How the other half lives; studies among the tenements of New York, by Jacob A. Riis; with illustrations chiefly from photographs taken by the author. Review

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(More customer reviews)Heart-rending. The classic work which moved so many to support social reforms.
Riis's commitment to record, report, and assist the poor tells of another time, when standards were quite different. It is not surprising, then, that his language reflects the context of his time. Many of his words seem awkward and racist when evaluated according to modern standards. It will seem odd to some modern readers, to hear such sweeping and biased generalizations of the poor, together with such genuinely compassionate, impassioned pleas for fair and ethical treatment of the poor, issuing from the same source.
There is no irony here. It is rather a reminder of real progress we have made, thanks to efforts by Riis and others, that we now recoil at some of the assumptions Riis states so freely and comfortably, prejudiced impressions which were well accepted then. Grateful for the real reforms we have achieved, nevertheless we should not be so smug as to criticize Riis's language. After all, our own great-grandchildren will inevitably find some of our accepted habits quite horrifying, and many of our activities inhumane.
Riis's work -- his photography and reporting of the desperate circumstances of children and families in the tenements -- brought information of these tragedies to the general public, and motivated the enactment of legislation intended to protect the poor, especially children. This work marks a milestone in American history, and is not to be missed!

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This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University LibraryÕs preservation reformatting program.

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Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England Review

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(More customer reviews)I am a great fan of Amanda Vickery's books. And I think that they should be required reading for anyone interested in the social history of the Georgian era.
Her previous work, "The Gentleman's Daughter" was a wonderfully detailed exploration of the intimate lives of women in the 18th century and helped many of us to a greater understanding of Jane Austen's female character's lives, setting them in a recognisable historical context .Her new book "Behind Closed Doors : at home in Georgian England" once again takes the domestic realm as it subject but details it on a much wider scale.
She does not concentrate on one class of people but considers, in minute detail, the intimate lives of landladies and lodgers, tradesmen and women, professionals and aristocrats living in both London and in the provinces.
Its scale is breathtaking and the detail, delicious. And what I really adore is that she admits the historical truth of Jane Austen's writings by including copious quotes from the six novels to illustrate her points. Indeed, she devotes almost half a chapter of the book to consider the way in which the subject of the home is treated by Austen's heroines and heroes, even going so far as to paraphrase the famous opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice.
"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Georgian house with a drawing room, French windows and lawns must be in want of a mistress..."
It was an irresistible and understandable opportunity ....I daresay had I been given the chance to play with that famous line, I would not have let it pass either...
While reading Professor Vickery's descriptions of the lives and experiences of real individuals the Jane Austen devotee will find many parallels with the situations in which her characters find themselves.
The book is beautifully produced , printed on fine glossy paper and illustrated in black and white and colour with very appropriate and carefully chosen illustrations.
I confess I have devoured this book and read it quickly almost at one sittting.I am going to revisit it over the next few weeks savouring its detail. I highly recommend this book to you: anyone who is keen on Jane Austen's works will enjoy delving into the minutiae of real people's lives - especially as many of the lives have telling details which echo in Austen's works.
Is it too much to hope that this book will soon appear in a Kindle edition?

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In this brilliant new work, Amanda Vickery unlocks the homes of Georgian England to examine the lives of the people who lived there. Writing with her customary wit and verve, she introduces us to men and women from all walks of life: gentlewoman Anne Dormer in her stately Oxfordshire mansion, bachelor clerk and future novelist Anthony Trollope in his dreary London lodgings, genteel spinsters keeping up appearances in two rooms with yellow wallpaper, servants with only a locking box to call their own. Vickery makes ingenious use of upholsterer’s ledgers, burglary trials, and other unusual sources to reveal the roles of house and home in economic survival, social success, and political representation during the long eighteenth century. Through the spread of formal visiting, the proliferation of affordable ornamental furnishings, the commercial celebration of feminine artistry at home, and the currency of the language of taste, even modest homes turned into arenas of social campaign and exhibition.

