Showing papers in "Urban History in 2019"

More than bricks and mortar: female property ownership as economic strategy in mid-nineteenth-century urban England

Abstract: This article uses a quantitative and qualitative methodology to examine the role that women played as property owners in three mid-nineteenth-century English towns. Using data from the previously under-utilized rate books, we argue that women were actively engaged in urban property ownership as part of a complex financial strategy to generate income and invest speculatively. We show that female engagement in the urban land and property markets was widespread, significant and reflective of local economic structures. Crucially, it also was more complex in form than the historiography has previously acknowledged. The article delivers a final piece in the jigsaw puzzle of women's investment activity, demonstrating that women were active investors in the urban land market as well as the managers of landed estates, business owners and shareholders, thereby opening up new questions about how gender intersected with economic change and growth in the rapidly changing world of nineteenth-century England.

Making a bicycle city: infrastructure and cycling in Copenhagen since 1880

Abstract: Copenhagen is today praised as a truly bicycle-friendly city. The Danish capital earned its reputation as a ‘bicycle city’ early on. The network of bicycle infrastructure developed in the first half of the twentieth century was a result not least of a thriving cycling culture and the efforts made by cyclists’ organizations. In the following car-centric decades this network made cycling a more resilient practice than elsewhere, before cyclists and their lobby organizations managed, again, to pressure policy makers to renew supportive measures for cyclists. The article thus highlights two concepts: road users as potential co-producers of the mobility system as well as the obduracy of infrastructure and its capacity to preserve habits and cultures of the past.

Lisbon: reading the (post-)colonial city from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century

Abstract: The study of the urban experience in Lisbon, the former capital of the Portuguese empire, creates a specific observatory to interpret the colonial process and its post-colonial developments. Following an itinerary from colonial to post-colonial times, this article examines the continuities and discontinuities of Lisbon's urban dynamics linked with Portugal's colonial history through three interlinked processes. First, the material inscription of policies of national identity in the memory space of the city since the late nineteenth century until today. Second, the expansion of a network of economic relations that affected Lisbon's industrial, commercial and urban life. And finally, the development of a system of social and political organization, where spatial distribution and civil and political rights were unequally distributed.

Mobility, cohabitation and cultural exchange in the lodging houses of early modern Venice

Abstract: This article examines the thriving lodging house sector in early modern Venice, arguing that such spaces of temporary accommodation offer a valuable key to understanding how mobility and migration shaped the daily lived experience of the city. Lodging houses were important both to the many Venetian residents who profited from renting out rooms, and to the people who stayed in them, and found there companionship, conversation and access to social and professional networks. Considering the kinds of encounters, conflicts and exchanges that unfolded in these shared spaces, the article offers new insight into the functioning of a pre-modern multicultural metropolis.

Towards a fire history of European cities (late Middle Ages to late nineteenth century)

Abstract: Fires are often seen as a constant in early modern European towns, changing only in the modern era when inflammable building materials replaced wood. This article argues that the incidence, nature and risk of fire shifted repeatedly over time. Fire danger was determined not only by building materials but also by forms of construction, by the everyday uses people made of flame and by wider factors such as climatic variation and shifts in world trade and consumer demand. It was influenced by urban social and political change, including the way governments and populations responded to the risk. Responses to new fire dangers in turn helped change the way urban government functioned.

The decline of guilds and their monopoly in English provincial towns, with particular reference to Exeter

Abstract: This article examines the decline of the craft guilds in early modern England by way of a case-study of the Tuckers’ Company in Exeter. From the 1980s, this case figured prominently in the historiographical debate concerning guild decline; however, it has not been examined recently. The current study reveals the Tuckers’ Company is not a case of decline in guild membership so much as a case of the loss of guild monopoly and a concomitant transition to charitable functions. On the basis of empirical sources, this study also reveals the mechanisms and context of this transformation in the post-Civil War politics of the city of Exeter. Specific attention is given to first, the decline of royal authority bolstering the guild against the city government and secondly, the shift of power in the guild with the ascendance of the merchant fullers. Finally, the historiographical implications of the article's findings are discussed.

