Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940

Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 (1994)
By George Chauncey

Synopsis: This book seeks to challenge the idea that a vibrant gay culture did not exist prior to WWII by refuting three myths: 1) the myth of isolation, 2) the myth of invisibility, 3) the myth of internalization. Chuancey does an amazingly thorough social history which reconstructs the gay subculture of 1890-1940 New York City by drawing from vice society records, police records, newspapers, and all variety of media in order to provide a rich ethnographic description of gay life. The book is divided into three parts: I: Male (Homo) Sexual Practices and Identities in the Early Twentieth Century; II: The Making of the Gay Male World; III: The Politics of Gay Culture. Chauncey provides both a portrait and analysis of the geography and symbolism of the gay male world in order to show that it was more restricted/hidden in the second third of the century. Basically, the hetero/homo binary and way of defining personhood as based on sexual object preference did not really happen until the 1930s-50s, when it replaced the then-dominant system of "fairie" vs. "normal men" which used gender behavior/identification as the main categorizer (fairies were effeminate, queers were not but liked men, "trade" were masculine and "normal" but would fuck men if approached). This shows a much more fluid range of sexual activity that was allowed to "normal"men then versus now. The book also maps the "sexual topography of the gay world," and shows the way gay culture flourished within urban spaces like streets, parks, bathhouses, boarding houses, and nightclubs. Urban space was thus essential to the development of this culture. Argues that the thriving of this culture was an act of resistance, and that gay and straight culture were defined dialectically. Gays especially flourished among the working class and ethnic/immigrant communities. Seems to show that a sort of utopia emerged during prohibition in which all classes/sexualities were thrown together in search of booze/revelry, and that the repeal of prohibition ultimately led to a rise in anti-gay policing. "Privacy could only be had in public" (198).

Interacts With:

All books that deal with public life/public space:
Sidewalk, Rudeness and Civility, Urban Masses and Moral Order, Land of Desire, Confidence Man and Painted Women, Horrible Prettiness (urban life and the particularities of urban spaces like the theatre),
Maybe de Certeau (transgressive power of small everyday acts, use of space),
Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (not on lists, but connects on urban space and sex culture, and both have a sort of utopian bent to them), Cities on a Hill,
Could maybe contrast with books that focus more on private life, like Behind the Gates, Building Suburbia, The Levittowners, Middletown, Country of Exiles, etc
For books that focus on a different, mobility-based form of public life/space:
Learning from Las Vegas, Neon Metropolis,
Flourishing of gay culture as act of resistance (there's the pop culture list tie-ine!!)
Connects with Foucault, for idea that middle class tries to control sexuality by naming it and defining it.

**Still one of the best!** Tons of good info - See full notes for more details.

Sidewalk

Sidewalk (1999)
By Mitchell Duneier

Synopsis: This book is an examination of the "invisible social structure of the sidewalk," which asks how the various street vendors, etc "live in a moral order" in "the face of exclusions and stigmatization on the basis of race and class," and wonders how "their acts intersect with a city's mechanisms to regulate its public spaces" (9). Book is based-on first-person ethnographic research conducted from 1996-97 (and a bit from 1998-99), which included participant observation on the sidewalks of certain Greenwich Village streets, following the street economy of many unhoused or marginally-housed Black street vendors who sell recycled magazines and books fished from the trash. Hakin Hasan was the main street vendor Duneier focused on. The book is divided into five sections: Part One: The Informal Life of the Sidewalk, Part Two: New uses of the Sidewalks, Part Three: The Limits of Informal Social Control; Part Four: Regulating the People Who Work the Streets, Part Five: The Construction of Decency. This book draws largely from Jane Jacobs and her discussion of the importance of "public characters." It also argues that sidewalk space allows struggling people "to engage in legal entrepreneurial activity that helps them maintain respect for others and for themselves" (179). Refers to Zimbardo's "broken windows" study and says that physical disorder shouldn't necessarily be equated with social disorder. What is the social disorder equivalent of a broken window, and how do we know when people are really broken rather than actually on their way up? Just because people are forced to do everything in public (i.e. "use the bathroom"), doesn't mean people are actually less decent than those who don't have to.

Interacts With:

Jane Jacobs, Edge City (could a community like this ever thrive in an Edge City? Don't think so. Couldn't really "thrive" in any non-walking city)
I guess a criticism of this book is that the author may have gotten too close to his subjects - i.e. was not "tough" enough on them. In that way, this book can be a good example of methodological questions, though personally I think the author was fair enough. It's true he didn't really adequately deal with gender issues, but I think that's a minor point.
Seems to say that capitalism is a noble effort. See, at least these guys were trying to act like respectable capitalists.

