Preliminary Programme

Choice is central to understanding what amusement and recreation were in Georgian Britain. This paper examines how consumers made choices about what activities to pursue in London, 1750-1820. Using diaries, letters, and trial records to examine patterns of choice, I will consider how people consumed both commercial and non-commercial activities. By looking at how individuals moved around the metropolis looking for amusement—using both public and private spaces—we can better understand how the distribution of amenities was shaped by individuals’ mental maps of the city and the mobility of people within the metropolis. By looking in detail at patterns of spending we can also develop a better understanding of which types of people went to what types of venues and the ways that social networks cut across the social groupings such as class and sort scholars typically use to understand behaviour and motivation. This analysis re-organizes our understanding of geographical and social divisions within London. A reassessment of consumer choice also sheds new light on entrepreneurs’ strategies. It allows for new ways of thinking about commercialization and change and shows how different venues appealed to different sorts of publics. (Show less)

With this paper, I will try to explain the eruption of attractions in the urban life of Ghent anno 1895 in relation with the new economic situation and the adapted mental condition. In Ghent anno 1895 so-called ‘attractions’ were daily displayed at several spots in the city: in so-called café-concerts, stone circuses or variety theatres. Short ‘acts’ by gymnasts, clowns, magicians, deformed people etc. were displayed in urban entertainment places.

‘Attractions’ were very popular and even funded by the city council as the memorandum of association of the society ‘Gand-Attractions’ in 1895 illustrates. Following the example of the ‘Bruxelles-Attractions’, the mission statement of the new society was to improve the economy of the retail trade in the city of Ghent. Attracting foreigners to the city of Ghent by offering them a pleasant stay would create a higher amount of customers/consumers. The society ‘Gand-Attractions’ organised activities such as attractive concerts and parades but also for example a contest of the most attractive shopping window in the city.

Attracting the attention of every potential customer/consumer was part of the cultural logic of capitalism. This mechanism created a new social psychic field saturated with sensory input that contrasted with the more smoothly flowing rhythm of premodern social life, as witnessed by Georg Simmel in ‘Die Großstädte und das Geistesleben’ (1903).

The capitalist modernity results in a disciplinary regime of attentiveness, according to visual culture historian Jonathan Crary in ‘Suspension of perception: attention, spectacle and modern culture’ (2001, p. 13). Primary source material of urban attractions and related societies like ‘Gand-Attraction’ illustrate in my opinion this new sensory experience of attentiveness. (Show less)

The notion of “copy & paste”-culture used in the current debates on internet piracy and plagiarism – meant to describe a rather careless handling of property rights in electronic media – can retrospectively also designate historical cultural phenomena where the artful combination of successful aesthetic patterns outranges the individual creativity of an author.
In the context of a larger research project on the aesthetics of urban live entertainments in Europe in the period of their emergence and success as a specific cultural and social space, closely interlinked with the history of industrial revolution and urbanisation, the question how certain aesthetic choices, certain characters and styles, typical narrations and strategies to create suspense for example, made their way from one production to the next, from one genre to the other, from city to city is a very significant one.
In commercial popular culture characterized by a high quantity of production and the search for box office successes, individual property rights were only poorly protected – the frequently collective way of working didn’t fit into early, only rudimentary copyright legislation very focused on a single authorship.
This paper will follow the itineraries of some aesthetic patterns and concrete characters throughout different genres and localisations, trying to consider as well the expectations of the public between innovative and well-known. It will raise questions about specific modes of production and reception in entertainment culture – not identical with the sphere of high culture. (Show less)

This paper focuses on the strategies adopted by itinerant performers to lure an audience to their shows during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The long nineteenth century (1750-1914) was a period with profound social transformations: urbanization, increasing commercialization and the development of new urban leisure facilities deeply altering the entertainment sector. Itinerant entertainers had to compete with new, sedentary and increasingly commercialised forms of entertainment like café-chantants, music halls, puppet and movie theatres, which emerged in cities during the nineteenth century. The development of new media fostered new modes of publicity, creating commercial opportunities for itinerant entertainers. The increased use of advertisements, flyers and posters and branding ‘great names’ to establish fame are all indications of commercial strategies. The mapping of the variety of strategies to attract an audience, gives insight in the commercial techniques and promotional skills of itinerant entertainers.

Apart from their common feature of performing live, public performances on a mobile trajectory, there is a great social and cultural diversity among itinerant entertainers. They differ considerably in terms of talents and income strategies used. It is the expectation of my research that they also varied in exploiting commercial techniques and promotional skills. This paper examines how and why itinerant entertainers differed in terms of strategies to attract spectators, which commercial techniques proved to be most successful and how these commercial strategies altered in the course of the long nineteenth century? (Show less)

Cities are framed by the auditory as they are by the visual while at the same time the official frame of the city was challenged by a whole range of sounds and sights. This paper explores the aural city in the late nineteenth century, which was a time of expansion and industrialisation for both capitals and second cities. Manchester falls in the latter category and can also be seen as emblematic as it was the first ‘shock city’ of the Industrial Revolution. The people who moved to cities such as Manchester brought with them a culture of their own, and music was a part of it. These different musical cultures integrated on the street and this influenced the movement of people. For some the songs and music making were a joyous event and provided a break from everyday working life. For others the sounds of the street were a nuisance as they penetrated their work- and home-life.
Focusing on the intersection of street sounds as music and noise this paper investigates where the music was being made as well as who was listening. The question of where allows me to investigate how sounds influenced the movement of people through the city street. The question of who allows me to examine the role of the production of sound on the political and cultural control of the street. (Show less)