The king of dirt: public health and sanitation in late medieval Ghent

Abstract: Taking the office of the coninc der ribauden in Ghent as a case-study, this article reconstructs the enforcement of urban sanitation and preventative health practices during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The coninc managed a wide range of issues perceived as potentially polluting, damaging or threatening to health. Banning waste and chasing pigs as well as prostitutes off the streets, the office implemented a governmental vision on communal well-being. Health interests, as part of a broader pursuit of the common good, therefore played an important yet hitherto largely overlooked role in medieval urban governance.

Twelve shades of grey: encountering urban colour in the street in British provincial towns, c. 1945–1970

Abstract: This article examines the neglected sensory experience of visual physical colour in the city/town centre or what is now referred to as the Central Business District. It focuses on the post-war period when reconstruction, town planning, new architecture, novel materials and technologies, and investment were all transforming British city centres. The research uses film, photographs, planning documents, oral history and social media reminiscences to research the users’ experience of colour in the city centre streets. It argues that, although new materials in construction opened up the possibilities of bright, ‘non-natural’ colours in the urban built environment, the visual experience of colour was found mainly in the ephemera of everyday life. Furthermore, it argues that colour was an important component in constructing people's sense of place and belonging in the city.

The great rebuilding of Amsterdam (1521–1578)

Abstract: In 1452, approximately three-quarters of Amsterdam was destroyed by fire. Despite attempts by the city government to encourage citizens to build using brick and pan tiles, the city was mainly rebuilt with timber-framed buildings. Only in 1521 did petrification of Amsterdam's buildings gradually start to become more widespread, coinciding with an enormous increase in the total number of houses. The great rebuilding of Amsterdam led to a sustainable renewal of the housing stock, of which some houses have survived to the present day. This article investigates the reasons for the delay in building with brick, based on building archaeological research, bylaws and investigation of the 1562 tax register. It shows the mechanisms of transforming a wooden city into a brick one and reveals the effects on living conditions in the final stages of the rebuilding process in the sixteenth century.

The transforming city in nineteenth-century literary journalism: Ramón de Mesonero Romanos’ ‘Madrid scenes’ and Charles Dickens’ ‘Street sketches’

Abstract: Nineteenth-century urbanization and industrialization in western Europe have clearly contributed to the formation of societal knowledge and self-reflexive cultural iconographies Especially from the 1820s onwards, one major context for discussing the social and cultural diversity of the city and concomitant socio-political tensions was the emerging market of journals and magazines Based upon the writings of two exemplary authors, this article investigates with which techniques and metaphors nineteenth-century journalistic sketches depicted urban sociability and conditions Furthermore, it reflects on how not only the ever more differentiating urban environments but also the proximity of different networks and institutions of knowledge encouraged the refinement of social observation and thought Exploring a neglected genre of social knowledge production, the article proposes new perspectives for urban history and aims at stimulating a critical review of contemporary research practices in all branches of the social sciences

‘Wholesome regulation and unlimited freedom’: governing market space in southern Ireland before the Famine

Abstract: This article addresses efforts to reform market activity in pre-Famine Ireland, exploring Karl Polanyi's assertion that the ‘free market’ required ‘the intervention of the state in order to establish it’. It begins by rooting Ireland's alleged ‘social ills’ – over-population and subsistence agriculture – in terms of integration into international markets from the mid-eighteenth century. From the crisis of the 1820s, state actors came to see the extension of the cash economy as central to remedying these ‘ills’. Altering the physical fabric of exchange to encourage ‘rational’ market behaviour, I argue reformers aimed to ‘enclose’ commercial spaces economically and physically from non-market forces. Utilizing novel technologies of vision and precision, market space could thus operate according to a logic and ethics of its own, inculcating voluntary compliance through new standards of ‘trust’ and ‘fairness’. I conclude by asking, if indeed the state had come to operate as much through ‘freedom’ as force by 1845, how we might begin to reassess the course and context of the Irish Famine.