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Apartment Stories: City and Home in Nineteenth-Century Paris and London Review

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(More customer reviews)There has been a recent interest in theories that undermine the undertakings of the Enlightenment and Modernism toward presenting a world made up of clear definitions and distinctions. This trend has thrown light upon those cultures and periods of history previously dismissed as irrational, decadent, or retrogressive. Further, owing to Post-Structuralist interests in language, scholars have increasingly turned towards realist novels and literature from the period being studied to unearth peculiar social environments that have remained concealed in the purely formal analyses of historical accounts.
Sharon Marcus in Apartment Stories identifies the novel as a significant mirror of everyday life. Literary criticism and cultural history, for Marcus, are intertwined disciplines that feed on each other. In Apartment Stories she uses an analysis of the nineteenth-century realist novel to illuminate a discourse about (not `on') apartment houses of the time. Employing texts that she calls `atypical', as a heuristic device for exploring the range and complexity of nineteenth century debates on domesticity and urbanism, Marcus sets herself the ambitious task of questioning conventional conceptions of the distinctions of private and public, interior and exterior, as well as masculine and feminine. She probes the text not only in terms of seeking social and physical implications of the described spaces but also in terms of the manner in which the narration itself inscribes spatial relations and establishes zones as exterior and interior, private and public, mobile and fixed.
Apartment Stories is divided into three parts. The first part, "Open Houses", discusses the apartment house as a space that refutes readability as a private, opaque, and interior space. The second part, "The City and the Domestic Ideal", discusses the cultural preference for the single-family house over the lodging houses (that resembled apartment houses) of Londoners. The third and concluding part, "Interiorization and its Discontents", deals with Paris during the Second Empire. The author claims that Paris became interiorized after 1850 and thereby challenges the established interpretation of the Second Empire Paris as one of spectacle, flânerie, and circulation. She also questions the famous notion of the Goncourt brothers that "the interior is going to die. Life threatens to become more public". Marcus, in view of the Parisian apartment house, explicates the impossibility of ever fully interiorizing the home.
Sharon Marcus's Apartment Stories provides interesting insights into the world of the bourgeois in nineteenth century Paris- though her ideas are not always convincing and not always substantiated with documentation. Her elaborate endnotes that occupy 81 pages at the rear of the book fail to provide the convincing evidence that more architectural drawings and photographs might. The book leaves the readers constantly searching through the text for `real' images of the physical character of the apartment houses to which they may correspond the analysis of the novel. In the absence of such documentation, the author herself feels the need to stop every now and then in order to summarize and locate within the overall scheme of the book what she had just written (which is also what makes the writing of the book-review easier). These impediments that occlude the understanding of her new insights are further assisted by what could be considered a methodological oversight. Her structure of discussions of the interior and exterior space rest upon the individual descriptions of interior and exterior space. The discussion does not flow from one to the other and that, I feel, strengthens the distinction between the two. A discussion of the in-between transition spaces, apart from perhaps the character of the portière, between the street and the house, that one would expect in a discussion of interior and exterior spaces, is also absent.
Marcus works from an impressive bibliography, one that partially compensates for her deficiencies in documentation and illustration. Apart from a slight error in quoting the publication date of James Stevens Curl's The Victorian Celebration of Death as 1872 instead of 1972, the bibliography, along with the book, becomes a wonderful resource for any scholarly study of nineteenth century France and England in the fields of feminist theory and criticism, geography, urban studies, architectural history, literary criticism, and interdisciplinary research on everyday life.

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In urban studies, the nineteenth century is the "age ofgreat cities." In feminist studies, it is the era of the separatedomestic sphere. But what of the city's homes?In the course ofanswering this question, Apartment Stories provides a singularand radically new framework for understanding the urban and thedomestic. Turning to an element of the cityscape that is thoroughlyfamiliar yet frequently overlooked, Sharon Marcus argues that theapartment house embodied the intersections of city and home, publicand private, and masculine and feminine spheres. Moving deftly from novels to architectural treatises, legal debates,and popular urban observation, Marcus compares the representation ofthe apartment house in Paris and London. Along the way, she excavatesthe urban ghost tales that encoded Londoners' ambivalence about citydwellings; contends that Haussmannization enclosed Paris in a newregime of privacy; and locates a female counterpart to the flneur andthe omniscient realist narrator--the portire who supervised theapartment building."Apartment Stories works from the brilliant premise that urbanculture and domestic architecture are indeed related in a number ofunpredictable and mutually enlightening ways. Marcus's readings ofBalzac and Zola novels in the context of the new urban architectureare absolutely superb, and she remains subtle and unexpected at everystep." --Bruce Robbins, author of Feeling Global

