Disposing of Modernity
eBook - PDF

Disposing of Modernity

The Archaeology of Garbage and Consumerism during Chicago's 1893 World's Fair

  1. 221 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Disposing of Modernity

The Archaeology of Garbage and Consumerism during Chicago's 1893 World's Fair

About this book

Through archaeological and archival research from sites associated with the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Disposing of Modernity explores the changing world of urban America at the turn of the twentieth century. Featuring excavations of trash deposited during the fair, Rebecca Graff's first-of-its-kind study reveals changing consumer patterns, notions of domesticity and progress, and anxieties about the modernization of society.

Graff examines artifacts, architecture, and written records from the 1893 fair's Ohio Building, which was used as a clubhouse for fairgoers in Jackson Park, and the Charnley-Persky House, an aesthetically modern city residence designed by Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. Many of the items she uncovers were products that first debuted at world's fairs, and materials such as mineral water bottles, cheese containers, dentures, and dinnerware illustrate how fairs created markets for new goods and influenced consumer practices. Graff discusses how the fair's ephemeral nature gave it transformative power in Chicago society, and she connects its accompanying "conspicuous disposal" habits to today's waste disposal regimes. Reflecting on the planning of the Obama Presidential Center at the site of the Chicago World's Fair, she draws attention to the ways the historical trends documented here continue in the present.

Published in cooperation with the Society for Historical Archaeology

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Yes, you can access Disposing of Modernity by Rebecca S. Graff in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & North American History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. DISPOSING OF MODERNITY
  3. Title
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. CONTENTS
  7. List of Figures
  8. List of Tables
  9. Acknowledgments
  10. 1. Introduction: The Vanishing Fair and the Enduring Home
  11. 2. Situating the Sites in Chicago: Elite Networks and Archaeology
  12. 3. Temporalities as Ideologies
  13. 4. Domesticity and Social Life
  14. 5. Consumption and Conspicuous Disposal
  15. 6. Conclusion: At the Center of the World, Again
  16. References
  17. Index