©2007 Sunny Stalter ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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©2007 Sunny Stalter ALL RIGHTS RESERVED UNDERGROUND SUBJECTS: PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION AND PERCEPTION IN NEW YORK MODERNIST LITERATURE by SUNNY STALTER A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Literatures in English written under the direction of Professor Elin Diamond and approved by ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey October, 2007 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Underground Subjects: Public Transportation and Perception in New York Modernist Literature By Sunny Stalter Dissertation Director: Professor Elin Diamond This dissertation investigates the relationship between public transportation and New York modernist literature. It argues that the experience of riding the subway and elevated train shapes the forms and themes of modernist writing, while textual representations of these spaces of transit in turn shape the modern understanding of urban subjectivity. Exploring the tension between the embodied, habitual ride and the abstract transportation system, New York modernist writers represent the sense of being in thrall to forces of modernity, interrogate the connection between space and psychology, and envision new pathways between the past and the present. I begin with an analysis of the intertwined discourses necessary to a consideration of modernism and public transportation, including visuality and spatial theory, the history of technology, and urban studies. Through readings of American Expressionist plays by Elmer Rice and Osip Dymov, I locate a modernist theatricality in the subway car, one centered on ideas of claustrophobia and fantasy. I then turn to Harlem Renaissance ii writers Rudolph Fisher and Walter White, whose migration narratives embrace the transitional potential of the mechanized journey North even as they warn against the illusory vision of Harlem seen from the subway steps. Next, I suggest that the affective poetic fusion of Hart Crane’s long poem The Bridge finds its equal in the complex network of subway tunnels between Manhattan and Brooklyn, in which Crane locates a new genealogy of American poetry. I conclude by moving aboveground, considering surrealist artist Joseph Cornell’s experimental film Gnir Rednow as it participates in and offers alternatives to postwar New York artists’ nostalgia for the soon-to-be-razed Third Avenue El. In each of these versions of modernism, public transportation lies at the intersection of material culture and metaphor. Cutting across genres and movements, I hope to remap the boundaries of early twentieth-century American literature as well as underscore the role of technology in the construction of the urban imaginary. iii Acknowledgements First, I would like to thank Elin Diamond for her support and close attention to my work. Throughout my graduate career, she has believed in me and challenged me – both necessary components for growth. Her generosity, acuity, humor, and tremendous skill as a teacher will influence me for the rest of my life. I have benefited enormously from Meredith McGill’s friendship and encouragement; without her, I never would have realized that I was indeed an Americanist. Matt Buckley introduced me to the discourse that shaped this project, and Harriet Davidson kept me grounded in specifics. Jackson Lears brought a fresh eye to the project and gave me a number of invaluable references in the process. I am profoundly grateful to all of them. I want to thank other faculty members, both in Rutgers English and outside, who contributed to this project and to my general well-being. Courses with Marc Manganaro, Marianne DeKoven, and Richard Dienst shaped my interests early on. Brad Evans helped me think about William Dean Howells in a more interesting way. Lorraine Pirroux, Pamela Caughie, and Carolyn de la Peña read chapter and article drafts with an attention and generosity that I can only hope to repay. Pamela Caughie, David Chinitz, and Joyce Wexler inspired and encouraged me to do graduate work in the first place, and I especially look forward to thanking them as colleagues. This dissertation would not have been possible without the support of students in the Rutgers English Department, particularly Ben Johnson. His breadth of knowledge and awe-inspiring prose style inspired me; more importantly, his humor and sense of perspective kept me sane. My dissertation group, Kristie Allen, Alison Shonkwiler, and Alexandra Socarides, performed a similar balancing act. I deeply appreciate their iv friendship and scholarship. Danielle Bobker, Susan Nakley, and Rachel A. Smith were always eager to share ideas, and I am lucky to know them all. The