In this book, Gandal reveals how the slum, in the last decade of the nineteenth century, became the source of spectacle as never before (in newspapers, documentary accounts, photographs, and literature), and emerged as a subject for aesthetic, ethnographic, and psychological description. He argues that the development of these new concepts and styles for representing the urban and largely immigrant poor amounted to a revolution in ethics, and provides close readings of Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives and Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets.
Reviews
What is offered is not a facile debunking of Riis and Crane's work - far from it - but rather a generally incisive social analysis charting a shift of American ethics and aesthetics ... engaging, coherent critique. * Will Kaufman, American Studies 33:2 1999 *
Gandal engages with a range of historical, ethical and sociological arguments in a text which undoubtedly will become the basis for more investigations into this area and period in US history./Philip McGowan/The Constituent Associations of the EAAS



Book Information
ISBN 9780195110630
Author Keith Gandal
Format Hardback
Page Count 224
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 544g
Dimensions(mm) 239mm * 163mm * 23mm