Welcome back. I hope you had an interesting and enjoyable spring break. I spent mine loafing, grading papers, and playing with my cats, not necessarily in that order. You’ll remember that I assigned no readings for this day, partly to give you time to focus on Jacobs and partly because I wanted you to refresh yourselves. Today, we’re going to look at a film as we begin a new phase of the course.
For Monday, March 21, Film Showing–
Every so often on this campus I get nearly run over by a student on a skateboard. A few years ago, I came across an interesting documentary film: Dogtown and Zboys. I’m rather amazed at what can be done with roller skate wheels and a piece of lumber. At 97 minutes length, I’ll have to break it in two as there is a class in this room right after mine. I don’t know if any class members are (or were) skateboarders, but skateboarding is, as I hope you will see, a phenomenon created by urban kids in urban environments. The film also demonstrates a number of the points Jacobs makes about
rearing kids in urban environments. Some of you may have seen the commercial version, Lords of Dogtown. Every time I’ve shown this version, people have said it is far more interesting. I hope you’ll enjoy it.
I’m going to wager that this book, Division Street America, is like none other you’ve read before, except some may have read Working in a sociology class. We watched the musical, Working, in Class and Culture last week. Studs Terkel is arguably the most important oral historian of his era. Division Street America takes its title from a real division street. But its larger topic is race in American Culture, as that works itself out in cities like Chicago.
So far, our focus has been an analysis of what makes cities work when then they do, and fail when they don’t. We should recognize by now that every citizen of a city experiences that place differently. For some, cities provide environments of opportunity in which they thrive. For others, they provide a stage for lives of despair and heartbreak. They also provide arenas for social conflict and reconciliation, and Terkel’s book will let us explore lives which fall into all these categories. As I indicated on an earlier syllabus, we are fortunate that the archives of the Chicago Historical Society have preserved the original tapes of eight of the persons whose stories make up Division Street. We’re going to begin with those this week and early next. Then I’ll assign the rest of the books to individuals by some scheme I’m still working on. As you’ll see from the table of contents, not all persons get the treatments of the same length. My job will be to make the divisions equitable, varied, and interesting. I’ll be asking you to tell us all about your characters; what their role in life was, and what the city meant to each of them. More about that later.
If you have the time, I suggest you read the A-B-C Guide with Google Maps handy. You’ll be able to orient yourself to the city. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to have it accessible when your reading about the people, either. While Chicago is greatly changed from the day the book was published, there are still remnants of the old present, and the new gives insight to what the causes of the change may have been.
Above, I provide links to the interviews with Lucy Jefferson and Kid Pharaoh. I’d like to have you read one first, then listen to it, and forthe other one, reverse the process. Does it make a difference to your impression if reading follows hearing or hearing follows listening? Be aware also of the questions Studs Terkel asks. What do they (and their sequence) suggest about his technique?
Santa Monica Pier...much redeveloped since Dogtown's days. You will see some surfboarding under the pilings here.
Nothing much remains of the Division Street which existed when Terkel wrote the book. Take a few block's walk and look around. I don't think either He or Jane Jacobs would approve of the changes much.
I didn't want to leave you with such depressing views of one of my favorite cities. About 20 blocks north is a Chicago landmark, Wrigley Field, home of the Cubbies. As you can see, one doesn't have to go to the ball park to go to the ball came. Some enterprising neighbor has built bleachers on his roof. When I lived in Chi-town, I'd often see people sitting on folding chairs on those roofs, coolers at their feet, and a baseball glove handy in case Ernie Banks hit a really long one.
UPDATE!
Some of you have had difficulty with the links above because of computer incompatibility. Below is a link to the Division Street Page on the Studs Terkel Website. You'll have to hunt on the page for the specific files, as they're not in the same order. You may also have to down load Real Audio if you don't have it on your computer. A link for the download is there, as well.
