Department of History
Fieldston School__________________________________________________
The Birth of Modern Europe

Web Walks: Virtual Historical Walking Tours Through London Paris and Vienna

 

The Webpage Option

The course is grounded in the belief that the emergence of modernity and the growth of the European city share a vital relationship.  With the Web Walks project we will explore that relationship by pursuing arguments concerning the modern city grounded in evidence drawn from the city. The goal is to create virtual experiences that connect the cultural products of the city (paintings, songs, books, ideas, institutions, laws, habits...) to  physical locations within the city (rooms, buildings, sewers, streets, neighborhoods, districts...) and, in so doing, to advance arguments concerning the relationship between modernity and a particular city.

The  project is a virtual walking tour of a city and topic in urban history. each student will choose one of three groups: London, Paris or Vienna. Each group will work together on a description of their chosen cities history and development. Within each group, individual students will each choose a time period  as a means of exploring a specific topic of their choosing. (Please see the list of time periods and recommended topics.) The  final product will be a group city web linked to walking tours that explore original theses concerning a topic using visual and textual sources. As we are  able to travel in neither time nor space to visit your chosen historical city, you will construct a web page using both historical and contemporary texts, both written and visual. We will have regular web tutorials as well as time in class for research.

Web Walks is a semester-long project that contains several smaller projects due at the end of each unit.  The unit projects, quizzes, homeowrks and the semester project will, along with class participation, constitute your course grade.

Essay and Historical Fiction Option

In lieu of a web page you may write a research essay accompanied by a historical fiction. Please see the Research Essay Tutorial for help with essay research and writing. This writing assignment would be best started early on in the semester, and I urge you to start as early as possible. Your historical period of choice may derive from any of the units we cover in class, from the literature we read or it may be of a period we don't cover, though it must be pre-1929.

This assignment requires that you immerse yourself in the era about which you are writing; be especially aware of clothing, grooming, transportation, existent and non-existent avenues, buildings, subway lines and el trains, gender roles, race relations, ethnic demography, city services infrastructure (garbage collection, sanitation, plumbing, electricity, elevators), cultural attitudes (how people behave, express and present themselves on the street or in private, how they might react to certain sights, people, sounds, scents--remember what was once inoffensive may be offensive today and vice versa) and mobility (not only how one got around the city but who could travel in what way, and where). Work on a concise plot line or strive to create a vivid character sketch or diary entry. Overly complicated plot lines or rigorously complex characters will make it difficult for you to contain the writing, and I would like you to strive to keep your writing to five pages. Please meet with me if you are worried about how to create a successful and brief plot line; I would be happy to talk about plot and plotting with you.

 

Projects and Due Dates


Unit I
City Page (Introduction) Rough Draft                                                      

Due Feb 27

The unit project will be an accordion folder of materials to be used to make a group web page on your chosen cities. Your group webpgae will include an introductory page decsribing your city and sub-pages on the social, political, economic and physical history of your city. You will be graded as a group on the extent of your research and the quality of you analyses. Include a bibliography of the sources you have used. As a group, construct a diagram of your city page web. It should look something like this:


Unit II                  
City Page Final Draft and Individual Thesis Essay                            

Due March 11

The unit project will be the completion of your city’s group web page and a 5 page essay on your group page topic. (See Research Essay tutorial) Construct a thesis addressing your chosen topic area (social, Political, economic, etc.) and write a well constructed essay supporting your argument with primary and secondary sources. Include footnotes and bibliography on individual pages, along with an acknowledgments page for the whole site.


Unit III               
Topic, Outline (Diagram) and Sources                                                    

Due April 8

The unit project is your individual topic, a diagram of your web (home page and linked pages) and a list of five web sources and five books for your individual page. Choose a time period for your city and then choose a topic within that time period (see recommended topics below). Write out your topic and a bibliographic list of five web sites and five books. (For citation form see the research essay tutorial) Diagram what you think your personal web might look like. Think of this as a preliminary outline and each page as a body paragraph (see Outline Worksheet and Research Essay tutorial). The diagram should look something like this:

or

You have the option of writing an essay and an accompanying historical fiction in lieu of a web page. For this deadline you should have an outline of your essay and a proposal for your fiction.