fellow participants in my Mellon Summer Workshop for Dissertation Writers contributed to my thinking on Chapter Three in numerous ways. I am grateful to them, and to the English Department and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, for that opportunity. A dissertation so based in material culture will inevitably be indebted to research institutions. First and foremost, I would like to thank The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas-Austin for a Dissertation Research Fellowship to look at Elmer Rice’s papers. I would like to thank all the staff at the Ransom Center for making my stay so pleasant. I also wish to thank the friendly and helpful librarians at the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institute, the Museum of the City of New York, the Billy Rose Theatre Collection at the New York Performing Arts Library, and Special Collections at Arthur Schomburg Library. I would also like to collectively thank the staff at Gorilla Coffee. I wrote drafts of every chapter in my dissertation in this office away from home. I would particularly like to thank those outside of school who read my academic writing and brainstormed ideas with me. Thank you to Rachel Benoit, Stephanie Padilla, Valerie Pierce-Grove, and Gabrielle Warshawer for intellectual and editorial assistance (and occasional necessary distraction). Finally, I would like to thank my family. Their strength and support, humor and understanding have helped me become who I am. This work is dedicated to my mother, Jill Bean, with whom I share more than a PhD. v Table of Contents ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION ii Acknowledgements iv List of Illustrations vii Introduction: Going Underground 1 New York City’s Transportation History 2 The Subway as Space, Vision, and Technology 5 Modernism and the City 9 Chapter Summary 14 Chapter 1. Underground Dreams: Technological Fantasies and Fears in American Expressionist Drama 20 Staging Subway Space 27 Subway Advertising and Assimilationist Fantasy 39 Sexualized Subway Submission 51 Spatial Freedom and the Spectacular Subway 66 Chapter 2. Underground Flights: Psychological and Cultural Relocation in Harlem Renaissance Migration Narratives 76 Everyday Migrations 89 Setting Out for Harlem 94 Emergence 107 The South in the City 114 Re-emergence 120 vi Chapter 3. Underground Lines: Repetition and Tradition in Modernist Subway Poetry 130 Technological Sublime, Technological Routine 139 In a Station of the Metro 143 Just My Body Dragging Me Home 148 The Man Who Was Used Up 155 Disintegrated, Yet Part of the Scheme 161 Chapter 4. Farewell to the El: Nostalgic Urban Visuality on the Third Avenue Elevated Train 170 Passing Acquaintances 178 Looking and Moving Backward 188 Echo of an Era 193 Epilogue: The End of the Line 201 Bibliography 208 Curriculum Vita 235 vii List of illustrations Figure 1. Interborough Rapid Transit subway car interior (approx. 1916)....................... 35 Figure 2. Elmer Rice, The Subway (1922) ....................................................................... 37 Figure 3. Pluto Mineral Water advertisement (approx. 1920s) ........................................ 43 Figure 4. Bronx Express production still (1925) .............................................................. 49 Figure 5. Multiple Ruby Keelers in Dames (1934)........................................................... 69 Figure 6. “End of the Line” in Dames (1934)................................................................... 71 Figure 7. Woven subway strap (approx 1900s) .............................................................. 133 Figure 8. Charles Sheeler, “Ford Plant, River Rouge, Criss-Crossed Conveyors” (1927) ................................................................................................................................. 142 Figure 9. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Lever Building (1952).................................... 174 Figure 10. Joseph Cornell, Untitled (Window Facade) (1950)....................................... 177 Figure 11. Carson Davidson, Third Avenue El (1955)................................................... 181 Figure 12. Joseph Cornell, Untitled (Medici Slot Machine) (1942)............................... 183 Figure 13. Joseph Cornell, Gnir Rednow (undated) ....................................................... 184 Figure 14. Joel Sternfeld, "The High Line" (2000) ........................................................ 195 viii 1 Introduction: Going Underground On or about October 1904, New York’s character changed. It changed because of the myriad assumptions, fears, and fantasies about the city were driven underground with the opening of the subway. New York City’s first subway line opened to the public