The urban inn: gathering space, hierarchy and material culture in the eighteenth-century British town

Abstract: This article locates the ‘principal inn’ within the physical and cultural space of the eighteenth-century British town. The principal inn was the all-purpose venue for the sociable activities of polite society: from dining, drinking and conversing with friends to business deals, meetings of club and societies, legal proceedings, military musters, civic and religious proceedings. Through their central location, carefully designed interior spaces and refined material culture of furniture, fixtures and fittings, principal inns were key sites in the elite control of urban space, the enforcement of social hierarchies and the reinforcement of social values.

Tackling the urban housing problem in the Irish Free State, 1922–1940

Abstract: At its inception, the Irish Free State faced an apparently intractable housing problem that required immediate action. This article examines the legislation enacted in the 1920s and 1930s, focusing on its impact on local authority housing in Ireland's provincial towns. Whereas the 1932 Housing Act has generally been heralded as the start of a concerted attack on the slums, this assertion is re-evaluated in the context of the debates of the 1920s. Following an overview of the national situation, a case-study of Ballina, Co. Mayo, explores the impacts of the housing drive. State-aided housing schemes made a significant contribution to the housing stock between 1923 and 1940. Although characterized by contemporary media as a triumph, however, the housing drive raised many issues including build quality, costs, opposition and social segregation. The article considers some of these challenges and raises a number of questions for future consideration.

Property rents in medieval English towns: Hull in the fourteenth century

Abstract: Property rents in medieval towns were an important source of income for property-owners including the king, local lords and civic authorities, and a significant expense for local residents. This article examines the causes of variation in property rents in fourteenth-century Hull, an important international port with unique records on plot dimensions. It illuminates the topography and growth of the port, identifying locations where rents were highest, and particular streets which attracted premium rents. Civic and mercantile property-owners are examined through reconstruction of their biographies and the impact of the identity of owners on rent levels is assessed.

‘A development of practical Catholic Emancipation’: laying the foundations for the Roman Catholic urban landscape, 1850–1900

Abstract: The infrastructures of devotion and religious worship in Ireland changed dramatically during the course of the nineteenth century. This article examines the foundation stone ceremonies that marked the beginning of several large-scale building Roman Catholic church building projects between 1850 and 1900, and in particular considers the extent to which these highly visible and ceremonial events prefigured the more permanent occupation of public space by the new buildings. These foundation stone ceremonies were complex events that reflected contemporary political issues such as land rights as much as they engaged with the spiritual concerns of the Roman Catholic congregations in Ireland during this period.

Town clerks and the authorship of custumals in medieval England

Abstract: This article examines the expertise and duties of clerks in medieval English towns, particularly their roles in creating custumals, or collections of written customs. Customs could regulate trade, office-holding, prostitution and even public nuisance. Many clerks were anonymous, and their contributions to custumals understudied. The careers of relatively well-known clerks, however, do provide insights into how some clerks shaped custumals into civic repositories of customary law. By analysing their oaths and known administrative practices, which involved adapting material from older custumals, this article argues that town clerks played critical roles in transmitting customary law to future generations of administrators.

Irish urban history: an agenda

Abstract: Modern Irish history is urban history. It is a story of the transferral of a populace from rural settlements to small towns and cities; of the discipline and regulation of society through new urban spaces; of the creation of capital through the construction of buildings and the sale of property. The history of Ireland has been overwhelmingly the history of land, but too often the emphasis has been on the field rather than the street, and on the small farmer instead of the urban shopkeeper. But the same questions of property run throughout Irish urban history from the early modern period to the contemporary, as speculators, businesses and government have attempted to convert land into profit, creating new buildings, streets and spaces, and coming into conflict with each other and other vested interests. Indeed, as recent work on Irish cities has shown, a turn to the urban history of Ireland provides a framework and a methodology for writing a textured and complex history of Ireland's distinctive engagement with modernity.