Unit IV                
Rough Draft I                                                                                    

Due April 16     

The unit project is the individual home page with an image (map, painting, building, person, etc.) introduction, thesis and links to supporting pages. The home page should be finished, while the supporting pages may be in varying states of completion. Remember to keep track of all citations and to be collecting primary and secondary sources, visuals and texts, books and web pages. Shape and revise your argument as you look for support. Revise your diagram as you go.

or

Rough draft of essay and outline of historical fiction


Unit V                  
Rough Draft II                                                                                  

Due May 7

All pages should have material: topic sentence, explanatory text, visuals, captions, links. Talk to others in you city group and arrange for links between the individual web pages.

or

Final draft of essay linked to site and rough draft of historical fiction as hard copy.


Unit VI                
Final Draft                                                                                         

Due May 21

Your personal web should be complete, including citations, bibliography, all links. We will link the individual webs to the city pages and the city pages to the course home page.

or

final drafts of historical fiction linked to site.

 

Cities, Time Periods and Topics

Each student will choose one city group: London, Paris or Vienna. The unit project is for each city group to research the history and development on their city. Split the tasks into social, political, economic and cultural history. One person should be responsible for researching the physical evolution of the city and locating historical maps to explain that development. All students should look for both textual and visual sources, primary and secondary.

Unit I: Introduction to the Modern City
Time Period: Pre-1848

Types of history:

Social : classes, gender, race, housing, segregation, family life...
Cultural: religion, clubs, music, fashion, clothing, art, architecture, literature, manners...
Political: parties, isms, governmental system, royal houses, political bodies, philosophies... Economic: manufactured goods, economic system, labor relations, banking system...
Physical: growth of the city, sectors, road systems, walls, infrastructure, planning...


Unit II: The Liberal City, 1830-48

London:
Regent Street and the City of Class Regent Street and the Regency
Romanticism and Regent Street
Sanitation and the Remaking of London (Cholera Epidemic of 1832)
Regent Street and the Birth of Consumer Culture
The Terrace and the ³Gentrification² of the Bourgeoisie
Urban Housing and the Panic of 1825
The Great Reform Bill and Industrialization
Puginıs Contrasts and the Question of Style
Romantic English Landscape Painting: Modern Ambivalence
The Houses of Parliament and the Politics of Gothic Revival
The Search for Order: Crime, Punishment and the State
The Great Reform Bill of 1825: Reform or Pacification?
Sir John Soaneıs Museum at Lincolnıs Inn Fields: The Architecture of Collecting
Chadwickıs Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population and Sanitary Reform
Prison Reform in the City: Correction Punishment or Penitence?

Paris:
From the Commission of Artistes to the Grand Boulevards
Louis-Philippe and the Urbanism of Liberalism
At the Barricades: The Streets of Paris from the July Monarchy to the June Days
Delacroix and Gericault and the Barricades
Louis Napoleon and the Bourgeoisie
The City of Leisure: Cafeıs, Theaters and Concert Halls
The Arcades and the Birth of Consumer Culture
Gender and the Rise of the Café Contentious Spaces: Class and the Café
Taking It to the Streets: The Boulevards and Revolution Daumier and the Art of Revolution
The Barbizon School: Millet and the Question of Class
The Barbizon School: Modern Ambivalence
French Romantic Painting and Bourgeois Patronage
Romantic Sculpture and the Birth Pangs of Liberalism
Modernity and the Birth of Photography
Fourier and Marx: The City and the Socialist Ideal
Hector Berlioz and the Romantic Nightmare
Victor Hugo and the Literature of Romanticism

Vienna:
Nationalism Thwarted:The Hapsburgs, Vienna and the Revolution of 1848
Nationalism and Liberalism in the Revolution of 1848
The Altstadt: Politics of the Nuclear City
The Linienwall as Social Boundary
The Kaiser Ferdinand Water System Class, Geography, Empire and the Birth of the ŒFlatı Empire and Urbanism: Vienna 1848 and the Question of Nationalism (Volksgeist) Metternich and the March Days in Vienna


Unit III : The Victorian City, 1850-1871

London:
³Hard Times² in the City
Wars on Poverty: Engels and Dickens
Victoria and the Reaction to Industrialization
The Age of Isms: Dickens, Liberals and the Labor Question
New Oxford Street and ³Slum Clearance²
The Social Geography of London Squares Suburbanization and Social Segregation in London
The London Townhouse: Organizing Difference in the Domestic Sphere
The Crystal Palace as the First ³Modern² Building
Responses to Modernity: The High Victorian Gothic in London
Urban Gothic: Butterfieldıs All Saintsı Church and Scottıs Albert Memorial
The Arts and Crafts and Early Modernism
Ruskin and the Gothic Revival
The Second Reform Act of 1867: Liberalism and Conservatism
The London Underground: Pioneer in Urban Infrastructure
Rails and the Growth of the Suburbs
Suburbanization and the Sublime
Liberalism and the Emergence of Feminism
Townhouses and Flats: Public and Private in London, Paris and Vienna

