Today and following Spring Break we focus on the American House of the 1890s. Owning a home of one's own has long been a central part of the American Dream, and in the 1890s there were some interesting changes in the technology of housing and transportation which made this dream accessible to more people than before. There were also changes in the financial structure which made their own contributions. Schlereth will shed light on these.
Mrs. van Rensselaer was in no danger of being forced into tenement living. Her essay presents living at the top. How the Other Half Lives, which I'm going to ask you to devour over Spring Break, represents the other side of the coin. The observations of Riis and van Rensselaer were widely available. Your individual characters had both dreams and realities concerning housing. Try to look at these readings from your contemporary perspective and the perspectives of your characters at the turn of the century, as well. We'll look at the middle, too, never fear.
A house is a stage upon which the dramas of families are enacted. There is, of course, some coherence between the "set" and the "play". As the American family changed around the turn of the century, so did the ordering and design of interior spaces. We'll want to take note of those changes. Be sure that you recognize that full-blown spaces can be symbolized in simple articles of furniture by persons of more modest means: For example, if one cannot have a library, perhaps one can have a book case or a shelf of books. No space for a family chapel? Well, a religious lithograph on the wall can serve as well.
Most of city building stock is residential, regardless of the size of the city. We will return to look at cities later in the semester, if all goes according to plan, but I thought it would be a good idea to get an impression of what they were like at this point.
For Tuesday, March 9
The Centennial Exposition. An excursion for our alter-egos.
Aside from reading all of Schlereth, It is difficult for me to describe what I want you to do here, and I can’t do it in terms of Page Numbers, so I’m going to do it in terms of hours–a minimum of three of them between Friday the Fifth and Tuesday the Ninth. I want you to “go” to the fair, using these various sources and following your interests. Record your pages read and titles in your Storehouses, and construct a little narrative of your visit. I’m glad I only have the Oscars to condend with this weekend, so I should be able to get three ours out of each of you. Actually I’m hoping you’ll get so entranced by what you see and read about that you’ll be surprised at how hard it is to put the material down. (I can dream, can’t I?). Upload illustrations if you wish and I hope you wish. I’m going to ask you to tell the family about your visit on Tuesday and you just might like a little Show and Tell to keep them (us) amused