Annie Matan and Peter Newman, People Cities: The Life and Legacy of Jan Gehl

Abstract: World Heritage Consortium, the volume does not focus on global examples, even if it makes suggestions that are certainly applicable worldwide. Nevertheless, this is a thought-provoking set of essays. It also has a structure unusual to essay collections in that not only is it very clearly divided into four general topics, but each topic has its own introduction, which really draws the disparate pieces together. Furthermore, it includes something to close the volume forwhich I have long argued: a conclusion that takes the varied parts andmakes evenmore sense of them.There is a conclusion to theessays, guidelines suggested forpractical purposes – though these are alsoworth contemplatingbyurbanhistorians– and thevolumealso looks forward from where we are currently. Those interested in discussion of British reconstruction will not be disappointed, as there are two chapters devoted to Britain as well as a chapter on issues arising from fire disasters that focuses on British examples, including the very recent destruction of the Macintosh Library at the Glasgow School of Art. However, the range of further discussions includes some countries that are often overlooked and there are intriguing chapters here on Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Georgian and even Swedish examples –where the reconstructions have been due to voluntary destruction or relocation. For urban historians interested in the ideas around heritage and reconstruction as well as the practicalities, this is an extremelyuseful volume. Its organizationmeans itwill be helpful to scholars researching or teaching on certain geographical areas, while overall it integrates an impressive range of examples, suggestions, practical information and discussion points.

Cost-benefit break down: unplannable spaces in 1970s Glasgow

Abstract: This article examines a moment of uncertainty in early 1970s Glasgow motorway history: the planning of the East Flank of the Inner Ring Road and the potential removal of the Barrows Market. As sociological influences against wholesale urban clearance came into maturity in planning and community action, Glasgow planners carried out a feasibility study into the socio-economic costs of uprooting the commercial life of the Barrows. I suggest that reading this technocratic document for its cultural assumptions, ambiguities and tensions, rather than its engineering vision, opens up a different approach to the history of motorway planning.

The monumental landscape from below: public statues, popular interaction and nationalism in late nineteenth-century Amsterdam

Abstract: Public monuments are considered an important tool in the nineteenth-century nation-building project. Yet while the intended (nationalist) message of the monumental landscape is often clear, the popular perception of the statues and memorials has been little problematized. This contribution analyses the popular interaction with public monuments in late nineteenth-century Amsterdam and questions whether ordinary people understood the nationalist meaning. With the help of visual sources – engravings, lithographs and the novel medium of photography – we become aware of the multilayered meanings and usages of the monuments in daily urban life, thus tackling the methodological challenge of studying the monumental landscape from below.

The organization of burial places in post-medieval English cities: Bristol and Exeter c. 1540–1850

Abstract: This article analyses the changing options for the provision of burial places between the Reformation and the mid-nineteenth century in two major provincial cities, Bristol and Exeter. The two cities experienced very different patterns of change, especially in their Anglican provision, reflecting medieval differences of organization as well as the differential impact of dissent. Common factors include the effect of epidemics (plague, cholera) and population pressure, but also great conservatism regarding use of inner-city burial places. The major changes are associated with the three great shocks to church–state relations: the Reformation, the mid-seventeenth-century crisis and the reform period of the 1830s and 1840s.

What happened to modern Irish urban history

Abstract: ABSTRACT: A remarkable cluster of Irish town histories appeared in the early nineteenth century, coming after several generations of unprecedented urban growth. But that growth stalled and most Irish towns entered a long period of stagnation. Meanwhile, academic interest in the urban past became dormant. Urbanization in Ireland resumed in the twentieth century, but the study of urban history was late to develop and slow to move beyond the documentation of built heritage. However, public interest in medieval origins, official interest in urban heritage and the vision of a handful of medieval historians and historical geographers have helped transform the prospects for Irish urban history.

Rice scarcity in World War II Macao: The local experience revisited

Abstract: After Hong Kong fell on Christmas Day 1941, the ongoing war threatened life in isolated, neutral Macao. While many scholars have attributed the local people's starvation and suffering to the war, others have highlighted Macao's economic prosperity. To explain the gap between these two narratives, this article explores how the locals dealt with rice scarcity and fared relatively well during the four years of Japanese occupation of the Pearl River Delta. Instead of blaming the shortage solely on the machinations of the Japanese and the rice merchants, we uncover the local people's actions in exacerbating the problem.

