The University of Chicago American Snapshot: Urban
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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO AMERICAN SNAPSHOT: URBAN REALISM FROM NEW DEAL TO GREAT SOCIETY A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE HUMANITIES IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE BY MEGAN TUSLER CHICAGO, ILLINOIS MARCH 2016 Copyright © 2016 by Megan Tusler All rights reserved I loved well those cities; I loved well the stately and rapid river; The men and women I saw were all near to me; Others the same—others who look back on me, because I look’d forward to them; (The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.) Walt Whitman, from “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” 1856. Contents List of Figures v Acknowledgments ix Abstract xi Introduction 1 Chapter One: Revising Documentation: Richard Wright, Realist Modernism, and Representing the City 31 Chapter Two: On Belonging and Imagining: Chicago’s Photo Archives and the Liberal Articulation of Citizenship 70 Chapter Three: Caption, Image, Snapshot: Beat Realism and Opting Out 127 Chapter Four: Toward an Imperfect Realism: National Cinema After the Urban Crisis 178 Bibliography 231 iv List of Figures Chapter One. Figure 1. Death on the City Pavements, from Wright and Rosskam, 12 Million Black Voices 91 (44). Figure 2. Church Scene, from Wright and Rosskam, 12 Million Black Voices 92 (44). Figure 3. Family Group and Guidance of Institutions, from Wright and Rosskam, 12 Million Black Voices 94-95 (44). Figure 4. Burial Societies and Personalities Blasted, from Wright and Rosskam, 12 Million Black Voices 96-97 (45). Figure 5. Rooms for Rent, from Wright and Rosskam, 12 Million Black Voices 104-105 (56). Figure 6. Kitchenettes, from Wright and Rosskam, 12 Million Black Voices 106-107 (56). Figure 7. Strange Moods, from Wright and Rosskam, 12 Million Black Voices 136-137 (59). Figure 8. City Streets, from Wright and Rosskam, 12 Million Black Voices 138-139 (59). Chapter Two. Figure 9. Edward Burns, Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian relocation records [manuscript] 1936- 1975, Box 2 (70). Figure 10. Chicago Welcomes American Indians, Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian relocation records [manuscript] 1936-1975, Box 1 (76). Figure 11. Snow Queen, Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian relocation records [manuscript] 1936- 1975, Box 1 (76). Figure 12. Captions, Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian relocation records [manuscript] 1936-1975, Box 1 (77). Figure 13. Junior Relocatees, Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian relocation records [manuscript] 1936-1975, Box 1 (78). Figure 14. Billie Family, Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian relocation records [manuscript] 1936- 1975, Box 2 (79). Figure 15. Billie Family Description, Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian relocation records [manuscript] 1936-1975, Box 2 (79). v Figure 16. Mrs. Ortiz and Mrs. Miller, Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian relocation records [manuscript] 1936-1975, Box 2 (80). Figure 17. Mrs. Ortiz and Mrs. Miller Description, Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian relocation records [manuscript] 1936-1975, Box 2 (81). Figure 18. Children, Chicago, Vivian Maier, Chicago IL (88). Figure 19. Girl, Chicago, Vivian Maier, Chicago, IL (90). Figure 20. All in a Day’s Work, Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian relocation records [manuscript] 1936-1975, Box 1 (91). Figure 21. Irene Snowball, Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian relocation records [manuscript] 1936- 1975, Box 2 (93). Figure 22. LaRoy Miller, Jr., Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian relocation records [manuscript] 1936-1975, Box 2 (95). Figure 23. Employability Chart, Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian relocation records [manuscript] 1936-1975, Box 1 (98). Figure 24. Our Largest Family Unit, Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian relocation records [manuscript] 1936-1975, Box 1 (104). Figure 25. Mother and Child, Tom Palazzolo, Chicago IL (119). Figure 26. City Stoop, Tom Palazzolo, Chicago IL (121). Figure 27. History Reverses, Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian relocation records [manuscript] 1936-1975, Box 2 (125). Chapter Three. Figure 28. Jack Kerouac, by Allen Ginsberg, from Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg (127). Figure 29. Front Room, by Allen Ginsberg, from Snapshot Poetics (132). Figure 30. Ginsberg and Corso, by Allen Ginsberg, from Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg (137). Figure 31. Burroughs and Kerouac, by Allen Ginsberg, from Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg (142). vi Figure 32. Rooftop, by Allen Ginsberg, from Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg (146). Figure 33. William S. Burroughs with Junkie, by Allen Ginsberg, from Allen Ginsberg Photographs (150). Figure 34. William S. Burroughs Nude, by Allen Ginsberg, from Allen Ginsberg Photographs (153). Figure 35. Neal Cassady and Natalie Jackson, by Allen Ginsberg, from Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg (155). Figure 36. Gregory Corso, Rue Git-le-Coeur, by Allen Ginsberg, from Allen Ginsberg