IX. HUMAN NATURE AND CITY LIFE
The city is remaking human nature and each city is producing its own type of personality. These influences of city life are of prime interest to the sociologist. The materials bearing on this question are not primarily those collected by the scientist, but by the artist. It requires insight and imagination to perceive and to describe these deep-seated changes which are being wrought in the nature of man himself.
1. The division of labor and the fine specialization of occupations and professions that is so distinctly characteristic of city life has brought into existence a new mode of thought and new habits and attitudes which have transformed man in a few generations. The city man tends to think less in terms of locality than he does in terms of occupation. In a sense he has become an adjunct of the machine which he operates and the tools he uses. His interests are organized around his occupation, and his status and mode of life is determined by it.
Bahre, Walter. Meine Klienten. Vol. XLII in “Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
Specialization and professional types and classes as seen from a lawyer’s office. (IX, 4.)
Benario, Leo. Die Wucherer und ihre Opfer, Vol. XXXVIII in “Grossstadt Dokumente.” (IX, 3, 4.)
The profession of money-lending in the large city and the behavior patterns that this professional group exhibits. (IX, 3, 4.)
Burke, Thomas. The London Spy: A Book of Town Travels (New York, 1922). (II, 3; V, 1, 2, 3; IX.)
Donovan, Frances. The Woman Who Waits (Boston, 1920).
The impressions and occupational experiences of a waitress in Chicago. (IX, 2, 3.)
Hammond, J. L., and Barbara. The Skilled Labourer, 1760–1832 (London, 1919).
The emergence of occupational types in the course of industrial evolution. (III, 4; IV, 6.)
Hammond, J. L., and Barbara. The Town Labourer, 1760–1832: The New Civilization (London, 1917). (II, 3; III, 4; IV, 6; IX, 2, 3; X, 2.)
Hyan, Hans. Schwere Jungen, Vol. XXVIII in “Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
Describes the life of an occupational group—the pugilists—in the large city (Berlin). (V, 1, 3; VI, 6; IX, 4.)
Mayhew, Henry. London Labour and London Poor: A Cyclopaedia of the Condition and Earnings of Those That Will Work, Those That Cannot Work, and Those That Will Not Work (London, 1861–62), 4 vols.
A description of occupational types created by city specialization. (II, 3; VII, 5; IX, 4.)
Noack, Victor. Was ein Berliner Musikant erlebte, Vol. XIX in “Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
The experiences of a Berlin musician in his occupational life. Showing the evolution of an occupational type, with many highly specialized subtypes. (IX; X, 2.)
Roe, Clifford. Panders and Their White Slaves (New York and Chicago, 1910). (V, 1; VII, 5.)
Rowntree, B. Seebohm, and Lasker, Bruno. Unemployment: A Social Study (London, 1911).
Simkhovitch, Mary K. The City Worker’s World in America (New York, 1917). (V, 1, 2, 3; VI, 10; VII, 2, 5.)
Solenberger, Alice W. One Thousand Homeless Men: A Study of Original Records (New York, 1914).
What a social agency’s records reveal about occupational careers in the city. (VI, 4; VII, 4, 5; VIII, 1.)
Veblen, Thorstein. The Instinct of Workmanship, and the State of the Industrial Arts (New York, 1914).
Showing the development of the specialization of labor and its effect on human behavior. (IX, 2.)
Werthauer, Johannes. Berliner Schwindel, Vol. XXI in “Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
Showing the extent to which fraud has become a technical profession. (VII, 5; IX, 2, 4.)
Weidner, Albert. Aus den Tiefen der Berliner Arbeiterbewegung, Vol. IX, in “Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
The significance of the labor movement in the large city. (V, 1, 4; VII, 5; IX, 2, 3, 4.)
2. There is a city mentality which is clearly differentiated from the rural mind. The city man thinks in mechanistic terms, in rational terms, while the rustic thinks in naturalistic, magical terms. Not only does this difference exist between city and country, it exists also between city and city, and between one area of the city and another. Each city and each part of the city furnishes a distinct social world to its inhabitants, which they incorporate in their personality whether they will or no.
Carleton, Will. City Ballads, City Festivals, and City Legends (London, 1907). (X, 2.)
Grant, James. Lights and Shadows of London Life (London, 1842).
Giving a view of the picturesque aspects of the modern city.
——. The Great Metropolis (London, 1836). (III, 5; IV, 6; V, 3; IX.)
Marpillero, G. “Saggio di psicologia dell’urbanismo,” Revista Italiana di Sociologia, XII (1908), 599–626.
Morgan, Anna. My Chicago (Chicago, 1918).
A city from the standpoint of the social aristocracy. (V, 3.)
