Title of Presentation/Proposal/Etc.
“The Devil’s in the Dance Hall: Class Conflict and the Legacy of Gentrifying Measures in Progressive-Era Leisure Spaces”
Start Date
25-2-2021 8:00 AM
Presentation Type
Faculty Presentation
Abstract
During the American Progressive Era (1890-1920), the growing middle class used state-led measures (through community organizations and legislative means) to address social issues. For example, middle-class folks organized reform efforts that intervened in working-class leisure spaces, like urban dance halls, which they deemed morally corrosive for the working-class youth. With attention to this reform’s rhetoric, I argue that reformer's writing not only reveals how their efforts instigated class conflict over the moral character of public space, but that reformers’ rhetoric reveals an early instance of gentrifying measures that suppress the agency of the working class to define their spaces for themselves. My attention to the history of class conflict reveals that with the genesis of the American industrial city came the early realization that the control of a public space leads to the control of public human behavior—a powerful strategy that has informed gentrification movements in the decades thereafter.
Location
Virtual
“The Devil’s in the Dance Hall: Class Conflict and the Legacy of Gentrifying Measures in Progressive-Era Leisure Spaces”
Virtual
During the American Progressive Era (1890-1920), the growing middle class used state-led measures (through community organizations and legislative means) to address social issues. For example, middle-class folks organized reform efforts that intervened in working-class leisure spaces, like urban dance halls, which they deemed morally corrosive for the working-class youth. With attention to this reform’s rhetoric, I argue that reformer's writing not only reveals how their efforts instigated class conflict over the moral character of public space, but that reformers’ rhetoric reveals an early instance of gentrifying measures that suppress the agency of the working class to define their spaces for themselves. My attention to the history of class conflict reveals that with the genesis of the American industrial city came the early realization that the control of a public space leads to the control of public human behavior—a powerful strategy that has informed gentrification movements in the decades thereafter.