Ebook417 pages10 hours
Slumming: Sexual and Racial Encounters in American Nightlife, 1885-1940
By Chad Heap
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
During Prohibition, “Harlem was the ‘in’ place to go for music and booze,” recalled the African American chanteuse Bricktop. “Every night the limousines pulled up to the corner,” and out spilled affluent whites, looking for a good time, great jazz, and the unmatchable thrill of doing something disreputable.
That is the indelible public image of slumming, but as Chad Heap reveals in this fascinating history, the reality is that slumming was far more widespread—and important—than such nostalgia-tinged recollections would lead us to believe. From its appearance as a “fashionable dissipation” centered on the immigrant and working-class districts of 1880s New York through its spread to Chicago and into the 1930s nightspots frequented by lesbians and gay men, Slumming charts the development of this popular pastime, demonstrating how its moralizing origins were soon outstripped by the artistic, racial, and sexual adventuring that typified Jazz-Age America. Vividly recreating the allure of storied neighborhoods such as Greenwich Village and Bronzeville, with their bohemian tearooms, rent parties, and “black and tan” cabarets, Heap plumbs the complicated mix of curiosity and desire that drew respectable white urbanites to venture into previously off-limits locales. And while he doesn’t ignore the role of exploitation and voyeurism in slumming—or the resistance it often provoked—he argues that the relatively uninhibited mingling it promoted across bounds of race and class helped to dramatically recast the racial and sexual landscape of burgeoning U.S. cities.
Packed with stories of late-night dance, drink, and sexual exploration—and shot through with a deep understanding of cities and the habits of urban life—Slumming revives an era that is long gone, but whose effects are still felt powerfully today.
Related to Slumming
Related ebooks
Nightclub City: Politics and Amusement in Manhattan Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMetropolis in the Making: Los Angeles in the 1920s Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChicago '68 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Smoketown: The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Southern Elite and Social Change: Essays in Honor of Willard B. Gatewood, Jr. Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMurder in New Orleans: The Creation of Jim Crow Policing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRepublic of Dreams: Greenwich Village: The American Bohemia, 1910-1960 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Guide to Gangsters, Murderers and Weirdos of New York City's Lower East Side Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Chicago Race Riots: July, 1919 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBoss of Black Brooklyn: The Life and Times of Bertram L. Baker Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSin, Sex & Subversion: How What Was Taboo in 1950s New York Became America?s New Normal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Joi Lansing: A Body to Die For Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Detroit 67: The Year That Changed Soul Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Atlanta's Stone Mountain: A Multicultural History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heritage and Hate: Old South Rhetoric at Southern Universities Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTwisted Tour Guide Los Angeles Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeep South Dynasty: The Bankheads of Alabama Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVeronica Lake: A Comprehensive Career Retrospective Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Grapevine of the Black South: The Scott Newspaper Syndicate in the Generation before the Civil Rights Movement Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCheap Amusements Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHollywood Unknowns: A History of Extras, Bit Players, and Stand-Ins Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cultural Turn in U. S. History: Past, Present, and Future Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEchoes of Edgecombe County: 1860-1940 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Other Brahmins: Boston's Black Upper Class 1750-1950 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rochdale Village: Robert Moses, 6,000 Families, and New York City's Great Experiment in Integrated Housing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBrooklyn's Scarlett: Susan Hayward: Fire in the Wind Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Social Science For You
Men Explain Things to Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Come As You Are: Revised and Updated: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All About Love: New Visions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dumbing Us Down - 25th Anniversary Edition: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Witty Banter: Be Clever, Quick, & Magnetic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Close Encounters with Addiction Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Denial of Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row (Oprah's Book Club Selection) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Human Condition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lonely Dad Conversations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Slumming
Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
4 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Slumming - Chad Heap
Enjoying the preview?
Page 1 of 1