Urban Masses and Moral Order in America, 1820-1920

Urban Masses and Moral Order in America, 1820-1920 (1992 [1978])
By Paul Boyer

Synopsis: This book is "a fresh synthesis of familiar material" that examines America's moral response to the city, from 1820-1920, and the various reform measure taken to deal with it. The book is divided into four parts: 1) The Jacksonian Era, 2) The Mid-Century Decades: Years of Frustration and Innovation, 3) The Gilded Age: Urban Moral Control in a Turbulent Time, 4) The Progressives and the City: Common Concerns, Divergent Strategies. Argues that prior to 1920 (mostly pre-1860), many of the reform efforts really focused on restoring a sort of village life/familiar surveillance in a society which no longer followed that model. Reform efforts also sought "moral uplift" through tracts (Lyman Beecher was especially involved). The switch from a rural to urban society freaked people out and led them to fear a loss of control. Into the Guilded Age, more coercive strategies took hold (such as Teddy Roosevelt's "we have to fight the poor to save them" strategy - wasn't he post-Gilded Age though?) vs. positive environmentalist strategies (such as the City Beautiful Movement, park movement, playground movement, etc). By the 1920s, however, the view of the city had changed, and people now saw it as a den of conformity.

Interesting Specifics:

Attempts at increased surveillance included the publishing of personal details, whose aim was "to introduce a public dimension into even the most intimate private realm; to reassert society's right to oversee every facet of personal behavior" (19). [Interesting, as this is exactly what's going on now with MySpace, etc, but in an intentional, hey look at me and my personal details! way. Would this idea still even work? Oh, I guess it still exists with "To Catch a Predator"]

Many of the religious-based reform movements were designed to reach the masses and provide them with a sense of order. Thus, the Jacksonian era became somewhat obsessed with order and discipline as a counter to the increased chaos; "this early urban moral-reform effort, then, simply underscored the erosion of an organic sense of community in a period of urban growth" (56).

YMCA movement started in England in 1841, and was brought to the U.S. in 1851.

1910 = Mann Act passed - made is a federal offense of transport a woman across state lines for "immoral purposes" (191).

The 1890s saw a massive rise of anti-prostitution and anti-liquor sentiment.

1896 = Raines Law, and the rise of Raines Law hotels.

Park movement, playground movement, etc, were all part of the "positive-environmentalist" movement, which sought to improve living conditions of the poor so as to influence their moral and social values (234).

Interacts With:

Rothman (Discovery of the Asylum, in this increased push for order and hermetic, old-time community as a solution to increased chaos and change of urbanization)
Hmm, I wrote in my notes that this book might also be about the (implicit) homogenizing effects of mass culture, even though it doesn't explicitly state that.

The Celebration Chronicles: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Property Values in Disney's Brave New Town

The Celebration Chronicles: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Property Values in Disney's Brave New Town (1999)
By Andrew Ross

Synopsis: Andrew Ross spent one year living and doing participant observation in Celebration, Florida in order to see what it was like to live there - to discover its problems, its residents, the general attitude there, its issues, etc. Though it's very American in its desire to start from scratch and create something new, Celebration has its good and bad points, like all other towns. Though Celebration's marketers rely heavily on allusions to "childhood innocence" and "the good old days," it is a high tech place with a progressive alternative public school that parents tend to squabble over (Ross claims it's because they viewed the school as a consumer product that may not have been delivering results). Ross also points out that many residents were angry about the "shoddy construction" of Celebration's homes. Basically, asks a few questions: Can a corporation provide a public realm? is this just another privatopia? What about taste/aesthetics? Is it the shape itself of New Urbanism that increases a sense of community, or is it the people who seek that out?

Interesting Specifics:

Celebration is all about the "iconography of innocence" (16).

Contains an interesting section on model home interiors and market research (pp. 25-27).

Attacks Kunstler for his "crotchety version of orderly civic conduct" (76) and says it is "stuffed with contempt for lower-middle-class taste" (76).

New Urbanism clings hard to the belief that "the design of a physical environment has a fundamental impact upon social behavior" (78).

"The closer people live to one another the more likely they are to guard their privacy" (85).

Pattern books contain all the design a developer could use.

Public schools have long been seen as "the unique source of American national unity" (138).

Spends a lot of time examining Celebration's school, which can be seen as its one utopian element - and which has been, ironically, the source of most of the city's controversy.

Says that the trend of saying "it's not natural to notice skin color" is just the latest from of racism (270).

There's a seedy tourist attraction called "Old Town" right near Celebration.

Interacts With:
Behind the Gates, Brave New Neighborhoods, Building Suburbia

Brave New Neighborhoods: The Privatization of Public Space

Brave New Neighborhoods: The Privatization of Public Space (2004)
By Margaret Kohn

Synopsis: Public life and public space has been increasingly co-opted and usurped by private interests. We should not let out private needs (i.e. need to be left alone, to not be challenged) boil over into the public realm (42). In other words, the public realm should be a zone full of differing interests and views and challenges, and should not just be an extension of out cozy and conflict/challenge-free private realms. Residential Community Associations appear to be a way to get involved with your community, but they really do not encourage interaction within a wider social world or encourage participation as wider citizens (120). She feels there's a difference between the desire for community - which is based on a small-town coziness defined by similar interests and values - and public spiritidness - which "invokes sharing with those who are different" (194). People need a public realm in which they can be exposed to difference.

Interesting Specifics:

1972: Lloyd vs. Tanner rules shopping malls are not free speech zones.

1992: Supreme Court case of Lee vs. Krishna Consciousness rules that airports are not free-speech zones.

We need truly public space because it alerts us to "the irrationalities produced by our society;" to the fact that "our truths are not universal" (59). [I think this is one of her most important parts, and would should the value in looking and in general contact. Is very very Richard Sennett-y; she must have read him.]

Engages With:
Richard Sennett (The Uses of Disorder), Behind the Gates, Celebration Chronicles, Landscapes of Power