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The Royal Palaces of Tudor England: Architecture and Court Life, 1460-1547 (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in Britis) Review

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(More customer reviews)I grew up in England and have visited many historical buildings from the Tudor period. If you are fascinated by the Tudor dynasty, especially Henry VIII, and the buildings and living conditions of the Tudor monarchs, this book will satisfy your thirst for knowledge. I thought that I had a fairly good knowledge about the Tudor period until I bought this book. Simon Thurley is an expert in this field and it shows. The book contains maps of the palaces, pictures of parts of excavated palaces that I have never seen before, and many, many paintings of the palaces how they "used to look". Many of these fine buildings have been lost to modernization and demolishment, but their images live on in this book. Excellent job Dr. Thurley!!

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The royal palaces of the Tudor period - Hampton Court Palace, the Tower of London, Greenwich Palace, St James' Palace, Nonesuch, Whitehall and Richmond Palace, amongst others - are the subject of this illustrated book, in which the author examines the way in which Tudor palaces functioned on the inside. Every aspect of palace life - from the deliberations of the Star Chamber to the tennis courts at Whitehall to the problems of providing sanitation for 800 people - is covered in detail, as well as the architectural history of not only the most important palaces, but also a selection of 'lesser' houses. Thurley begins with the castles and palaces of early medieval England and Burgundy, moves on through those built by Henry VII, focusing finally on the many palaces lived in and built by Henry VIII for his itinerant court. The result is both a study of the development of architectural style and form in the critical formative years of early sixteenth-century England and a work of social history which throws completely new light on the way in which Tudor government functioned and on the personality and changing habits of Henry VIII.The author is now responsible for Hampton Court Palace, Kew Palace and the Tower of London: he recently masterminded the restoration of the Tudor Kitchens and the King's Apartments at Hampton Court.

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Hampton Court: A Social and Architectural History Review

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(More customer reviews)I have to admit a weakness for coffee-table books about palaces, stately homes etc, but this sumptuous, oversize volume is among the better ones of the genre. It is a detailed history of Hampton Court Palace - its origins, construction, additions, renovations, decoration and gardens, but also it touches on the lives and motivations of its people - builders and architects, kings and princes, bureaucrats and functionaries, tenants and visitors.
Richly illustrated with floor plans, drawings, paintings, prints, portraits, and photographs, this account of Hampton Court brings the story of the famous palace up to the 21st century.
When I last visited Hampton Court a quarter century ago, both house and gardens were looking decidedly shabby and, apparently, it got much worse before it got better. Tourists were passing it up in droves. Scandalous mismanagement, including a 3 million pound contractor fraud, dismantled fire detectors and gateways too narrow for fire engines, led up to a disastrous fire in 1986 and resulted in 2 deaths.
Although this is a serious work, one (unintentionally?) hilarious episode described in the book is the comic-opera visit to view the fire damage by the then Secretary of State for the Environment (& the man ultimately responsible for Hampton Court), Nicolas Ridley. Ridley, a chain smoker, his wife who was claustrophobic and ten other dignitaries were descending in the lift when it jammed between floors; the emergency manual door-opening device failed to function; the elevator maintenance man could not be located. Two hours later the Fire Brigade forced the doors open with a hydraulic jack. Heads rolled afterward - if only metaphorically.
New schemes have since been put in place for restoration and refurbishment, for improved property management and to enhance the attractions of the historic old palace for new generations of visitors.

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Hampton Court-probably Britain's most important secular historicbuilding complex-was a center of court life and politics from the latefifteenth to the middle of the eighteenth century. It was also a placeof architectural innovation and the site of the most ambitious formalgardens ever built in Britain. This book offers the first history inover a century of Hampton Court, its gardens, and its parks. Lavishlyillustrated, the book brings to life the entire history of thebuilding, including the terrible fire of 1986 and thetwentieth-century opening of the complex to the public. Simon Thurley,the unrivalled authority on Hampton Court's architecture, interiordecoration, and history, sets the building in political and socialcontext. He explores the lives and motivations of its builders,telling the stories of the architects and others who fulfilled thewhims of kings and princes. In addition to throwing light on thecharacter of court life, the book makes important new attributions toarchitects Hugh May, Nicholas Hawksmoor, William Talman, ColenCampbell, Edward Blore, and others.