Paris:
Napoleon III and the Bourgeois Monarchy
The Second Empire and the Haussmanization of Paris
Haussman and the Boulevards
The City and the Birth of the Avant-Garde
Courbet and the Role of the Artist
Paris Realism: Courbet and Manet
Orientalism in Art and Empire
The Literature of the Second Empire: Baudelaire in the Streets
Townhouses and Flats: Public and Private in London, Paris and Vienna
Women in the Modern Liberal Metropolis
The Erotic in Modern Art
Degas and Dreyfus: Art and Anti-Semitism
Seurat and the Critique of the Modern Metropolis
Bibliotheques Ste. Genevieve as the First ³Modern² Building
The Birth of Bourgeois Institutions: Libraries, Operas and Museums in Paris
The Opera as Modern Institution
The Impressionists and Suburban Leisure
Daugerreıs Photography and the Transformation of Modern Art
Flaubert

Vienna:
The Social Geography of Vienna
The Birth of the Ringstrasse
The Birth of Bourgeois Institutions: Libraries, Operas and Museums in Vienna
Engaging the Ring: The Kaiserforum and the Ringstrasse
Ringstrasse Urbanism
Women in the Modern Liberal Metropolis
Orientalism in Art and Empire
Vienna in Music: Straussı Waltzes and Die Fledermaus
The Vienna Opera as Modern Institution
Class Segregation in Vienna
Gottfried Semper and the Architecture of Liberalism?
Townhouses and Flats: Public and Private in London, Paris and Vienna
The Buildings of the Ring: Empire or Bourgeois Capital?
The Dual Monarchy, Nationalism and Liberalism


Unit IV: The Fin-de-Siecle Metropolis, 1870-1900

London:
Millıs Utilitarianism and Social Reform
Darwin: Uses and Abuses
Herbert Spencer and Social Darwinism in the City
Social Darwinism and Imperialism
Race in Victorian London
Class in Victorian London
Gender in Victorian London
The Fight for Womenıs Rights in London
Prostitution and the Defiance of Domesticity
The Contagious Diseases Act and the Origins of Modern Feminism
Urban Women in Victorian Fiction
Sexuality and Homosexuality in Modern London
The Domestic Ideal in Victorian London
Sister Suffragettes: The Birth of the Womenıs Movement in London
Mary Poppins and the Ideology of the Separate Spheres
Gladstone and Disraeli: The Battle for Reform
The Irish Question
G. B. Shaw: Realism and Class Relations

Paris:
The Paris Commune: The Politics of the New Metropolis
The Commune: Working-Class Revolt or Bourgeois Power Grab?
The Dreyfus Affair and Emile Zola
Anti-Semitism and Liberalism: The Dreyfus Affair
Impressionism and Modern Life
Impressionism and Gender
On the Boulevards: Impressionism in the City
The Flaneur and the Impressionists
Iron and Steam: The Railroad in Impressionist Imagery
Artist as Voyeur: Degas
Architecture and the Art Nouveau
Impressionism and Modernism in Music
Shopping for Class: The Rise of the Department Store
The 1889 International Exposition and the Symbolism of the Eiffel Tower
Ladies of the Leisure Class: The Cult of Domesticity in Paris
Zola: Realism and Midern Life

Vienna:
The Secession: Ringstrasse Modernism
The Birth of Modern Architecture in Secession Vienna
Austro-Liberalism and Anti-Semitism
The Unraveling of the Empire: The Rise of Nationalism
Politics and Patricide: Freud and Psychoanalysis
Painting and the Crisis of the Liberal Ego: Gustav Klimpt
Skepticism, Irrationalism and the Loss of Faith
Freud and Modern Consciousness
Modernism and Freudian Theory
Karl Lugar and Viennese Anti-Semitism
Herzl and the Birth of Zionism
Café Society: Hermann Bahr, Karl Kraus and the Vienna Coffehouse Wits


Unit V: The Promise of the Modern City, 1900-1914

studentıs choice

 

