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A history of New York subway passengers as they navigated the system's constraints while striving for individuality, or at least a smooth ride.
When the subway first opened with much fanfare on October 27, 1904, New York became a city of underground passengers almost overnight. In this book, Stefan Höhne examines how the experiences of subway passengers in New York City were intertwined with cultural changes in urban mass society throughout the twentieth century. Höhne argues that underground transportation--which early passengers found both exhilarating and distressing--changed perceptions, interactions, and the organization of everyday life.
List of contents
Preface to the English Edition xi
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction 1
1 Utopian Passengers 21
2 Machines and the Masses 73
3 Techniques of the Senses 133
4 Lonely Robots 187
5 Crisis and Complaint 213
6 Limits of Containment 257
Notes 273
Bibliography 339
Index 367
About the author
Stefan Höhne is a a cultural historian of urbanization and technology and a Mercator Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI) in Essen, Germany.
Summary
A history of New York subway passengers as they navigated the system's constraints while striving for individuality, or at least a smooth ride.
When the subway first opened with much fanfare on October 27, 1904, New York became a city of underground passengers almost overnight. In this book, Stefan Höhne examines how the experiences of subway passengers in New York City were intertwined with cultural changes in urban mass society throughout the twentieth century. Höhne argues that underground transportation--which early passengers found both exhilarating and distressing--changed perceptions, interactions, and the organization of everyday life.