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The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Companion: An Illustrated Encyclopedia Review

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(More customer reviews)An exhaustive record of all official correspondence, case file notes, evidence details and media reports concering the Jack the Ripper/Whitechapel murders of 1888-91. A very thorough research guide for serious Ripperologists. Includes all major case notes and relevant data, as well as a solid collection of photographs and drawings. Recommended for the hardcore Ripper enthusiast, and as a companion to other books on the case, especially Sugden's "The Complete History of Jack the Ripper".

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The legendary Jack the Ripper terrorized London’s prostitutes in 1888, and horrified the world with his cruelty.These horrific unsolved murders and stories of the terrifying desecration of his victim’s bodies still captivate the world 100 years later. Police reports, newspaper articles, photographs, commentary, illustrations and much more, this is the ultimate resource for any researcher or follower of Ripper lore.

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The Motel in America (The Road and American Culture) Review

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(More customer reviews)Upon completion of this book, the reader will have a complete history of the growth of today's hotel industry from the days of tourist camps, through motor courts, motels, and now motor inns. It is well researched, very quick reading, and gives an excellent history of this major form of commerce during the earlier part of the 20th century. The only thing missing might be a pictoral diagram showing the evolution of early chains into today's major lodging chains. I would also suggest a little more detail on the circumstances of some of the chain's that went out of business. Either way, a great piece for anyone interested in travel history and highway evolution.

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In the second volume of the acclaimed "Gas, Food, Lodging" trilogy, authors John Jakle, Keith Sculle, and Jefferson Rogers take an informative, entertaining, and comprehensive look at the history of the motel.From the introduction of roadside tent camps and motor cabins in the 1910s to the wonderfully kitschy motels of the 1950s that line older roads and today's comfortable but anonymous chains that lure drivers off the interstate, Americans and their cars have found places to stay on their travels. Motels were more than just places to sleep, however.They were the places where many Americans saw their first color television, used their first coffee maker, and walked on their first shag carpet.Illustrated with more than 230 photographs, postcards, maps, and drawings, The Motel in America details the development of the motel as a commercial enterprise, its imaginative architectural expressions, and its evolution within the place-product-packaging concept along America's highways. As an integral part of America's landscape and culture, the motel finally receives the in-depth attention it deserves.

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Orphan Trains: The Story of Charles Loring Brace and the Children He Saved and Failed Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a must-read for anyone interested in the the welfare of poor children today. Orphan Trains traces the history of foster care in this country, and in doing so shows how the U.S. has never put its money where its mouth is when it comes to poor children.The book is a good read, too, because it's full of moving, fascinating stories of the children and their adventures - like a series of Huckleberry Finn stories, only real. O'Connor's prose is clear and yet imagistic, evoking New York at the turn of the century with all its sounds and smells. On every level, this books works splendidly.

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Along the Trail with Lewis and Clark Review

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(More customer reviews)I travelled the entired L&C trail 2 years ago and used an earlier edition of this book and an earlier edition of Julie Fanselow's guide book to the trail. Fifer's book has beautiful maps, but in all other ways, I felt that Fanselow's guide book was much better. The Fifer book was lacking a lot of information on sites, hotels, and campsites that the Fanselow book had. Also- my copy of the Fifer book started to fall apart after a few days on the road- the binding wasn't very secure- this makes big difference when you're referring to a book every day for several weeks! Additionally, the Fifer book had a lot of ads and the Fanselow book didn't. Some of these problems might have been corrected in the new edition, of course. I'm glad I had the Fifer book on the trail- the maps were helpful at times. But if someone is looking to purchase just one book to travel the L&C trail, Fanselow's book is definitely superior.

