Building Black Manhattan: Architecture, Art, and the Politics of Respectability, 1857–1914

<p>“Building Black Manhattan” is the first study to examine the architectural contributions of Black women reformers to the urban development of New York City between the Civil War and the Great Migration. Through the construction of charitable and reform institutions throughout Manhattan, they articulated a strategy of racial uplift through deliberate spatial construction.</p> <p>As reform work was one of the very few arenas in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in which women had a significant public voice, the buildings constructed to facilitate reformers’ work encoded the social, racial, and gendered demands of women into their designs. These institutions included free kindergartens and nurseries, experiments in low-income housing, religious missions, health clinics, and more. They adhered to the “politics of respectability” in expecting architecture would forge race pride and express their aspirations for inclusion in American public life. The art and architectural history of Black New York City has concentrated on Harlem in the interwar years as a site that was uniquely positioned to foster the proliferation of Black culture. This dissertation inserts the earlier contributions of Black women into the architectural history of New York City and articulates how the later success of Harlem called on nineteenth-century spatial practices. By situating the placemaking efforts of Black reformers alongside the established history of the city’s urban development, this project expands the architectural understanding of Manhattan’s history to underscore the ways in which Black women labored to build a city in which they could prosper.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Art History

Grantor

The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York

Year dc:date.available

2024

Author dc:creator

• Larson, Jessica

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Marta Gutman

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Katherine Manthorne
• Kelly M. Britt
• Matthew Reilly

• African American Studies
• American Art and Architecture
• American Material Culture
• Architectural History and Criticism
• Modern Art and Architecture
• Social History
• Women's History
• Architectural History
• Art History
• Vernacular Architecture
• Black Art and Architectural History
• New York City
• Social Reform and Charity

Repository record dc:identifier

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/5960

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:academicworks.cuny.edu:gc_etds-7072