Web Sites

Paris
Environs of Paris, 1866: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/historical/Paris_1866.jpg
Great Buildings in Paris: http://www.greatbuildings.com/types/locations/paris.html
Bibliotheque Ste. Genevieve: http://www.GreatBuildings.com/buildings/Biblio_Ste_Genevieve.html
The Siege and Commune of Paris, 1870-1871http://www.library.nwu.edu/spec/siege/
Paris Maps - Slide List: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/arthistory/courses/parismaps/
Place Vendome: http://www.place-vendome.net/html/home_page.html
Paris sur Web: http://www.paris.dotcom.fr/paris/
Paris Map: http://www.isweb.com/geo/fpar.htm
Webmuseum Paris: History: http://metalab.unc.edu/wm/paris/hist/
Medieval Paris: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/historical/Mediaeval_Paris_1912.jpg
Maps of Paris: http://www.paris.org/Maps/
Paris web: http://www.paris-france.org/parisweb/ENGLISH/ENG_NEWSOMMAIRE.HTM
Charles Fourier: http://www.pagesz.net/~stevek/intellect/lecture19a.html
July Monarchy: http://www.chateauversailles.fr/en/270.asp
Guizot on July Monarchy: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1848guizot.html
Documents of the Revolution of 1848 in France: http://history.hanover.edu/texts/fr1848.htm
Arcades Project: http://art.derby.ac.uk/~g.peaker/arcades/passagenwerk.html

London

Britannia Narrative History London: http://britannia.com/history/londonhistory/
Britannia, Age of Empire: http://britannia.com/history/h80.html
The Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace: http://www.victorianstation.com/palace.html
The Design of the Crystal Palace: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~cj8n/london/design.html
Crystal Palace and Exhibition of 1851: http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/1851/1851ov.html
History of London: http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/history/hist4.html
History Of SoHo (London): http://www.hubcom.com/channel/soho/history.htm
George III: http://ds.dial.pipex.com/town/terrace/adw03/peel/c-eight/18chome.htm
Peel Web: http://ds.dial.pipex.com/town/terrace/adw03/peel/peelhome.htm
The  Chartist Movement: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/chartism.htm
Chartism: http://www.ohiou.edu/~Chastain/ac/chartis.htm
Regency Ring: http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~awoodley/join.html
Victorian Web: http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/victov.html
Dickens: http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/dickens/dickensov.html
Dickens map: http://www.fidnet.com/~dap1955/dickens/dickens_london_map.html
Pugin: http://www.hubcom.com/channel/pugin/
Darwin: http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/darwin/darwinov.html
Victorian Female Authors: http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/gender/authors.html
Homosexuality in Victorian England: http://www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/events/sw25/case3.html
City of London: http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/

Vienna
Center for Austrian Studies: http://www.cas.umn.edu/
Austria Culture Net: http://www.austriaculture.net:80/
Austrian Cultural Inst. Library: http://www.austriaculture.net:80/Library144.html
Map of Vienna, 1858: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/historical/Vienna_1858.jpg
Virtual Reality Tour of Vienna: http://www.netgate.co.uk/vieninfo.htm
Austria Tourism: http://www.austria.i-p.com/
Hapsburg Web: http://h-net2.msu.edu/~habsweb/
Metternich on Monarchy: http://h-net2.msu.edu/~habsweb/sourcetexts/francis.htm
Metternich on Conservatism: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1820metternich.html
Austrian Reichstag: http://www.ohiou.edu/~Chastain/ac/austrei1.htm
Austrian Constitution of the Reich: http://www.ohiou.edu/~Chastain/ac/ausreics.htm

Art History
MoMA: http://www.moma.org/
Guggenheim: http://www.guggenheim.org/shocked.html
Frick: http://www.frick.org/
National Gallery: http://www.frick.org/
Louvre: http://www.louvre.fr/
Whitcombe’s Art History Resources: http://witcombe.sbc.edu/
Art History resources on the Web: http://witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTHLinks.html
Mr. Meyers’ Art History Page: http://www.ecfs.org/projects/artHistory/aamhomepage.html
Metropolitan Museum: http://www.metmuseum.org/

Historical Maps
Maps of Europe: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/historical/history_europe.html
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at University of Texas
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/Map_collection.html
Historical Map Web Sites: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/map_sites/hist_sites.html

General History
Internet Modern History Sourcebook: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook.html
AP Modern European History (Mendelsund): http://apeuro/
Encycolpedia of the 1848 Revolutions: http://www.ohiou.edu/~Chastain/index.htm
World History (Evansville): http://history.evansville.net/industry.html
Classical Music:  http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/

