This blog will compare images from London, New York, Washington and Minneapolis that come from the late 19th and early 20th century. The city provided people with a space to find new work to recreate themselves and then consequentially allowed them to be manipulated by the city. Who managed the city? Who set these moral codes that workers followed? This new modern city was a place of vastly different experiences for men, women and children.
Figure 1: “Shine you’re shoes govna’?”.
Source: http://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:tah915quk/view
This picture is one that is taken from a collection called ” Street Life in London”. It is the earliest picture and therefore an appropriate one to start with. This boy is working on the street trying to make his way in this modern city where he is being manipulated and his movements controlled, because at this time the police were restricting which shops the “dustblacks” could work outside of.
Figure 2: “Have you got that Mary?”
Source: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/I?horyd:9:./temp/~ammem_AtEj::displayType=1:m856sd=thc:m856sf=5a49282:@@@
At this time the city was seen as a place for working men. Women’s actions in public were still seen to be morally constrained at this time (Macintosh and Norcliffe, 2006). Women caused disruption to this ideal when they began to move to the city. This picture was taken in 1890. They were young, successful and single and providing essential services. For a young woman the city was a space of opportunity Working provided women with a sense of power allowing for a sense of modernity to develop.
“Don’t colour outside the lines boys”
Source:http://www.archives.gov/research/american-cities/images/american-cities-071.jpg
This picture is of an office of architects taken in the early 1900’s. The modern city was a space of consumption and therefore innovation in development of these new spaces was needed providing work for architects. They were expected to act with the right manners, wear the right clothes, say the right things all according to their bosses.
Figure 4: “Open battle between striking teamsters armed with pipes and the police in the streets of Minneapolis, June 1934.”
Source:http://www.archives.gov/research/american-cities/images/american-cities-133.jpg
This picture illustrates how consumerism affected working conditions of the poor. The upper class factory owners were trying to inhibit and control the workers leading to revolt.
Figure 5: “Skyhigh Modernity”
Source: http://www.archives.gov/research/american-cities/images/american-cities-079.jpg
This shows that how in 1936 working in the city allowed you to be involved in creating a modern city. This work is creating one of the most iconic spaces for the inhabitants of a modern city in the world.
Sources consulted:
Jervis, J.(1998) Exploring the Modern Blackwell: Oxford.
Makintosh, P. and Norcliffe, G. Flaneurie on bicycles: acquiescence to women in public in the 1890’s The Canadian Geographer no1 (2006) 17-37
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