The Social Meaning of Civic Space: Studying Political Authority Through Architecture

The Social Meaning of Civic Space: Studying Political Authority Through Architecture (1988)
By Charles T. Goodsell

Synopsis: This book is a study of the design of city-council chambers from 1865-1980s, and investigates the way changing design styles reflect changing political ideas. The author examined 75 council chambers in the U.S. and Canada, and immersed himself in the surroundings, noting details, design, layout, and the overall aura of the chambers. He breaks his observations into three categories of analysis: 1) composition of space, 2) design of semi-fixed features, 3) patterns of decoration and object display. Chapter II provides an amazing synthesis of various useful theories for studying interior space from the realms of sociology, anthropology, history, architecture, linguistics and semiotics, art history, psychology, and environmental psychology. The author identifies three major design periods: Traditional, 1865-1920 (large, boxy space and strict separation of officials and spectators - sense of imposed authority), Midcentury, 1920-1960 (smaller, longer and lower, increased sense of checks and balances, more informal "confronted architecture"), Contemporary, 1960-1980s (rounded floor plan and amphitheatre seating, curved surfaces, increased sense of joined/shared authority). These design changes express our changing notions of public authority. Goodsell sees civic space as ceremonial space, as a space of ritual made special by the use of certain symbols. He reads architecture in a holistic rather than linear way, and thus has lots of interesting things to say about perception. This is a potentially very useful book [see full notes for details].

Interacts With:

This is one of my favorite books, and got me all inspired and stuff again. Has an amazing bibliography, and seems like a great book to follow, methodologically - esp. for researching meaning of interior spaces.
Also, this book stands out because it is one of the few on this list to emphasize an increasing coming together/holism as opposed to an increased fragmentation - it's refreshing!
Semiotics
Learning From Las Vegas, Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, Delirious New York, Variations on a Theme Park (all these books say very different thing, it's just that they view the built environment as creating a sort of aura or possibility).

Variations on a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of Public Space

Variations on a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of Public Space (1992)
Edited by Michael Sorkin

Synopsis: This is a compilation of essays which seeks to describe (rather than theorize) the new ageographic city. This new city has three characteristics: 1) no attachment to local, physical, and cultural geography; 2) an obsession with "security;" 3) a city of simulations. Includes pieces by Margaret Crawford (West Edmonton Mall as land of fantasy consumption); Langdon Winner (Silicon Valley as info age city of floating bits); Neil Smith (Lower East Side as Wild West, gentrification, 1988 Tompkins Square Park Riot); Edward Soja (exopolis and Orange County, OC all about perpetual newness and reinvention and simulacra, postmodern numbness); Trevor Boddy (analogous cities of above and below ground tunnels separate one class from another and kill messy vitality of the street); Mike Davis (Fortress L.A. - islands of hermetically-sealed luxury in downtown L.A., city controlled by surveillance and private security); Christine Boyer (South Street Seaport, theatrical design, all about story and familiar narrative patterns); Sorkin (Disneyland as ultimate ageographic place, city as false utopia). Basically, this book is freaked out that "real urbanity" might be disappearing.

Interacts With:

Where do I begin!!? Everything that's angsty and bitchy about the built environ from the early 1990s connects to this:
Geography of Nowhere, Country of Exiles, "The World in a Shopping Mall" (as a counter-example to this), Behind the Gates, Celebration Chronicles, Learning from Las Vegas (as a positive precursor), Edge City, Simulacra and Simulations, Inside the Mouse, Delirious New York, Richard Sennett, Jane Jacobs
This really is an excellent look at early 1990s angst and this fear of "inauthenticity."

A Consumer's Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America

A Consumer's Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (2003)
By Lizabeth Cohen

Synopsis: Cohen makes an argument that the postwar period (1945-1975) embodied the rise of the "Consumer's Republic" - that is, "an economy, culture, and politics built around the promises of mass consumption, both in terms of material life and the more idealistic goals of greater freedom, democracy, and equality" (7). Utilizing government sources, sociological surveys, marketing research, and historical monographs, Cohen provides a dense history of this era as it connects with the "consumers' republic" notion. The book is divided into: Origins of the Postwar CR (1930s, New Deal and war efforts); Birth of CR (consumption as the American way of life; continuous push for more purchasing and ownership; Black purchasing and boycotting power to voice discontent; The Landscape of Mass Consumption (suburbanization, commercialization, and privatization; feminization of public space via suburban shopping centers usurping downtowns; decline of legal redlining leads to rise of more covert segregation); Political Culture of Mass Consumption (rise of market segmentation and splintering off into more specialized groups; rise of the consumer movement). Cohen argues that the rise of the "consumers' republic" was just as influential as other Cold War issues, in that it was the belief that mass consumption could bring increased prosperity and equality. While it did do some good, it resulted in increased market segmentation and overall fragmentation.

Interesting Specifics:

Discusses the postwar "return to normalcy" push, and thrift as almost "un-America."

The national output of goods and services doubled between 1946 and 1956, and would double again by 1970" (121).

Between 1947 and 1953, the suburban population increased by 43 percent (195).

1948 Supreme Court ruling of Shelley vs. Kraemer found restrictive covenants unconstitutional.

In 1953, 70,000 person Levittown was biggest community in U.S. with no black residents.

Interacts With:

Actually, does kind of interact with books about the rise of mass production in the late nineteenth century and the hopes that this would democratize goods and put everyone on equal footing. Also is kind of connected to the republican ideal that we will all be united by our (relatively) equal access to stuff. It's a very "common man"/anti-elitist kind of idea that Americans seem to love.
Also, can be seen as another example of increased fragmentation of the modern era.
This is what most of my 1950s lecture is derived from.
This book has tons of good info, but is extremely dry and not American studies enough for me.

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