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Search - The Brooklyn Bridge: A Cultural History

The Brooklyn Bridge A Cultural History
Author: Richard Haw

"In the most important work on the Brooklyn Bridge in a generation, Richard Haw shows how and why it remains a central but contested American icon."?David E. Nye, author of America as Second Creation: Technology and Narratives of New Beginnings"Absorbing and provocative. Richard Haw sells you the great bridge in a thousand incarnations."?Kevin B... more »aker, author of Dreamland and Paradise AlleyHailed by some as the Eighth Wonder of the World when it opened in 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge is one of the world?s most recognizable and beloved icons. For over one hundred years it has excited and fascinated with stories of ingenuity and heroism, and it has been endorsed as a flawless symbol of municipal improvement and a prime emblem of American technological progress. Despite its impressive physical presence, however, Brooklyn?s grand old bridge is much more than a testament to engineering and architectural achievement. As Richard Haw shows in this first-of-its-kind cultural history, the Brooklyn Bridge owes as much to the public?s imagination as it does to the historical events and technical prowess that were integral to its construction. Bringing together more than sixty images of the bridge that, over the years, have graced postcards, magazine covers, and book jackets and appeared in advertisements, cartoons, films, and photographs, Haw traces the diverse and sometimes jarring ways in which this majestic structure has been received, adopted, and interpreted as an American idea. Haw?s account is not a history of how the bridge was made, but rather of what people have made of the Brooklyn Bridge?in film, music, literature, art, and politics?from its opening ceremonies to the blackout of 2003. Classic accounts from such writers and artists as H. G. Wells, Charles Reznikoff, Hart Crane, Lewis Mumford, Joseph Pennell, Walker Evans, and Georgia O?Keeffe, among many others, present the bridge as a deserted, purely aestheticized romantic ideal, while others, including Henry James, Joseph Stella, Yun Gee, Ernest Poole, Alfred Kazin, Paul Auster, and Don DeLillo, offer a counter-narrative as they question not only the role of the bridge in American society, but also its function as a profoundly public, communal place. Also included are never-before-published photographs by William Gedney and a discussion of Alexis Rockman?s provocative new mural Manifest Destiny.Drawing on hundreds of cultural artifacts, from the poignant, to the intellectual, to the downright quirky, The Brooklyn Bridge sheds new light on topics such as ethnic and foreign responses to America, nationalism, memory, rituals and parade culture, commemoration, popular culture, and post-9/11 America icons. In the end, we realize that this impressive span is as culturally remarkable today as it was technologically and physically astounding in the nineteenth century.

ISBN-13: 9780813535876
ISBN-10: 0813535875
Publication Date: 7/25/2005
Pages: 307
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Genres:

History >> Americas >> United States >> General
Nonfiction >> Social Sciences >> General
Science & Math >> Technology >> History of Technology
Engineering & Transportation >> Architecture >> Regional >> United States
Civil >> General

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