Read-ing

The Alice Gray Read piece entitled “Making a home in a Philadelphia neighborhood” resonated with my grandparent’s home in the Philadelphia suburb of Norristown in multiple ways. “The elaboration of porch and garden strengthens the area between street and house and blurs the border between inside and outside. The ubiquitous porch is an extension of interior living space, profusely decorated, furnished, and commonly used as a summer living room.” (Read, 328). This quotation from the text describes the functionality of my grandparent’s front and back yard, especially in the summer months. My grandfather paid utmost attention to the aesthetic beauty of the nature surrounding his house; always trimming bushes, planting flowers, and harvesting vegetables.

There was also many differences in the reading in comparison to my grandparent’s home, but obviously Mantua in West Philadelphia and suburban Norristown hold a plethora of differences. For instance, “This place for sitting out in front of the house is so essential to neighborhood life that there can be no compromise. The backyard will not serve as a substitute.” (Read, 328). In relation to my grandparent’s home, the key point of convergence of neighbors and friends was the backyard. This is a huge transfer of idea from a West Philadelphia neighborhood to a Philadelphian suburb. Another difference that really stood out though, was how united the neighborhoods are in Mantua. “Within such a cohesive neighborhood, the design of a single house is meaningless if divorced from the whole block.” (Read, 329). I think this is an interesting concept to apply to any person’s home, for anyone to think about their own home in this context. If your home was removed from its neighborhood, would it stick out like a sore thumb? I don’t believe too many houses (in my personal experience of being in various homes) are so unique that once displaced, they would become meaningless, but others would probably disagree.

Keats’ Crack in the Picture Window

The Drones’ family in Keats’ piece depict the stereotypical but hidden story of young couples in the 1950s looking for the ideal home. The piece first analyzes the structure of the home in Rolling Knolls; modern, seemingly spacious and simple, with a picture window. As the story progresses into the next part, you begin to see the problems of the home and of the family that face the Drones. As the appliances begin to negatively affect Mary’s mood, so does the neighborhood that engulfs her life.

“Three hours later, 1:15 P.M., Gladys’s minute was up and she packed off her brood and decamped. Mary hadn’t the faintest idea what they’d discussed, since more of the conversation had necessarily been conducted in fits and starts, coming spasmodically through a thick field of children’s static. Vaguely, Mary decided the morning’s chat had increased her sum of knowledge to this extent: that three persons unknown to her, but known to Gladys, had their names down on waiting lists for new cars; that Mrs. Voter thought she was going to have a baby but the doctor didn’t think so. Meanwhile, it was raining.” (Keats, 275).

This scene paints the picture of the turmoil the matriarch silently submitted to in the 1950′s suburban culture. It also connects strongly to the 2009 film “Revolutionary Road”, where Kate Winslet experiences the same “vile” effects that Mary Drone does in “The crack in the picture window”:

“The cumulative effect of Mary’s rancid day led her to shriek, and although she never once allowed the thought conscious expression, somewhere deep inside her she knew perfectly well that the house she inhabited had helped spoil her day; that it was harming her marriage and corroding her life.”

This scene, I feel, visualizes the sad scene of Mary Drone’s unfulfilling lifestyle. It shows the deteriorating relationship between husband and wife (Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet) when the everyday strife and pressure of suburban living eats away at the love that once existed, and is replaced by an unspoken grudge between the couple. Both are unhappy and covertly blame each other. Rolling Knolls and Revolutionary Road are an interchangeable location.

House as Symbol of Self

This piece was really interesting to me, especially because of its strong connection with the theories of Carl Jung. Though some of the psychological explanations and terminology could be confusing, the theory that “man grasps at physical forms and symbols that are close and meaningful to him” made complete sense in relating one to their home. Cooper describes how we consciously present ourselves through our body; whether it be clothing, physical shape, etc; but also, less consciously, we represent ourselves with our home.

My favorite excerpt was when Cooper writes of interior design. It is interesting to consider why one would hire an interior designer, when the intimacy of home is supposed to represent the inhabitants of the home. Does this mean that many people are unsure of their actual self? Also, the metaphor of the home as the womb caught my attention. Do we feel the home is maternalistic? For most people, it is a place of comfort, warmness, and balance – but does that make the home maternal?

Privacy, security, respectability

Mike Hepworth’s “Privacy, security, respectability” dissecting the ideal Victorian home reminded me a lot of the Merchant’s House tour.

