Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Date of Degree
9-2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Program
Art History
Advisor
Marta Gutman
Committee Members
Katherine Manthorne
Kelly M. Britt
Matthew Reilly
Subject Categories
African American Studies | American Art and Architecture | American Material Culture | Architectural History and Criticism | Modern Art and Architecture | Social History | Women's History
Keywords
Architectural History, Art History, Vernacular Architecture, Black Art and Architectural History, New York City, Social Reform and Charity, Women's History
Abstract
“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.
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.
Recommended Citation
Larson, Jessica, "Building Black Manhattan: Architecture, Art, and the Politics of Respectability, 1857–1914" (2024). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/5960
Graduate Center users:
To read this work, log in to your GC ILL account and place a thesis request.
Non-GC Users:
See the GC’s lending policies to learn more.
Included in
African American Studies Commons, American Art and Architecture Commons, American Material Culture Commons, Architectural History and Criticism Commons, Modern Art and Architecture Commons, Social History Commons, Women's History Commons