HST296A: Reading Notes, 6-April-2005
Tolbert, Lisa. Constructing
Townscapes: Space and Society in Antebellum Tennessee. (Chapel
Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999)
Part II: Walking the Townscape
"The subtle impact of gender and race on spatial development can be
understood not as abstractions but as the lived experience of actual
individuals." (p. 119) What impact did individuals have on the social
construction of space within the townscape/how did space constrain
their experience?
population: women, slave and free: 50% (and 50% of that under 20)
1850s renovation: improve streets for ladies traffic, gardens tended by
women to improve town,
men: 1/2 under 20, many living outside family home: boarding, clerks
living near store, raoming in evenings
80% of households: slave owners, 40% of population, slaves
Slaves lived dispersed with white families.
4) Ladies and
Other Women
A Small-Town Story: Kate Carney's Walk
Kate, 17, prominent family, father store owner and plantation owner,
mother from town founders family, brick house, lawns, gardens, orchards
20 acres. Attended Soule Female College, painting, guitar, diary
keeping, and walking!
Mid-century focus on gender "Thus when Middle Tennessee reorganized
town space at midcentury to create new functional zones--wholesale,
retail, and residential districts--their architectural choices also
revealed gender as a powerful organizing principle, equally as
influential as function, in the design of town space." (p. 127)
biggest shopping season: fall
Female colleges: imrpove the town's aesthetic AND economic atmosphere
Slave women: household work, their older daughters, tending children.
Owners; run household, visit, shop, sew
Space and Society
industrial textile production removes a major industry from town women
who no longer make textiles to sell/trade. Farm women still spin/weave.
"No longer a question of economic survival, town building at midcentury
was a quest for prosperity, and the reputation of the entire community
depended upon the refined accomplishments of its ladies." (p. 137) That
is, the culture indicators of a town rested on its ladies, and a town
was judged on that culture as much as on the beauty of its townscape or
vialbility of its economic enterprises. In their gardens and in their
visiting they provided a visible indication of a town's prosperity.
"In the exchange of plants, woomen affirmed their sense of communal
closeness and shared responsibility for the maintainance of their
families and the improvement of their communities." (p. 140)
And when one visits one needs clean streets!
The Building: Colleges for Women
Female colleges designed to house the women instead of boarding with
families: "This decision was significant in the context of the larger
townscape for two reasons: first, it indicated a new ambition to extend
cultural influence far beyond small-town borders; and second, it
produced highly specialized town regions of gender segregation." (p.
148)
Students were drawn from far beyond town, teachers from the north.
"Female colleges occupied a prominent, highly visinle place in the
renovated townscape becasue their male designers defined them as
integral to larger economic and cultural town goals." (p. 150) They
expected a return on their investment in teh form of a cultured town
atmosphere."Thus commerce and domesticity converged in the female
college, reconciling inherent tensions between town as market center
and town as home." (p.151)
5) Store Clerks
and Serenaders
Edmund Cooper; lives at store, cares for it, boards out, joins debate
club and military club. Girls may own the day streets, but boys own the
night streets.
"Architectural choices in the renovated townscape incorporated spatial
strategies to harness the energies and refine the behavior of organized
town youths. Ultimately, however, town residents sought to keep rowdy
young men at a safe distance from the increasingly private domestic
spaces they created."
Mechanics (inc. builders) use oratory to aspire to elite: that is,
colleges, societies were elite practices emulatted by middling class.
Boys attractive as boarders because more independant - don;t have to
give them good space.
Running a business: get a partner both for coverage and for $$
"Idle young men provided visitors with the clearest evidence of town
vice." (p. 170) (But wouldn;t they be used to it??
serenaders - a masculine ritual (p. 172-173) noisy, but then
domesticated (does she really make the case)
1850s: public areas claimed by Temperance
men's colleges - no dorms,
6) Small-Town
Slaves
A Small Town Story: Henry's Weekend
Henry's evidence: testimony at a murder trial - rather a different
source than letters and a diary! He has multiple jobs in various areas
of town, as well as slave acquaintences with whom he interacts during
the day.. He "exerted a certain amount of flexibility and control over
his work routine." (p. 191) and often works independantly, employed by
those not his owner.