Two important features of the ideal home as a retreat were particularly significant. The first was the constructed facade – the physical structure of stone, bricks and mortar which helped to conceal the residents from public view – and the second…as the “home within”. The home within was the social organization of private life inside the private spaces such as bedrooms, studies, and the various forms of specific social interaction that were possible in these rooms.

The Merchant’s house is a solid brick building conveying the privacy described by Hepworth. Also, the home was surely socially organized. The downstairs area was designated for cooking and private dining, the parlor and formal dining room associated with the entertaining of guests, and the specified floors for the parents, children, and servants’ bedrooms are clear-cut examples of the intended social structure of the areas within the house.

…the location of a staged meeting point between the external potentially threatening world of strangers and the internal domestic sphere of intimates was the parlor.

Our jubilant tour guide fully elaborated on the importance of the parlor in Victorian times. She described how meetings were predetermined, fully structured and formal, and sort of awkward if you visualize yourself in such a scenario. I thought it was interesting that when a servant would walk into the congregation, it was understood that the visit was over and the guests were fully aware of their time of departure…rude much?

Social meanings of housing

In the Blackmar reading, she discusses women’s roles in the home in a time where bourgeois men were working to improve their economic status and the women were improving the quality of life in the home. Women felt the home to be their most important responsibility. I think partly because they wanted this responsibility, and partly because most women didn’t work at the time; thus, they were glad to take on the duty of care-taking within the home.

“If socializing within dwellings permitted propertied men to affirm a sense of mutual obligation and display qualities of magnanimity and character that redounded to their business and civic credit, women had a greater stake in constructing interlocking codes of public and private respectability.”

What I found most interesting was the difference between the bourgeois women and those living in tenant housing. The wealthier families utilized servants, which in turn kept their homes more private to neighbors by keeping the members of the family indoors. Servants were sent on errands and answered the door in the case of an unwanted visitor. Conversely, the tenant women were out and about, bargaining with street vendors for the lowest prices, and getting to know their neighbors the best they could to establish communal relationships. These women were more street smart, in my opinion, and probably had a greater appreciation of their family because they strived to provide for them.

The American front porch

“For women, kept at home by children in need of care and the labor necessary to keep a household going, the porch functioned as a social place-their own space-at home yet not inside-a space simultaneously work place and salon-where they could visit, keep track of neighborhood activities and exchange news flashes with passers by while they watched their children and performed their more portable and sedentary chores” (Beckham, 90).

This excerpt from “The American front porch” paints a picture of women in this specific time period; interesting in the separation of the front porch versus the back porch which she later elaborates in the text. The front porch was a place of social gathering and small chores, while the back porch was more private, and designated for the use of more undesirable household duties not welcome to the neighborhood eyes.

“…relationships that would be impossible elsewhere can flourish for however brief a time-and they can be spontaneous” (Beckham, 91). This excerpt was interesting as well, in that later Beckham writes that the porch “…established relationships are freed from the constraints and tensions of business on the outside and busy-ness indoors to commune…” I never would have thought the basic porch was such common ground for the coming together of a group of people, a place of mostly relaxation and “chilling out”.

A strange part I pulled from the reading was during the height of the Jim Crow laws, blacks could sit with whites on porches, but never in living rooms. Politically speaking of such racial times, this makes no sense to me whatsoever. If the goal was segregation, why would the law want white and black people to be publicly displayed together, rather than hidden in the confines of the home? The entire concept is morally wrong, obviously, but it’s just a thought that had me a little confused.

Reading Response

Banham’s idea of the invasion of technology within the home resonated with me. There are countless items within a home than can evade us from the traditional sense of the place: internet brings us to wherever we’d like to go; television gives us an escape; appliances make tasks mindlessly simple. Also, they detract from communication within the members of the house. These technologies take away from the traditional, warm environment that creates a home, but rather revert the home back to the empty shell of a house. 

The Douglas piece was interesting in saying that a home establishes a hierarchy. The owner divvies up the labor needed to maintain the home, which is divided according to Douglas, by age and sex. Each member leads its daily life, but at mealtime, the congregation is the place of communication and discussion where the hierarchy becomes an equal playing field. This connects to Banham’s idea of the invasion of technology, because the hierarchy becomes obsolete when technology interferes with the social workings of a home.