Seiler, C. Linn. City Values. “An Analysis of the Social Status and Possibilities of American City Life” (University of Pennsylvania, Ph.D. Thesis, 1912).
Simmel, G. Die Grossstädte und das Geistesleben, in “Die Grossstadt” (Dresden, 1903).
The most important single article on the city from the sociological standpoint.
Sombart, Werner. The Jews and Modern Capitalism, translated from the German by M. Epstein (London and New York, 1913).
The best study of a city people and the influence of city life on their mentality. (IX, 1, 4; X, 3.)
Spengler, Oswald. Der Untergang des Abendlandes: Umrisse einer Morphologie der Weltgeschichte, Vol. II (München, 1922), chap. II, “Städte und Völker,” pp. 100–224. (II; VII, 1, 5; IX, 1.)
Winter, Max. Das Goldene Wiener Herz, Vol. XI in “Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
A study of the financial nexus in city life. (IX, 4.)
Woolston, H. “The Urban Habit of Mind,” Amer. Jour. Sociol., XVII, 602 ff.
3. The medium through which man is influenced and modified in the city is the intricate system of communication. The urban system of communication takes on a special form. It is not typically the primary, but the secondary, contact that it produces. The public opinion that is built up in the city and the morale and ésprit de corps growing out of it relies on such typical media as the newspaper rather than the gossip monger; the telephone and the mails rather than the town meeting. The characteristic urban social unit is the occupational group rather than the geographical area.
Chicago Commission on Race Relations. The Negro in Chicago (Chicago, 1922).
A study growing out of the Chicago race riots, showing the growth of public opinion and the behavior of crowds and mobs in the city. (V, 1, 3; VII, 2.)
Follett, Mary P. The New State: Group Organization the Solution of Popular Government (New York, 1918).
Analyzes the conditions under which public opinion of today is formed and suggests local organization as a possible way out. (V, 3; VII, 5; IX, 1.)
Howe, Frederic C. “The City as a Socializing Agency,” Amer. Jour. Sociol., XVII, 509 ff. (VII, 5.)
——. The City: The Hope of Democracy (New York, 1905).
Has chapters on the new city civilization, the causes of political corruption, and gives a general description of city life, showing in particular the problems of public opinion it creates. (V; VI; VII, 1, 2.)
Park, Robert E. “The Immigrant Community and the Immigrant Press,” American Review, III (March-April, 1925), 143–52. (V, 3.)
Triton (pseudonym). Der Hamburger “Junge Mann,” Vol. XXXIX in “Grossstadt Dokumente.”
Shows the effect of the city and the contacts it makes possible on the development of an ésprit de corps and a type. In this case the young office clerks of Hamburg are shown to be a product of the international character of the port of Hamburg. (IV, 6; IX, 1, 2, 4.)
4. The final product of the city environment is found in the new types of personality which it engenders. Here the latent energies and capacities of individuals find expression and locate themselves within the range of a favorable milieu. This possibility of segregating one’s self from the crowd develops and accentuates what there is of individuality in the human personality. The city gives an opportunity to men to practice their specialty vocationally and develop it to the utmost degree. It provides also the stimulus and the conditions which tend to bring out those temperamental and psychological qualities within the individual through the multiple behavior patterns which it tolerates.
Hammer, Wilhelm. Zehn Lebenslaufe Berliner Kontrollmädchen, Vol. XVIII in “Grossstadt Dokumente.”
The life-history of ten Berlin prostitutes with a suggested classification of types. (VI, 4; IX, 1.)
Deutsch-German, Alfred (pseudonym). Wiener Mädel, Vol. XVII in “Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
An intimate study of the types of girls to be found in the large city. (IX, 2, 3.)
Flagg, James M. City People. A Book of Illustrations (New York, 1909).
Freimark, Hans. Moderne Geistesbeschwörer und Wahrheitssucher, Vol. XXXVI in “Grossstadt Dokumente” (Berlin, 1905).
Fortune-tellers and persons in the “occult fields” in the modern city. A study of magical vestiges in city mentality. (IX, 1, 2.)
Hapgood, Hutchins. Types from City Streets (New York, 1910).
——. The Spirit of the Ghetto (New York and London, 1909).
An intimate study of life in the New York Jewish quarter with a graphic presentation of personality types. (V, 2.)
Hecht, Ben. A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago (Chicago, 1922).
Journalistic sketches of Chicago scenes, experiences, and types. (V, 3; IX.)
Mackenzie, C. “City People,” McClure’s, XLVII (August, 1916), 22.
Markey, Gene. Men About Town: A Book of Fifty-eight Caricatures (Chicago, 1924).
Mensch, Ella (pseudonym). Bilderstürmer in der Berliner Frauenbewegung.
Types found in the feminist movement of Berlin. (IX, 2, 3.)