Harriet Jacobs, a more famous small-town slave, rejoiced in the
intimacy to be had in a small town. (cf. Philadelphia black community
at turn of century and dangers of leaving when one could be sold/resold
if caught) flip-side: the danger or limitations of everyone knowing
everyone's business
"Interactions between white and black were rarely simple anywhere in
the antebellum South. It was the spatial and social proximity of
mixed-race households that made small-town servitude distinctive." (p.
193)
"In small towns [in contrast to cities] slaves did not have the
opportunity to create physically segregated black communities.
Nevertheless, antebellum town space was racially configured, its
communities separated by powerful social customs." (p. 194)
The Demographic Context: The
Distinctive Racial Configuration of Town Space
Pop: 40-50% of population. (only about 1% free) (larger than in cities,
where about 25% tops) No "slaves are here" designations on map:
population dispersal more subtle: ex: town kitchens combined
residential and work space by serving as slave dwellings." (p. 195)
Town patriarchy-based - single family homes and business known by male
owner's name
Slave responsibilities:
men - stable hands, drivers, hired out as skilled or unskilled
artisans, laborers
women - cooks, laundresses, servants
boys - dining-room servants, messengers
girls - childcare, ran errands
Space and Society:
From Public Wells to Parlors: Communal Intimacy in the Integrated
Townscape
public wells more the norm than private: slaves meet at well to haul
water in early morning: "news depot"
1850s: move to more personal home wells
well-dressed drivers part of family's prestige when visiting
Slaves for Hire: Work and Family in the Integrated Townscape
segmentation of white households (more rooms that are used for specific
purpose) also chance to emphsize racial dominance: no rooms
specifically for slaves. Detached kitchens closest thing to slave
quarters
records may not show ownership, but people still had slaves - they were
just rented, often as a family, often applying themselves for
interviews instead of simply being sent by owner. Earn extra cash, make
connections, get known to prevent abuse by master (Harriett Jacobs)
prayer meetings - chance to socialize with other slaves
The murder:
1831 Garrison publishes Liberator,
and Nat Turner uprising, anti-abolitionist feeling rises in 30s,
repressive legislation follows. curfews, etc. paranoia increases
1850s: "mutual aversion"
The Buildings: African Churches in
the Renovated Townscape
"...in general, slaves were prevented from creating the kind of social
organizations that defined white experience." (p. 221) No homes, no
colleges, no boys clubs
Exception: churches (which also were seen by white eyes as sources of
plotting and insurrection)
Epilogue: Remnants
of the Antebellum Townscape
"From their modest creation as centers of government to their dramatic
growth into railroad towns during the1850s, the history of
architectural change in county seats of Middle Tennessee shows that
small towns played a dynamic and influential role in shaping the
culture of the region."
They
- used urban ways of doing business
- created networks (turnpike and railroad) for business and politics
- built women's colleges to expand their reputation and cultural
influence
Post-Civil War - race becomes visible in town records as living space,
and as segregation used in businesses. But segregation means blacks
acquire space, a threat to Reconstructionists who retaliate with much
violence.
Overall: great book, but one of
the problems with deriving a narrative from limited evidence is that
some of the stretches don't necessarily work. example: (young men)
I wonder how IT will change this: much more evidence should be
available--will such stretches be long tolerated, more or less
challange-able
Her early argument about towns being distinct from urban or rural is
best supported by the information on treatment of slaves; no segregated
communities like urban or big plantation, not physically separated like
rural (p. 201)
"Architectural choices in the renovated townscape incorporated spatial
strategies to harness the energies and refine the behavior of organized
town youths. Ultimately, however, town residents sought to keep rowdy
young men at a safe distance from the increasingly private domestic
spaces they created." How does she prove this??