Lessons from the Past: Sicilian Mafiosi in New York City and Rosario, circa 1880–1940

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico Varese
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Social Stigma ◽  
American City ◽  
North American City ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of

From the mid-nineteenth century, many Sicilians, including members of the mafia, were on the move. After sketching the contours of the mafia in Sicily in the nineteenth century, this chapter outlines the parallel history of Italian migration and mafia activities in New York City and Rosario, Argentina, and offers an analytic account of the diverging outcomes. Only in the North American city did a mafia that resembled the Sicilian one emerge. The Prohibition provided an enormous boost to both the personnel and power of Italian organized crime. The risk of punishment was low, the gains to be made were enormous, and there was no social stigma attached to this trade.

scholarly journals Die [Fill in the Blank] Scum

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 92-93
Author(s):  
Annie Powers
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
York City ◽  
Silicon Valley ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of

A brief history of the phrase “Die Techie Scum,” which has been appeared as graffiti on San Francisco walls, handed out on postcards, printed on shirts, and yelled at commuters to Silicon Valley. The die [fill in the blank] scum construction has been used frequently in the past thirty years, most often when issues of gentrification are at play, such as “Die Yuppie Scum,” used in protests in New York City in the 1980s.

“A Great Injustice”: Urban Capitalism and the Limits of Freedom in Nineteenth-Century New York City

2021 ◽  
pp. 009614422097611
Author(s):  
Alexander Manevitz
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
African American ◽  
York City ◽  
Early History ◽  
American City ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Central Park ◽  
American Capitalism ◽  
History Of

Seneca Village was the largest African American landowning community in New York City until it was destroyed to build Central Park. Although it has largely been overlooked, Seneca Village reframes the early history of American capitalism at the intersection of race, freedom, and urban development, diversifying the narrative to place African American city-dwellers as actors at the center of the narrative. Real estate capitalism made Seneca Village possible, with residents using it as a means to social, political, and economic advancement, but it also destroyed Seneca Village. That paradox reveals how an emerging American urban commercial capitalism consolidated power in places Seneca Villagers could not access even when they tried. These men and women played critical, yet unacknowledged, roles as the whole nation struggled to navigate multiple visions of capitalism, their inherent inequalities, and their implications for the future.

Theorizing Palimpsests

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-208
Author(s):  
Aslı Iğsız
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Metropolitan Museum ◽  
Metropolitan Museum Of Art ◽  
The Past ◽  
Structural Problems ◽  
Structural Nature ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many

Abstract How do we connect the past with the present to address structural problems? While the pursuit of a cause-and-effect past flowing into the present contributes to the understanding of an event or object, how that past is recalled, represented, related, disconnected, suppressed, and/or obfuscated in any given present matters. This article proposes palimpsests as a critical tool for analyzing the many histories of the present. To illustrate this theoretical practice, the article offers a palimpsestic reading of a museumized object, the Nubian Temple of Dendur, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The structural nature of a history of the present comes into view only when one is able to discern multiple histories, presents, categories, and objects layered together within the palimpsest of history.

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