Photographs (160). Figure 37. Group, by Allen Ginsberg, from Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg (168). Chapter Four. Figure 38. Unknown actor, Charles Burnett, Killer of Sheep (185). Figure 39. Rita Tushingham and Paul Danquah, Tony Richardson, A Taste of Honey (190). Figure 40. Mbissine Thérèse Diop, Ousmane Sembène, La Noire de… (191). Figure 41. Untitled Photograph, Helen Levitt, 1939 (199). Figure 42. Nate Hardman, Billy Woodberry, Bless Their Little Hearts (208). Figure 43. Kaycee Moore and Nate Hardman, Billy Woodberry, Bless Their Little Hearts (212). Figure 44. Life Magazine, unknown subjects, photograph by Bill Ray, July 1966. (221). Figure 45. Running Still, Charles Burnett, Killer of Sheep (222). Figure 46. Train Still, Charles Burnett, Killer of Sheep (222). Figure 47. Jack Drummond, Charles Burnett, Killer of Sheep (224). Figure 48. Homer Jai, Johnny Smoke, Henry Gayle Sanders, and Kaycee Moore; Charles Burnett, Killer of Sheep (226). Figure 49. Henry Gayle Sanders; Charles Burnett, Killer of Sheep (228). vii Figure 50. Angela Burnett and unknown actor; Charles Burnett, Killer of Sheep (229). viii Acknowledgments I must first thank my dissertation committee for their invaluable help with this dissertation: Lauren Berlant, Adrienne Brown, and Deborah Nelson have been tireless champions of this project. Other faculty at the University of Chicago have contributed generously to this effort, particularly Hillary Chute and Christopher Taylor. Furthermore, I’d be remiss not to thank my early mentors at Mills College, particularly Vivian Chin, Kim Magowan, and Melinda Micco. My writing group has read every word of this piece, against what I’m sure is their better judgment: Stephanie Anderson, Amanda Leigh Davis, Margaret Fink, and Chalcey Wilding are owed an enormous debt. Other peer readers and interlocutors, like Hadji Bakara, Oscar Chavez Cardona, Richard Davis, David Diamond, Andrew Inchiosa, Lauren Jackson, Katherine Krywokulski, Carmen Merport, Eric Newman, Chandani Patel, and Jonathan Schroeder have changed my brain. For some reason Lauren Feiring, Sara Howard, Heather Lember, and Jacqueline Strachman put up with me during my research trips. The MA Program in the Humanities, my fellow preceptors, the staff, the students, and particularly, its Chief Feelings Officer Hilary Strang have served as my second home during the completion of this work; I also thank Dustin Brown, Darrel Chia, Matt Hauske, Kerri Hunt, Nic Koziolek, Anna Lee, Agnes Malinowska, Jennifer Sichel, Tristan Schweiger, and Daniel Smyth for being such rigorous peers. I have received support for this project from the Anthony Maramarco fund, Marcia Tillotson Memorial Endowment Fund, the Mellon Foundation, the Osage Nation of Oklahoma, and the English department, Graduate Student Affairs, Humanities Division and Office of the Provost at the University of Chicago. This work has benefitted from research at the Newberry Library, the Oregon Historical Society, and the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia ix University. I’m thankful to the Franke Fellows for the Humanities, the American Cultures Workshop, and the Reproduction of Race and Racial Ideologies Workshop at the University of Chicago for critiquing pieces of this work. Pieces of this work have benefitted from having a diverse body of audiences: the Northeast conference of the Modern Languages Association and the Graduate Student Conference at the University of Chicago have produced extraordinary audiences for my work. My family, Michelle Holcomb, Martin Tusler and Ellen Peters, Cynthia Coleman and Scott Emery, Theo Tusler, Anthony Tusler and Lyndi Brown, Seann McClure and Libby Obbink, David and Arlene McClure, Joel Magid, the Dorman family, and Margaret and Jim Conover were responsible for this work in ways that I’m sure they don’t know. And the two forces that keep me in orbit are C. Aaron McClure and Rachel Tusler. I’m entirely unequal to your intellectual might, your constant and unflagging support, your kindness, and the always surprising and dynamic points of view that reroute my thinking. Thank you. This project is dedicated to θ. x Abstract This dissertation argues that realism – however fraught the term – stages scenes of community in order to make claims upon the “real world” in the twentieth century. It identifies and analyzes forms of vernacular realism from 1941 to 1984 as well as aesthetic experiments that consider themselves to mimetically represent the “real world” in order to reconceive scenes of attachment and counterpublics. The project tracks how realism, conceived here as the interplay between image and narrative, changes in the twentieth century in response to moments of social crisis. In the process, it pays particular attention to realism’s elusive nature. Fredric Jameson’s 2013 book The Antinomies of Realism, begins with the observation that when we consider realism, it “is as though the object of our meditation began to wobble, and the attention to it to slip insensibly away from it in two opposite directions, so that at length we find we are thinking, not about realism, but about its emergence; not about the thing itself but about its dissolution.” This “wobble,” the way realism as an object of study tends to deflect attention away from itself and toward its origins or its destruction, guides this project.