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  October 28

Read, in Rybczynski.
Chapter 5, "Ease" pp. 101 - 122
Review, in Stilgoe, part II
Chapters 9-10, Country Seat, and Grounds
Chapter 5 takes the idea of "ease" which we first associated with the "easy chair" and applies it to the entire house. We expect our houses to be places of relaxation, apart from the hustle and bustle of urban life and economics. Rybczynski tracks that idea to the English, particularly the English gentry . . . who maintained a town house for conducting business and affairs of court and a country house to which they could withdraw from political affairs and amuse themselves, their friends, and families. (Remember the fairy tale about the Town Mouse and the Country Mouse).  Americans expect suburban houses to function similarly, and orient them to the landscape much the same way English gentlemen oriented country houses and grounds to the working agricultural estates around them. We'll see how that relationship works itself out.
Internet Study Exercises.
Visit and compare English and American Country Estates. For English examples you can visit Duncombe Park and Harewood House.  For a comparative American Example, visit Drayton Hall.  While the buildings may be visually different from each other, a comparison of how they function will show their intellectual relationship  The pictures below are linked to different areas of the websites of the houses.  Click on them, too.
Duncombe ParkHarewood House

Drayton Hall
For Wednesday, October 30

Read, in Stilgoe,
Part IV, Borderland Life and Popular Literature,
Chapter 15, Advocates, 168-186

           
This should give a good idea of what Stilgoe means by a "barnacle"
Part IV, Chapter 15 will introduce us to literary figures who popularized the Suburbs and the Suburban lifestyle. Among these was H. C. Bunner and when I discovered him I was impressed enough to hunt down examples of his work which could be accessible on the Internet. You’ll be reading four of his short stories in the internet exercise below.
Download and Read

Four Short Stories and essays by H. C. Bunner:
A Letter to Town
The Lost Child
Natural Selection  Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3
Shantytown
I’m betting that many of you will become fond of H. C. B unner, even as I have. These essays and stories are warmly sympathetic to persons in a variety of situations expressing the “human condition.”

The illustrations accompanying the Bunner articles are wonderful in their own light.  Here you see the contrast betweeen the immigrants on Mulberry Street and a proper lady in Chelsea (I believe the resemblance to Mrs. Simpson's hairdo is purely coincicental.)

Within New York City, immigrant Italians and old line Dutch families could live quite literally within a block or two of each other.  Suburban conditions separated them by miles.
We've seen that it was the rich who escaped the cities first.  The middle class was not too far behind. Some early  developments were rather haphazard, as the chapter Barnacles shall show. Barnacles is an interesting metaphor, and to understand its use you’ll need to think a little about  how barnacles grow.  Some nautical types in the class may be able to provide inspiration to the landlubbers.  These were not the first Barnacles, of course . . . Rather grotty areas had developed on the fringes of Urban America's walking cities earlier
A barnacle "suburban" colony. 
Click to visit the "city".            



For Friday, November1