General Search Tools
http://search.cnet.com/
http://www.google.com/
http://www.yahoo.com/

Electronic Texts:
Free Downloads of classic texts: http://www.elecbook.com/ebfree.htm
Digital Library: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/
Ideas  and turotials for writing and for creating web pages
Hypertext and cyberspace: http://landow.stg.brown.edu/cpace/cspaceov.html
Dickens map: http://www.fidnet.com/~dap1955/dickens/dickens_london_map.html
MLA Stylebook: http://www.mla.org/style/style_top_index.htm

Books

General
Donald J. Olsen. The City as a Work of Art: London, Paris,Vienna
Mark Girouard, Cities and People
Victor Fleming, Art and Ideas
H.W. Janson, History of Art
Paul Johnson, The Birth of the Modern, 1815-1830
R. R. Palmer and Joel Colton, A History of the Modern World
Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Capital, 1848-1875
Robert Heilbronner, The Worldly Philosophers
Richard Sennett, Classic Essays on the Culture of Cities
A.E.J. Morris, History of Urban Form
Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
David Watkin, A History of Western Architecture
Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture
Marshall Berman, All That’s Solid Melts into Air
Ulrich Conrads, Programmes and Manifestos in 20th Century Architecturei
Leonard Bernstein, The Unanswered Question
Elsner and Cardinal, The Cultures of Collecting
Broude and Garrard, eds., Feminism and Art Criticism
Glazer and Lilla, The Public Face of Architecture

London

John Summerson, The Life and Times of John Nash, Architect
Charles Dickens, Hard Times
Stephen Marcus, Engels, Mnachestre and the Working Class
H. J. Dyos and Michael Wolff, ed, The Victorian City, Images and Realities. 2 Volumes.
Steven Marcus, Reading the Illegible.
Dickens, Charles, Dombey and Son. 
Elizabeth Gaskel, Mary Barton
Steen Eiler Rasmussen, London: The Unique City
E.J. Hobsbawm, Labouring Men

Paris
Johanes Willms, Paris, Capital of Europe- From the Revolution to the Belle Epoque
Scott Haine, The World of the Paris Cafe: Sociability among the French Working Class, 1789-1914
Walter Benjamin, Reflections
Walter Benjamin, Illuminations
David Pink ney, Napoleon III and the Rebuilding of Paris
Howard Saalman, Haussmann: Paris Transformed
Anthony Sutcliffe, The Autumn of Central Paris: the Defeat of Town Planning
Patricia Mainardi, Art and politics of the Second Empire
Linda Nochlin, ed., Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, 1874-1904
Linda Nochlin, ed., Realism and Trdaition in Art, 1848-1900
Linda Nochlin, The Politics of Vision: Essays on Nineteenth-Century Art and Society
Linda Nochlin, Women, Art and Power and Other Essays
Otto Friedrich, Olympia: Paris in the Age of Manet
Meyer Schapiro, Impressionism, Reflections and Perceptions
Robert Herbert, Impressionism: Art, Leisure and Parisian Society

Vienna
Carl Schorske, Fin-de-Siecle Vienna
Richard Hacken, Into the Sunset: Anthology of Nineteenth-Century Austrian Prose
Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin, Witgenstein’s Vienns: The Life and Culture of Hapsburg Vienna before World War I
Paula Fichtner, The Habsburg Empire: From Dynasticism to Multinationalism
(Fichtner teaches at Brooklyn College)
Barbara Jelavich, Modern Austria
Stephen Bronner and Peter Wagner, eds., Vienna: The World of Yesetrday, 1889-1914
Paul Hofmann, The Viennese: Splendor, Twighlight and Exile
Frederic Morton, A Nervous Splendor, Vienna 1888/1889
Jonathan Miller, ed., Freud, The Man, His World, His Influence
Harold Segel, The Vienna Coffeehouse Wits, 1890-1938
Kirk Varnedoe, Vienna 1900: Art, Architecture and Design
Peter Vergo, Art in Vienna, 1898-1918
Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday
George Clare, Last Waltz in Vienna
Arthur Schnitzler, My Youth in Vienna
Brigitte Hamann, Hitler's Vienna: A Dictator's Apprenticeship
Carl Dolmetsch, Our Famous Guest: Mark Twain in Vienna
Also see libraries at the Austrian Cultural Institue in Manhattan and Columbia University


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