The Urban/Rural Divide
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• Opposition between rural and urban cultures reflects a longing for "authentic" American experience ‣ City culture vs. Country culture has been an important split in Anglo-American identity since the late 18th-c. - tales of “city mouse” and “country mouse” - country culture represents tradition, city culture represents international and bourgeois sensibility 158 The Urban/Rural Divide U.S. media culture, 1934-1941
Transcript of The Urban/Rural Divide
• Opposition between rural and urban cultures reflects a longing for "authentic" American experience
‣ City culture vs. Country culture has been an important split in Anglo-American identity since the late 18th-c.
- tales of “city mouse” and “country mouse”
- country culture represents tradition, city culture represents international and bourgeois sensibility
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The Urban/Rural Divide U.S. media culture, 1934-1941
• Opposition between rural and urban cultures reflects a longing for "authentic" American experience
‣ [City culture vs. Country culture has been an important split in Anglo-American identity since the late 18th-c.]
‣ The split is public: the values and "social mores" that inflect media representations, lyrics, film characters, and stylistic differences in music
- rural radio features “old-timey” music, and “country” music, but city listeners tune in.
- Hollywood musicals emphasize the contrast, encouraging identity with rural, simple characters
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The Urban/Rural Divide U.S. media culture, 1934-1941
• Opposition between rural and urban cultures reflects a longing for "authentic" American experience
‣ [City culture vs. Country culture has been an important split in Anglo-American identity since the late 18th-c.]
‣ The split is public: the values and "social mores" that inflect media representations, lyrics, film characters, and stylistic differences in music
‣ In everyday life, and in private culture, “urban”/”rural” categories are less distinct: U.S. identity is blurred by
- complex interior migrations
- shared economic circumstances among the working class
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The Urban/Rural Divide U.S. media culture, 1934-1941
• The great depression (1929-1937) caused a new period of intensive migrations within the U.S.
– 1929-1933: rural midwesterners flock to the West Coast for jobs
– Many urban unemployed return to the countryside for subsistence farming.
– 1933-1939: F.D.R's "public works administration" = encourages westward movement (new jobs in agriculture, forestry, infrastructure).
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The Urban/Rural Divide U.S. media culture, 1934-1941
• The great depression (1929-1937) caused a new period of intensive migrations within the U.S.
• National political shift --> community identity, socialism, in response to‣ excesses of industrial capitalism in the U.S.‣ news of fascism abroad as an outgrowth of capitalism‣ U.S. military atrocities against organizing workers
- strengthened public sympathy for workers; unionists Eugene Debbs and Dorothy Day are national heroes.
• 1936-1939: 1000s of Americans joined the Spanish Republican Army to fight against Franco‣ including many artists and writers
Industry vs. CommunityU.S. media culture, 1934-1941
• Radio stations replaced vaudeville and minstrel shows, as well as the phonograph, as American's primary source of entertainment.‣ Some stations often tried to emphasize national unity by
transmitting the same performances and recordings to disparate audiences.
‣ City audiences in the West and East were split between "progressive" swing, and the music of Hollywood, on the one hand, and "traditional" hillbilly and country music on the other. But both styles were the product of a very new and unprecedented media culture.
The Urban/Rural Divide U.S. media culture, 1934-1941
Dance cultures of jazz and swing• Charleston
‣ developed in black communities around Charleston, WV, as early as 1915
‣ popularized in NY speakeasies (prohibition-era bars and clubs) during the 20s
‣ becomes a flexible “AB” dance- shuffle (makes fun of moralistic “drys”-usually B)- later versions start with the “kickstep” (usually A)
• Lindy Hop‣ Developed alongside swing, expanding on Charleston, with more
improvisation and variety. - a “Lindy” is a solo step, performed after flinging your partner away- popularly associated with Charles Lindburgh’s solo Atlantic flight (probably
accidental -- Lindy is slang for unmarried woman)
‣ The step is often identified as “jitterbugging” -- a broader term for swing dancing
The popularized form of the Charleston
‣ [Review:] Opposition between rural and urban cultures reflects a longing for "authentic" American experience
‣ Americans (both urban and rural) romanticize "simpler" times of the wild west.
- "Cowboys" like Will Rogers, Gene Autry, Bob Wills, and Roy Rogers
- "Hillbilly music" of various kinds was popularized by Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Roy Acuff.
‣ The broadcast music industry emphasized "one man musical acts" in the 1930s
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The Urban/Rural Divide U.S. media culture, 1934-1941
Gene Autry, the singing cowboy (1907-1998)
Gene Autry in "Phantom Empire"; a Hollywood Serial Film shown in theaters as well as on experimental TV broadcasts.
(Television had been invented years earlier but there was no demand for the technology and no broadcast system.)
• Revival of a traditional Anglo-American opposition between rural and urban cultures.
• Americans (both urban and rural) romanticize "simpler" times of the wild west.
• The success of "country and western" music developed as an important new part of U.S. identity.
– Romanticized the 19th-c westward expansion of an ethno-centric Anglo-American culture.
– Americans learned to value "rugged individualism" as one of the most important and distinctive American virtues.
U.S. media cultures, 1939-1945Urban vs. Rural in American Identity
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‣ Bennie Moten developed the "Kansas City Swing" style.
• Moten's pianist Count Basie developed the "jump blues" or "boogie-woogie" rhythmic accompaniment style
‣ Equally important are Fletcher Henderson, Cab Calloway, and Duke Ellington who developed the "Big Band" style at New York's Cotton Club.
• Ellington saxophonist Coleman Hawkins -- great innovator of improvisation
• Ellington pianist Billy Strayhorn -- great composer and arranger
SWING and the "BIG BAND ERA": origins
in 1927 (8 members)Moten in 1927
Bennie Moten's Orchestra in 1931 (15 members)
Count Basie Orchestra (formerly theBennie Moten Orchestra) after 1935, with 19+ members.
SWING and the "BIG BAND ERA": origins
‣ The "Swing Era" is dated from 1935-1945:
• The formation of Count Basie's Band, after Bennie Moten's death in 1934.
• White clarinetist Benny Goodman's first appearance on the "Let's Dance" Radio show (with Fletcher Henderson's Arrangements).
• Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers' "Top Hat" (1935) and "Swing Time" (1936) transformed swing into a national obsession, with a sophisticated, rather than degenerate, reputation.
Ellington Refutes "Scientific" study of sex crimes
• 1937 -- Arthur Cremin: "hot jazz" (a kind of swing) leads to sex crimes and other delinquency
‣ observed that the music made people feel "more personal toward one another"
• Ellington: "this experiment...must be totally discounted...for there was no 'proper constant'--a prerequisite of an accurate experiment of this nature."
‣ no control group for comparison (different musical styles, different social situations)
EdwardKennedy("Duke")Ellington
(1899-1974)
FletcherHenderson
(1897-1952)
BennieMoten
(1894-1935)
Swing: Late 20s &Early 30s innovators
CabCalloway(1907-1994)
William "Count"
Basie (1904-1984)
TommyDorsey
(1905-1956)
Glenn Miller(1904-1944)
BennyGoodman
(1909-1986)
Other major Swing-Era bandleaders
