My idea is to focus on class distinctions within the urban marketplaces from 1790-1860 (Chapter 6).
I think the video would be exciting and move quite well by contrasting the poor v. the wealthy in a few ways:
1. The lavish Oyster Cellars v. the all-you-can-eat oyster bars
2. The wealthy afforded nicer cuts of meat than the poor
3. The experience at the market (as far as even market assistants doing your shopping for you…if you were wealthy v. waking up at the crack of dawn, if you were poor, to try and get fruit that wasn’t rotten, i.e.)
Also, for the poster, I have designed a sketch idea of a giant map of Manhattan circa 1790-1860 era (maybe later in this time period) with a mouth biting out a piece of it. I like this idea because it will be clean, simple, and visual on the main front (while getting the point across that this is food in Manhattan’s history) and we can have facts and figures also.
The sketch looks great, and I know that this is thinking ahead, but what if we did something similar for the cover of the entire book? I for one think a student-produced cover would look awesome, and I’d love to collaborate with the artists in our classes! Plus, the idea of biting off a piece of Manhattan gets the main idea of the book across really well.
I don’t know if you have had a chance to read Gastropolis or Appetite City, but they both have interesting information on what your looking at (at least on oysters). One of them also talks about an interesting development of the oyster era: the lower and upper classes could be found mingling in their favorite oyster bar.
I think you can really make the video interesting! What are you planning on doing exactly? Will you have a narrator contrasting the rich and the poor during the time period? I think it would be kind of cool if you did a video like, “A day in the life of…” and you can have one for a poor new yorker, and one for a wealthy new yorker.
I like the idea of simple and clean for the poster. Although we are presenting tons of information, I think that getting the general idea out there is what’s going to capture the audience the most. Talking about the topic, is the most helpful I think. Rather than just standing around and reading.
And also, for the video the second you mentioned class distinctions, I immediately thought of operatic style. That would be interesting to see! Just a thought.