‘All the sordid suggestions of the place were gone – in the twilight it was a vision of power’ (a description of Chicago in Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, edited by Russ Castronovo, Oxford UP, 2010 [1906], p. 32). Where do you find ‘power’ in the representations of the American city you have studied, and how would you assess its effects?
‘The modern city can be the most ruthless enemy of the good life, or it can be its servant’ (President Lyndon B. Johnson, ‘Special Message to the Congress on the Nation’s Cities’, 2 March, 1965, n.p.). On the basis of the cultural materials you have studied, what are the prospects for ‘the good life’ in the American city?
‘Not TV or illegal drugs but the automobile has been the chief destroyer of American communities. Highways and roads obliterate the places they are supposed to serve’ (Jane Jacobs, Dark Age Ahead, Random House, 2004, p. 37). Consider, in the light of Jacobs’s remarks, how roads are represented in accounts of the American city.
‘Upstairs Margaret said abruptly, “I suppose it starts to happen first in the suburbs,” and when Brad said, “What starts to happen?” she said hysterically, “People starting to come apart”’ (Shirley Jackson, ‘Pillar of Salt’, The Lottery and Other Stories, Modern Library, 2000, p. 240). Are people ‘coming apart’ in the representations of the American suburb you have studied? If so, why?
What five artefacts express, for you, the culture of the American suburb – and why?
In his ‘Photographer’s Statement’, Camilo José Vergara, who we discuss in the chapter, describes himself as, at least in part, ‘an archivist of decline’. Are the films, songs and literary texts on the contemporary American city that you have studied also ‘archives of decline’, or would this be to take too pessimistic a view?
‘How shall we take this event, which lasted but a summer?’ This is US cultural historian Alan Trachtenberg, writing about the World’s Fair, or Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893 (The Incorporation of America, 25th Anniversary Edition, Hill & Wang, 2007 [1982], p. 209). Research the Fair by studying some of the readily available photographs and texts, and evaluate how it characterised the modern American city.
We start the chapter by considering Adam McKay’s The Big Short (2015) as an example of ‘the American city film’. Produce your own analysis of cinematic responses to the American urban by taking one of the following double bills, comparing and contrasting the two films in each case: a) West Side Story (dir. Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, 1961) and Do the Right Thing (dir. Spike Lee, 1989); b) Force of Evil (dir. Abraham Polonsky, 1948) and The Wolf of Wall Street (dir. Martin Scorsese, 2013); c) Mulholland Drive (dir. David Lynch, 2001) and Babylon (dir. Damien Chazelle, 2022); d) Assault on Precinct 13 (dir. John Carpenter, 1976) and The Dark Knight (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2008).
In the chapter we consider the effectiveness of collage – a form that brings together multiple, disparate materials – as a means of capturing the modern American city. Make your own online collage of Harlem by collecting and juxtaposing written and visual depictions of this predominantly African American neighbourhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City. You have a huge choice of materials: writers on Harlem include Rudolph Fisher, Langston Hughes, Nella Larsen, Ann Petry, Malcolm X and Colson Whitehead, while the many painters and photographers include James Van Der Zee, Edward Burra, William H. Johnson, Jacob Lawrence and Camilo José Vergara. You can give your collage a sonic dimension, too, by embedding links to pieces of Harlem music of many kinds: just one possibility would be soul and R&B singer Luther Vandross’s track, ‘Nights in Harlem’ (1998).
Consider how one of the following is presented in American responses to the city: a) the skyscraper; b) the park; c) the office; d) the shop; e) the bar; f) the pavement (or sidewalk). Range as widely as possible in period and form, so as to trace shifts and variations in the meaning of the urban site you have chosen.
Online Resources
Early Cities of the Americas – combining scholarship with appealing visual presentation, this issue of the open-access online journal Commonplace features essays on the beginnings of many American cities, including Baltimore, Boston, Charleston, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco and Santa Fe
Pictures of American Cities – rich collection of images in the National Archives, extending from the early nineteenth century to the post-war period and arranged into categories such as ‘Skylines and Streets’ and ‘The City in Turmoil’
Modern City in Film – pedagogical resource produced by the National Humanities Center: very helpful in bringing together early art film responses to New York’s new skyscape, e.g. Manhatta (dir. Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler, 1921) and Skyscraper Symphony (dir. Robert Florey, 1929)
Virtual New York City – maintained by the Graduate Center of City University of New York and offering a quirky assemblage of resources on the city’s history and culture (from images of medieval building designs to documentation of the subway)
Chicago: Crossroads of America – attractive site maintained by the Chicago History Museum: among its interesting materials are oral testimonies on the themes of ‘Muslim Chicago’ and ‘Polish Chicago’
City and Suburb: Chicago and Park Forest, Illinois, 1950s – engaging, illustrated account of one of the suburbs which transformed postwar American urban space (hosted by the National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C.)
Los Angeles Almanac – in existence since 1998: a lively, eclectic digest of LA-themed materials, from historic postcards to breakdowns of the city’s weather patterns
D. J. Waldie – hosted by PBS SoCal: an excellent compilation of articles by this distinctive chronicler of Los Angeles – fascinating topics include ‘Lost Cemeteries of Early L.A.’ and ‘The Curiously Magical Air of Los Angeles’
University of Nevada, Las Vegas: Special Collections and Archives – while some of the materials held here on Las Vegas history are accessible only to library members, many others are publicly available (with areas of interest including ‘Latinx Voices’ and documents on the city’s past and present as a major gaming venue)
When the Levees Broke, Part 1 – Spike Lee’s important 2006 documentary about the devastation caused to New Orleans (and the Gulf Coast) by both Hurricane Katrina and government inaction in August 2005. Part 2 of the film is similarly available on YouTube
Camilo José Vergara: Tracking Time – website of this important urban photographer, discussed in the chapter: includes many images of Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles and New York, as well as smaller cities such as Gary, Indiana and Camden, New Jersey
Michael Kimmelman on The Intimate City: Walking New York – an hour-long interview with Kimmelman, recorded at the Seminary Co-op Bookstore in Chicago: a helpful accompaniment to, and expansion of, our chapter’s brief discussion of The Intimate City