Michael R. H. Swanson, Ph. D.
Office: GHH 215 Phone:  ext. 3230
Hours:  M, T, Th, F 9:00-10:30
  or by Appointment
mswanson@rwu.edu

The Week's Work
AMST 333
House and Home in America
Roger Williams University
Fall, 2013 M, W, F:  1:00-1:50
GHH 208
For Monday, September 9             The Golden Vision of City Life.

Read, in
Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier,
Introduction: pp. 3-12
1.Suburbs as Slums, pp.12 - 19
2.The Transportation Revolution and the Erosion of the Walking City pp. 20 - 45

This book is about American havens.  It suggests that the space around us–the physical organization of neighborhoods, roads, yards, houses, and apartments–set up living patterns which condion our behavior
Jackson, 3
On Friday (yup, we're repeating last week's assignments) we looked at the communities which we consider our own.  We started to get a sense of the institutions which constitute them, and looked at the widely varying types of communities which are part of the American fabric.  Today we’ll start to develop a theoretical framework for understanding those differences.

The Introduction will help us frame a definition of “Suburb”.  We’ll find defining suburb is more difficult than it seems at first.  We’ll encounter political definitions and socioeconomic definitions, and we’ll also see that American residential patterns are very different from those of the European countries from which the founders of most American places sprung.
 
A Suburban slum outside of Philadelphia, in what would become the fasionable "main line" area. Click on the photo to browse other interesting historic photograhs in the Library of Congress Collection.

View Larger Map
Some remnants of the traditional "Walking City" survive.  Does anyone recognize where the above is?
Witch Hazel is the material supposedly used in the crafting of magic wands. Sitting here composing these notes, I have alternated between planning to give you a complete explanation and letting you uncover the meaning of the chapter title for yourself. What we'll be looking at here is variations on the them of the "natural". 19th Century Americans were far more interested in nature as "made" than in nature as "found"
Botanizing looks at the role women played in the development of the suburban landscape. The role is larger than I suspect many of you were aware of.

Shadows will suggest that it wasn't only the lure of the country which created borderlands, but a growing dislike for cities, as well.
For Wednesday, September 11

Read, in Stilgoe,
Borderland: Origins of the American Suburb, 1820 - 1939
Introduction, 1- 17
Section I. "Intellectual and Practical Beginnings"
"View"" 21
1.  "Witch Hazel 22 - 26 
2. "Botanizing" 27 - 37 
Frequently when we come upon a book which is heavily illustrated we sigh with relief because it means we have less to read. We then proceed to pretty much ignore the illustrations. The illustrations in Stilgoe are very important, and we lose a lot of value if we don’t spend serious time looking at and interpreting them.  Stilgoe helps us see why suburbs are important places... perhaps the most politically potent places in America today (soccer moms, SUVs, and all that). As you read him, notice that the captions to his illustrations are very important. We tend to ignore captions: Don’t!  It may take you a bit to get used to this book..
One of the major difficulties with this study--perhaps the only major difficulty-- is that the chapter titles are more poetic than informative. A "View", for example in 19th century terms, is picture drawn to represent a scenic vista. One still sees it used this way on picture postcards, occasionally. In this instance, the "view" described is on the preceding page.
Goudetias

The first Natural Science in which women participated was botany.  This illustration represents the work of Jane Webb Loudon (1807 - 1858) To see more of her work click on the image
68th St. and Eleventh Avenue, New York City, in the mid-nineteenth century,  It would be in the center of today's Upper West Side Manhattan. 68th Street now terminates one block from Eleventh.  The view which appears when the cursor rolls over is looking eastward down 68th from Amsterdam Avenue.  The earlier view represents an example of the kind of suburban slum of which Stilgoe speaks.  Views and a short narrative of the Five Points District, a more urban area, can be seen by clicking on the illustraton above.  See also HERE
Wednesday, we'll  we’ll introduce the second of the books for the course, and begin to look at the early  roots of Suburbs as we know them today.  As this section indicates, the beginnings were both theoretical and practical.
Borderlands: Origins of the American Suburb introduces a landscape over time, but a landscape that addressed curiously timeless concerns. It makes no attempt to outline the great forces, economic, technological, religious, and otherwise, that comprise the “sociology of suburbia,” but deals rather with the theater in which “suburbans” chose to live in the century after 1820. It probes and pokes at visual things, and in a time when urban form receives so much scrutiny, it focuses on a purely marginal place, “commuter country,” the borderlands, the suburbs as Americans once knew them.
Borderlands, vii.
For Friday, September 13

Read, in Stilgoe,
Borderland: Origins of the American Suburb, 1820 - 1939
3. "Shadows" 38 - 48

View Larger Map
Above, Roughly the same area.  New York City has grown a bit., Hasn't it?