Author: Charles Lauer

Charles Lauer (Response 5 of 5)

I get the impression that museums are named after one of two things: their content or their location. The “New York Transit Museum” has exhibits on the MTA and the subway system, the “Museum of Modern Art” is filled with contemporary art pieces, and the “Museum of Sex” is filled with… well, I think you get the point. The “Newark Museum”,  on the other hand, is called the “Newark Museum” purely because it’s located in Newark.

Now if you’ve ever been to the “Brooklyn Museum”, you’re more than aware that the institution falls into the latter category: it’s not a museum dedicated to the borough of Brooklyn, it’s simply located there. This came as no surprise to me when I visited, as I had been to the museum numerous times before. But this time, walking through the museum in order to satisfy a requirement for an NYC-centric class, I came to a realization:

Almost none of the museum even talked about the city.

Continue reading “Searching for Brooklyn in the Brooklyn Museum”

Charles Lauer (Response 4 out of 5)

The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family’s Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World Lucette Lagnado, 2007

If you were to go around the City interviewing people who, at one point or another, immigrated to this country, one of the more common types of stories you’d find is one motivated by financial reasons.

And that shouldn’t come as a surprise.

We’re used to hearing emigration stories about how people ran away from their country of origin due to a lack of resources there and the promise of opportunities here. We’re used to hearing stories about people chasing the “American Dream”, which was, arguably, our country’s greatest selling point at the time, and why foreign families would chase this “dream”, to many, is more than understandable.

It promised a life of financial security in a (relatively) financially secure country, while also pushing the belief that regardless of who you were and where you came from, as long as you were willing to put in the work, you could accomplish anything.

Continue reading “An Inversion of the American Dream”

By Charles Lauer (Response 3 out of 5)

The introduction to George Chauncey’s Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 debunks three widespread myths about gay male culture in turn-of-the-century New York: the myth of isolation, the myth of invisibility, and the myth of internalization.

The myth of internalization refers to the ultimately unsubstantiated belief that hostility towards the gay community halted the development of a vibrant gay subculture and forced many homosexual individuals to live secluded lives until the eventual gay liberation movement. The widespread nature of this fictitious belief is understandable. There were laws in place against almost every facet of homosexual culture. There were laws that criminalized gay men’s sexual behavior, laws that criminalized their attempts to coalesce, even laws that criminalized their culture and style. Plus, this atmosphere of discrimination made it easier for bigots, hate groups, and cops to harass gay men and simply get away with it.

Continue reading “Three Myths of Early 20th Century NYC Gay Culture”

By Charles Lauer

Reading #1 – Alan D. DeSantis, “Selling the American dream myth to black southerners: The Chicago defender and the great migration of 1915-1919,” June 6, 2009, Pg. 474-511

(Response 2 out of 5)

“… No rhetorical text was more pervasive, more overtly dedicated to encouraging the mass exodus of blacks out of the south, or more fervent in its promotion of northern virtues than was the black, weekly newspaper, the Chicago Defender.” (DeSantis, 476-477)

The Reconstruction Era had ended by 1877 and many promises from the time period still hadn’t materialized decades later. By 1915, done waiting for the proposals of yesteryear,  nearly 10% of the South’s African American population fled North-bound.  As a result, between 1910 and 1920, New York’s black population grew 66%, Chicago’s black contingency grew 148%, and Detroit’s small black community mushroomed to an almost unbelievable 611% increase. This mass movement north would later be labeled as the “Great Migration”.

When asked what were the motivating factors behind the “Great Migration” there seems to be a lot of self-evident answers.  The first being the prospect of better economic opportunities. It’s no secret that being Black up north, during the early 20th century, afforded you things you’d be lucky to find back South, like fair pay, increased employment options, and fair distribution of property.  Finding jobs, buying food and securing shelter, was simply easier once out of the South.

Continue reading ““The Chicago Defender”: The Great Migration’s Unsung Hero”

By: Charles Lauer

I was little apprehensive about going on the eating tour this past Tuesday. Partially because I was worried I might have to pay for everything (and I barely had enough money for the bus ride home) and partially because, until the beginning of this year, I had only eaten things that were certified Kosher.

In case you don’t know, eating Kosher is a traditional Jewish practice that imposes many rules and regulates on what you can and can’t eat. Some of these rules include: forbidding the eating of meat and milk simultaneously, banning a decent size of the animal kingdom from Jewish consumption, and requiring Jewish oversight in the cooking or baking of almost any food you could hope to eat.

Continue reading “Never Knew Beef Jerky Could Be So Soft”