Inventing “Little Italy”

2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna R. Gabaccia
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Dime Novels ◽  
Police Reporting ◽  
Rapid Spread ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Methodologies ◽  
The Moment ◽  
New Yorkers ◽  
Little Italy

Digitized texts open new methodologies for explorations of the history of ideas. This paper locates the invention of the term “Little Italy” in New York in the 1880s and explores its rapid spread through print and popular culture from police reporting to fictional portraits of slumming and then into adolescent dime novels and early film representations. New Yorkers invented “Little Italy” but they long disagreed with urban tourists about its exact location. Still, from the moment of its origin, both visitors and natives of New York associated Little Italy with entertainment, spectacle, and the search for “safe danger.” While the location of Little Italy changed over time, such associations with pleasure and crime have persisted, even as the neighborhood emptied of its immigrant residents.

Louis Menand: The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America. 2001. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 546 pp.

2003 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 201-204
Author(s):  
Lance Kenney
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Cold War ◽  
William James ◽  
The United States ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Cultural Impact ◽  
Oliver Wendell Holmes ◽  
History Of ◽  
Charles Peirce ◽  
The Cold War

Louis Menand’s The Metaphysical Club, daunting in its choice of subject matter, closely aligns itself with the ancient sense of the word ‘history’ as a fluid, almost epic narrative. The Metaphysical Club of the title was a conversation group that met in Cambridge for a few months in 1872. Its membership roster listed some of the greatest intellectuals of the day: Charles Peirce, William James, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Chauncey Wright, amongst others. There is no record of the Club’s discussions or debates—in fact, the only direct reference to the Club is made by Peirce in a letter written thirty-five years later. Menand utilizes the Club as a jumping-off point for a sweeping analysis of the beliefs of the day. The subtitle of the book belies its true mission: ‘a story of ideas in America.’ Menand discusses the intellectual and social conditions that helped shape these men by the time they were members of the Club. He then shows the philosophical, political, and cultural impact that these men went on to have. In doing so, Menand traces a history of ideas in the United States from immediately prior to the Civil War to the beginning of the Cold War.

L. A. Beaurline and the Illusion of Completeness

PMLA ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 86 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-127
Author(s):  
Ejner J. Jensen ◽  
L. A. Beaurline
Keyword(s):  
Human Activities ◽  
Recent Article ◽  
Ben Jonson ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Overall Design ◽  
Literary Forms ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Moment

Scholarship, like most human activities, has its fashions. One mode very much in the ascendant at the moment is that which concerns itself with the relation between literary forms and other intellectual structures in a given era ; its method might be described as a combination of the history of ideas with a sort of formalism. L. A. Beaurline's recent article on Ben Jonson, in its design and strategy, illustrates this approach.1 The overall design of such a paper may be indicated as follows: the scholar describes a concept for which he claims wide intellectual acceptance; next, he shows how this concept may be traced in certain literary works. After this initial demonstration, his strategy consists primarily of moving between specific works of literature and other manifestations of the concept to show how each class illuminates the other and how each substantiates the other's status. The end of all this activity is not merely increased understanding of the temper of an age, nor is it merely a clearer view of the works under discussion; ideally, it is both.

In Pursuit of Privilege

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clifton Hood
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Cultural Economic ◽  
History Of ◽  
Urban Elite ◽  
Service Sectors ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
New Yorkers ◽  
Economic Foundations

A history that extends from the 1750s to the present, In Pursuit of Privilege recounts upper-class New Yorkers’ struggle to create a distinct world guarded against outsiders, even as economic growth and democratic opportunity enabled aspirants to gain entrance. Despite their efforts, New York City’s upper class has been drawn into the larger story of the city both through class conflict and through their role in building New York’s cultural and economic foundations. In Pursuit of Privilege describes the famous and infamous characters and events at the center of this extraordinary history, from the elite families and wealthy tycoons of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the Wall Street executives of today. From the start, upper-class New Yorkers have been open and aggressive in their behavior, keen on attaining prestige, power, and wealth. Clifton Hood sharpens this characterization by merging a history of the New York economy in the eighteenth century with the story of Wall Street’s emergence as an international financial center in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as the dominance of New York’s financial and service sectors in the 1980s. Bringing together several decades of upheaval and change, he shows that New York’s upper class did not rise exclusively from the Gilded Age but rather from a relentless pursuit of privilege, affecting not just the urban elite but the city’s entire cultural, economic, and political fabric.

