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  • In the Watches of the Night: Life in the Nocturnal City, 1820–1930 by Peter C. Baldwin
  • Eric J. Morser (bio)
Peter C. Baldwin In the Watches of the Night: Life in the Nocturnal City, 1820–1930 Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. 296 pages, 16 halftone illustrations. ISBN 978-0-226-03602-1, $40.00 HB

In this intriguing new book, Peter C. Baldwin takes readers on a historical tour of a place that even many modern-day Americans remain apprehensive about visiting: the shadowy streets and alleys of urban America after dark. Baldwin begins his story in the 1780s, when nighttime streets were black as pitch and almost exclusively occupied by men involved in drinking and illicit activities. With this snapshot of the ominous urban night in mind, he spends the bulk of his account exploring the impact of artificial lighting on the nation’s cities. Beginning in the 1820s, artificial lights promised to frighten off criminals and make city avenues safe at night. Gaslight was not without its problems, however. City folk constantly complained that the new lights were too dim. They wondered why municipal officials had placed them so haphazardly around town. And they understood that selective light [End Page 141] placement could have a real impact on some hotels, theaters, and stores at the expense of others. The system, moreover, seemed woefully unsuited to expanding urban meccas. By the 1870s people increasingly feared that blackouts would plunge their neighborhoods into chaos, and, much to the chagrin of many reform-minded Americans, artificial lights did not always make cities more secure and honest places.

Public lighting did change urban life. Gas lamps, for example, allowed factories to expand their production hours and forced many employees to take on late-night shifts. Artificial illumination also made it easier for hardworking urbanites to enjoy new leisure activities after nightfall, from prayer meetings and public lectures to shopping and theater openings. Moral scolds, however, believed that active night lives could lead to debauchery and imperil the bodies and souls of wayward residents, particularly women who tried to navigate a gendered darkness that often favored men. In some cases they had good reason to fear. Improved lighting did pave the way for urban dance halls that sometimes aroused tender young folks. It did encourage people to drink themselves into a stupor in seedy taverns, consort with prostitutes, and gamble away their wages after hours. Any promise of making cities moral seemed to go up in smoke as eager residents explored the night.

Gas did not change cities only by enabling new forms of nocturnal recreation. Artificial lighting also created new nighttime jobs. Saloonkeepers and waiters served hungry and thirsty customers who ventured out from well-lit homes. Actors found work entertaining theater patrons who enjoyed a good show after a hard day’s labor. Privy cleaners and broom patrols kept cities clean (or at least cleaner than they had been). In some cases night work opened cities to women and children in ways that could not have been imagined before street lamps. Women found work in bakeries, while newsboys kept neighbors informed about breaking events after the sun set. Cities also continued to pulse after dark in other ways. Streetcars ran almost nonstop through the night, while iron and steel mills continued to ratchet up production and hire more and more workers to operate machinery. Gaslight kept New York and other big cities awake well past dusk.

In the 1880s urban evenings promised to change once again when cities began to install electric lights that brought even more clarity to the night. Electrical illumination had real advantages over gas lighting. Early arc lights shone so brightly that people could often recognize familiar faces, read news-print, and make out colors in a way not possible in the decades before. Incandescent lights were even better. Unlike arc lights, they did not pierce the eyes of pedestrians nor require as much maintenance. Many urban inhabitants held out hope that brighter lights would help purify immoral behavior. Others, particularly middle-class urbanites, became intrigued by the movie palaces, dance halls, saloons, and red-light districts that dotted cityscapes by century’s...

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