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Fifer and Soderberg chronicle the journey of the Corps of Discovery in superb detail. This award-winning guide traces the Lewis and Clark Expedition from its very beginnings at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello through the Midwest and the Rockies, to the Pacific Ocean, and back. In addition, it offers detailed information on places to stay, historic sites to see. Excellent color maps. This edition contains no advertising and is stitch bound. Accessible history text combines with tourism information on following their path today, and maps combine both then and now. Extensive index.

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Life in the English Country House: A Social and Architectural History Review

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(More customer reviews)Mark Girouard, an architectural historian, has traced the roles of form and function in England's Great Houses in this densely illustrated, sensitively written book. Floor-plans, innumerable photographs and drawings (many of homes now destroyed), and portraits pepper the text, which is readability itself.
The book follows a chronological path from the Mediaval Household to the present day. The text isn't dry at all. Delicious details abound: Bess of Hardwick pacing her Great Chamber of Hardwick Hall, waiting for the royal visit that never came in the instantly-dated house she'd built for this very purpose, ... The origin of the phrase "backstairs intrigues" (both political and sexual).... the slow but persistant birth of the aristocratic ideal of "privacy"--and how it affected dining halls....the rise of the great dilettante libraries (and the rooms to house them).....and the advent of the freakish innovation of indoor plumbing (and a picture of the Duke of Wellington's elaborate WC) are just a few tidbits.
Mr. Girouard doesn't neglect the "downstairs" portion of a Great House, because he's interested in the whole institution as a functioning unit. Some of the most intriguing photos are of beloved servants' portraits, and the almost Shaker-like beauty of a working kitchen or laundry. Included, also, is a printed "Summary of Livery Men's Duties, Etc., Etc.", of Hatfield House, and darned if it doesn't sound like instructions for empoyees at an indifferent New York hotel!
This book is a delicious retrospective, and will make any red-blooded Anglophile who longs for one of these faded leviathans very happy indeed. Now, if you need me further, I will be in the Orangery.

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The English country house has flourished over the centuries because of its ability to adapt to the changes in English society. This book is an account of the ways in which the upper-class life style were reflected in the houses in which the wealthy and powerful lived. First published in 1978, this is a history of the English country house from the point of view of its owners and users. Ranging from the Middle Ages to the world of Evelyn Waugh, the author also discusses and illustrates how the life of the upper classes shaped their country hosues, how they entertained and were served, how they ran the country and their estates and how they reconciled personal privacy and public display.

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Henry VIII: The King and His Court Review

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(More customer reviews)Unlike some of the reviewers, I have been disappointed in some of Ms. Weir's books (especially those dealing with Richard III, where she skews the facts to fit her prejudice). But this one is a gem. WARNING: It is NOT a biography of Henry VIII (nor does it claim to be). It is a wonderful portrait of a court and an age. If the details of everyday life enchant you, you will love this book: you'll learn what Henry's court ate, drank, wore; how they ate, how they drank, and when they wore what! You'll get details about the various royal (and non-royal) residences that are very difficult to find elsewhere: how they were furnished, financed, run, used. And this time, Weir is scrupulous in citing her sources and in using them well. Where there are disputed facts, she indicates this. When she is hypothesizing, she indicates this as well. It is true that she appears to be quite fond of old Henry, but not as he became. Rather, I think, she admires the potential that was in the young king, the goodness, basic decency that could have made him England's best (if not greatest) king. The potential for selfishness, greed, paranoia, and self-delusion was also there--unfortunately, the bad side won! After reading Weir's book, I now share both Weir's semi-nostalgic admiration and her regret.

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A Visitor's Guide to Colonial & Revolutionary New England: Interesting Sites to Visit, Lodging, Dining, Things to Do Review

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(More customer reviews)This book arrived earlier than promised and has some good content about the New England area.

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Walk in the footsteps of the founders of our country—the early immigrants, who carved homes out of the wilderness, fought for freedom, and forged our political landscape.This absorbing guidebook spans the geographical bounds of New England states—including Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut—and traverses the formative years of the United States, reaching from the 1600s, through the colonial era, up to 1812. A wealth of historical detail, timelines, photographs, background stories, and nearby lodging and restaurants with links to the past makes this one of the finest resources for travelers who enjoy exploring the living roots of our history. 10 maps, 60 black & white photographs, index.

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