scholarly journals EPIDEMIOLOGIC ASPECTS IN PREVENTION OF THE NEW CORONAVIRUS INFECTION (COVID-19): LITERATURE REVIEW

2021 ◽  
pp. 167-176
Author(s):  
T.M. Butaev ◽  
◽  
A.S. Tsirikhova ◽  
D.V. Kabaloeva ◽  
D.O. Kudukhova ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Clinical Course ◽  
Public Healthcare ◽  
Resident Physicians ◽  
Rapid Spread ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Coronavirus Infection ◽  
The Moment

At the end of 2019 the mankind had to face a new coronavirus infection with higher virulence which resulted in its rapid spread all over the world and in an ultimate pandemic. Initially a new virus which causes COVID-19 was called 2019-nCoV but it soon acquired its well-known name, SARS-CoV-2. We can positively state that this new coronavirus infec- tion will remain in the history of world public healthcare as a disease that caused a collapse in rendering medical aid. Un- doubtedly, this new coronavirus infection has changed customary lifestyle of the overall world population.This review can be considered problematic in its essence and focuses on examining contemporary trends in the official epidemiologic situation in the world regarding the new coronavirus infection (SARS-CoV-2). Having analyzed several for- eign and domestic documents, the authors revealed a necessity to enhance levels and quality of COVID-19 epidemiologic diagnostics. There is a suggestion being considered at the moment on including additional clinical and diagnostic activities aimed at preventing further spread of the new coronavirus infection. We should note that data on COVID-19-related mortal- ity and morbidity are renewed every day and every hour. Given that, it seems rather difficult to keep in line with the latest trends in COVID-19 prevention and epidemiologic diagnostics. However, the authors made an attempt to possibly collect all the latest data on epidemiological peculiarities related to clinical course of the new coronavirus infection. The authors have a hope that this review will be useful for epidemiologists when they detect new cases of the diseases as well as for lecturers at medical higher educational establishments when they train students and resident physicians.

scholarly journals Reviews

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-144
Author(s):  
Annabel Brett ◽  
Fabian Steininger ◽  
Tobias Adler-Bartels ◽  
Juan Pablo Scarfi ◽  
Jan Surman
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
International Relations ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
The Political ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
University Of Michigan ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
Ann Arbor ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of

Searching for the Political History, Archaeology, and the History of Ideas. Elías José Palti, An Archaeology of the Political: Regimes of Power from the Seventeenth Century to the Present (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), xx + 235 pp.Translation in International Relations and Ottoman-Turkish History. Einar Wigen, State of Translation: Turkey in Interlingual Relations (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2018), 276 + xvii pp.The Invention of Conservatism as a Modern Ideology. Amerigo Caruso, Nationalstaat als Telos? Der konservative Diskurs in Preußen und Sardinien-Piemont, 1840–1870 [Nation-State as Telos? Conservative discourse in Prussia and Sardinia-Piedmont, 1840–1870] Elitenwandel in der Moderne, Bd. 20 (Berlin: de Gruyter Ouldenberg, 2017), 516 pp.Reconsidering Friendship in the Face of Anarchy in International Society: Refreshing Insights from Conceptual History. Evgeny Roshchin, Friendship among Nations: History of a Concept (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017), 264 pp.On the Use of Foreign Words. Falko Schmieder and Georg Toepfer, eds., Wörter aus der Fremde: Begriffsgeschichte als Übersetzungsgeschichte [On the Use of Foreign Words: Conceptual History as History of Translation] (Berlin: Kulturverlag Kadmos, 2017), 328 pp.

Prankery

2021 ◽  
pp. 52-66
Author(s):  
Ralph Keyes
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
Water Tank ◽  
Military Vehicle ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Yorkers

The history of word-coining is rich with cases of neologisms created as part of pranks that went on to become part of our lexicon. The surname of Washington Irving’s faux historian of New York, Diedrich Knickerbocker, inspired a nickname for New Yorkers, and, shortened, to a type of underwear: knickers. Miscegenation was the title of a hoax booklet produced by two Democrats during the 1864 election to falsely portray Abraham Lincoln as an advocate of intermarriage. Maury Maverick’s popular neologism gobbledygook was apparently a prank-coinage based on a slang term for fellatio. In some cases neologisms created as part of a strategic hoax caught on. The name of a military vehicle known as a tank grew out of an elaborate British ruse to conceal its development by calling this vehicle a “water tank.” Publishers of dictionaries sometimes included faux neologisms called mountweazels, or nihilartikels, to smoke out plagiarizers.

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