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
Read, in Stilgoe
Section I. "Intellectual and Practical Beginnings"
4. "Parks" 49 - 55
5. "Heights" 56 - 64
We Will do a little gazetteer exercise in class, noting, as does Stilgoe, that many suburbs wind up being named in ways which include the word “Heights” or “Park”.  Synonyms for these words were  popular, too (words like “Hills,” “Highlands,” “Gardens,” and the like.  See the example above.  That's quite the school building, isn't it?  Considering that early cities tended to be fronted upon water (like Bristol, for example) it stands to reason that the areas surrounding the city centers would be higher in elevation than the city centers were.  But this does not explain why people chose to name them in this fashion.  We're lucky.  The Department of the Census has updated the American Factfinder with new data from the 2010 Census.  They've changed the format slightly, too.  But a little fiddling around and it starts to make sense.  Play with it a bit before class, and visit one or two, adding a link to your resource folder.
For Monday, September  23

View Larger Map
For Wednesday, September 25
Read, in Stilgoe,

Part II: “A New Sort of Space: A Proper Country Home
5. Retirement p. 67
6. Prosperity, pp. 68
7. Slovenliness, pp. 69 - 77
8. Village, pp. 78 - 92
Part II of Stilgoe abounds in important images, and you’ll want to meditate on some of them. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 suggest that the relationship between suburban ideas and rural ideas were complex. Working farms were not pretty places in the 19th century. (Minnesota folklore has a saying that one can tell who dominates a farm family, the husband or the wife, by which has the newer coat of paint, the barn, or the farmhouse). Note the illustrations of villages, and see if you can see ways in which the typical farming village differed from the suburb. Note  especially the illustration of the village of Jamaica on Long Island, p. 90, where one can see some of the typical elements of suburban landscapes appearing, while others remain absent. The link above presents Jamaica as it looks today.

The illustration of South Braintree in 1858 shows the settlement pattern typical of the days before the railroad became a significant tool for moving “commuters” from home to work and back. Look carefully at the relationship of houses to the principal road. The railroad, which will make such an impact in a few short years, is to the right. Trains cannot reach an efficient speed quickly, nor can they stop on a dime. How would this effect the distribution of houses in “commuter land” before the automobile was invented? 
Click for another view
A Satellite photo of South Braintree today.

The red line marks the MBTA "red line" subway to downtown boston.  South of this point MBTA commuter lines reach to places like Plymouth and Kingston.  If you've access to Google Earth you can trace patterns associated with railroads and subway lines along this route.  Much of this area is outer suburbia now.  You will note, however, that the density of suburban houses mostly decreases beyond Braintree, except for the village centers of older towns.  The reason is that commuting by the subway is considerably less expensive than commuting by rail.
For Friday, September  27
Read, in Crabgrass Frontier (Jackson)
3.  Home Sweet Home: The House and the Yard, pp. 45-72

Download and read,
On the Moral Influence of Good Houses (Andrew Jackson Downing) (1848)
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) - For more funny movies, click here
Meanwhile, back at the Crabgrass Frontier, you'll notice our focus is shifting back a bit more to the idea of the house--the "family temple" as Robert Stern called it in the video we watched last week.  In the chapter on board, you'll meet Andrew Jackson Downing, Catherine Beecher, and Calvert Vaux.  You heard Vaux and Downing mentioned in the video.  Beecher was the sister of the more famous Harriet Beecher Stowe.  I'm asking you to read Downing at the link above.  We have an Andrew Jackson Downing house in Bristol, less than a mile from campus, but the Google Street Finder View isn't very clear.  Below is an example of a house of his in New Bedford, on the market for only a bit more than a half million. 
I'm not requiring you to read all of Catherine and Harriet Beecher's The American Woman's Home, but I want you to stick your nose in it and prowl around.  The illustrations are very illuminating.  So is the text.  The book is available as a free e-book from Google Books.  Can't beat the price, can you?
Somewhat appropriate to thinking about "moral houses" is a thinking a bit about Mr. Blandings Builds His Dreamhouse.  Wonder of Wonders, I've found it on the internet at yet another film site, Metacafe.  Metacafe isn't as well known as YouTube, Hulu, or some of the others, but it is definitely worth checking out.  Interesting Stuff there.