ‘suitable’ for statutorily homeless people.

scholarly journals Disciplinary Power and the Role of the Subject at a Nineteenth-Century Danish Asylum

PhaenEx ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
BJØRN HAMRE
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Self ◽  
Psychiatric Practice ◽  
Disciplinary Power ◽  
Pastoral Power ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
The Way

This article reports on the ways in which psychiatric practice and power were constituted in a Danish asylum at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The point of departure will be a complaint by a former patient questioning the practice at the asylum in 1829. In an analysis of this narrative the study draws upon Foucauldian concepts like disciplinary power, confession, pastoral power and subjectivation. I will argue that the critique of the patient provides us with an example of the way that disciplinary power works in the case of an informal indictment of the methods and practice at an asylum. A key issue is whether the critique is not itself a part of the self-legitimation of disciplinary power.

Vladimir Odoevskii as Opera Critic

Slavic Review ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 306-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lowe
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Music Criticism ◽  
Substantial Body ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Literary Output

The range of topics that Vladimir Odoevski treated in his fiction and journalistic pieces is impressive. His interests embraced what we today think of as the more or less discrete categories of the social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities. His acquaintances referred to him as “the Russian Faust.“ Included in his oeuvre is a substantial body of music criticism, and indeed, he may rightly be considered Russia's first music critic. Odoevskii's opera criticism, an admittedly narrow topic, is the subject of this article.There is good reason for concentrating on Odoevskii's writings about opera. For the operaphile there is the vicarious pleasure (and occasional mortification) of sharing a musically literate listener's reactions to then contemporary or nearly contemporary masterpieces by Mozart, Gluck, Rossini, Bellini, Verdi, Wagner, and others. On a less visceral level, an acquaintance with Odoevskii's opera criticism enhances our overall appreciation of the broad patterns underlying Odoevskii's complete literary output as well as Russian cultural history in the nineteenth century.

The Beginnings of Pathology in America: A Contemporary Analysis of William E. Horner's A Treatise on Pathological Anatomy

2011 ◽  
Vol 135 (12) ◽  
pp. 1591-1596
Author(s):  
Guillermo Quinonez ◽  
William W McLendon
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
French Literature ◽  
Pathological Anatomy ◽  
On Demand ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Educational Conditions ◽  
Print On Demand

Context.—A Treatise on Pathological Anatomy, published in 1829 by William E. Horner, is the first American textbook on pathology. Several articles have been written on Horner, but they do not evaluate the role that the knowledge he recorded played on the intellectual origin of the discipline of pathology in America. Only one article, published in 1930, deals in some detail with the content of the Treatise. Because of new historiographic standards, this is an opportunity to expand on, and update, that article. Furthermore, Horner's book is now available free online, and print-on-demand paperback copies can be ordered for a modest cost from online booksellers. Objective.—To describe the organization and structure of the scientific knowledge found in the Treatise with the intent of demonstrating how this material created the intellectual basis for the origin of pathology as a discipline in America. Design.—Using current historiographic standards, the knowledge included in the book is examined and contextualized within the social, professional, and educational conditions existing at the time of publication. The essay also includes biographic data on the author. Results.—The Treatise contains important information on the principles, ideas, and practice of pathology in the nineteenth century and illustrates the influence of French literature on the author. Conclusion.—The contribution of the Treatise as the first formal textbook on the subject in America is seminal and should be the basis for further historic studies on the organization and structure of scientific knowledge in pathology in America.

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