06.30.08

Flatiron Building

Posted in at 4:09 pm by Stephanie

I’ve been using the StumbleUpon widget in my browser to find interesting stuff.

1903 New York City Flatiron

I found this 1903 picture of a flatiron building in New York City on Eyewitness to History in their photo of the week section. It reminded me that there’s one in San Francisco.

Flatiron in San Francisco

06.17.08

You Might Think

Posted in , at 9:08 pm by Stephanie

Here it is, Summer Break and while some would think it’s the time for reading mind candy, my current book is Poverty and Progress: Social Mobility in a Nineteenth Century City by Stephan Thernstrom. One of the main themes of my American Urban History class was that of social mobility. Turns out while we may all have the American dream of moving into a more financially successful class, upward mobility outside of one’s class isn’t all that common. Moving around within your class and downward mobility are common. This book studies the working class in the town of Newburyport, Massachusetts from 1850 to 1880.

Many of the prejudices against the poor and the uneducated sound the same over 100 years later. “The poor are poor because they spend their money on frivolous things or don’t apply themselves to work.” “If only everyone was educated and would avail themselves to our schools, life would be just peachy.” Christians doled out help to only those they deemed worthy, i.e. the submissive who promised to behave as the charity wanted them to.

I’m finding this all resonates into today. Discussions about the poor, the uneducated, the sick, etc. follow the same lines and the solutions don’t always fit.

I don’t look at neighborhoods the same way after this class.

For anyone interested in learning more about America’s urban history I recommend not only this book but the following as well:

  • City People: The Rise Of Modern City Culture In Nineteenth-Century America by Gunther Barth
  • The Evolution Of American Urban Society (6th Edition) by Howard P. Chudacoff and Judith E. Smith (NOTE: This is a textbook but fairly easy to read and very interesting.)
  • The Immigrant Experience: The Anguish Of Becoming American edited by Thomas C. Wheeler. (NOTE: A slim volume of essays written by children of immigrant parents discussing what it was like to be a first generation American.)