Constructing cartographic authority: the conceptualization and mapping of urban spaces in Edinburgh, c. 1880 – c. 1920

Abstract: This article examines how, in the production and use of cartographic items, urban space and local knowledge were brought together to construct authoritative representations of place. Its approach is twofold. The first half of the article is an examination of the mapmakers John Bartholomew & Co.’s changing premises across Edinburgh, which shows that the firm carefully curated their business properties in order to convey credibility and gain trust. The article then introduces the London-based firm Charles E. Goad Ltd, producers of fire insurance plans, and considers their acquisition of urban information and their use of local knowledge from a distance to achieve similar aims. Both cases illustrate the importance of close attention to geography and the spatial dimensions of knowledge construction.

Football clubs, city images and cultural differentiation. Identifying with rivalling Vitesse Arnhem and NEC Nijmegen

Abstract: How are deep relationships between city and club identification formed, and are they inevitable? The aim of this article is to provide a historical analysis of the rivalry between two football clubs, Vitesse Arnhem and NEC Nijmegen, explicating their various ‘axes of enmity’. Supporters, club officials and observers of these two clubs created and selectively maintained similarities between respective city image and club image. The process of ‘othering’ influenced both city and club images and helped create oppositional identities. Herein, football identification reflects broader societal needs for a place-based identity, and for a coherent image of both self and other.

The urban history of the medieval Low Countries: research trends and new perspectives (2011–2018)

Abstract: The year 2019 marks the centenary of the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga’s famousHerfsttij der Middeleeuwen: Studie over levensen gedachtenvormen der veertiende en vijftiende eeuw in Frankrijk en de Nederlanden (The Waning of the Middle Ages: A Study of the Forms of Life, Thought and Art in France and the Netherlands in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries). In the first chapter of this book, Huizinga writes:

Urban historiography in Latin America: a comparative perspective of research routes

Abstract: This article is a historiographical analysis of the paths urban history has taken in Latin America. Its perspective is comparative, with particular attention to Mexico as well as references to several other countries. The article offers a general view of the ‘state of the art’, particularly analysing the convoluted routes urban history has navigated. At all levels, there has been uncertainty over the object of study. Latin America was affected by a plethora of development theories. In Mexico, there is an untenable but persistent view of urban historiography as absent or lacking. The following is a brief account of urban history in Latin America, with special analysis and critical examination of the routes taken to date, and a proposal for ways out of the labyrinth.

The European Historic Towns Atlas project: success and challenges (with particular reference to the Irish Historic Towns Atlas)

Abstract: The European Historic Towns Atlas project, probably the largest one in European urban history, is conceptually rooted in national histories. Methodologically it is focused on the production and interpretation of large-scale maps primarily for the understanding of urban morphogenesis and the role of morphological agents but also of issues connected with the economic and cultural aspects of urban life. The atlas project now involves 19 countries and with over 520 towns produced across Europe, pioneer comparative urban studies have been published. Comparative work based on theoretical underpinning is the aim of the project and though it holds great potential, it also faces challenges: access to published towns, language barriers and consistency between national productions. It is argued that the digital production of the atlases may provide a chance for a more unified approach in the future.

Artists and the city: mapping the art worlds of eighteenth-century Paris

Abstract: Paris is renowned for artistic neighbourhoods like Montmartre and Montparnasse in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But for earlier periods, the art-historical picture is much vaguer. Where did artists live and work in the eighteenth century? Which neighbourhoods formed the cultural geography of the early modern art world? Drawing on data from a large-scale digital mapping project locating the addresses of hundreds of eighteenth-century artists, this article answers these crucial questions of urban art history. Following an overview of the digital project, the article explores three different mappings of the city's art worlds: a century long survey of the neighbourhoods inhabited by the Academy's artists; a comparison of where the Guild's artists were living in a single year and a wider world view of Parisian artists abroad. Through its new cartographic models of Paris's art worlds, this article brings the city to the foreground of eighteenth-century French art.