The Gold Coast

This week we read the first half of Harvey Warren Zorbaugh’s The Gold Coast and the Slum (1929) and I must admit, as first impressions go I was very confused. Initially I thought this was a book all about how one should act ‘properly’ at social functions and the way you can get your name on to the social list of who’s who, and couldn’t help but wonder why we were asked to read it. However, after reading more and following an illuminating class discussion I have come to really enjoy (and more importantly understand) what Zorbaugh has to say. 

You can tell Zorbaugh is a true student of the “Chicago School of Sociology” through his extensive use of in-depth personal interviews in his work to discover what it is like to live in The Gold Coast, ‘The World of Furnished Rooms’ and Tower Town. His emphasis on individual accounts gives this sociological study a much more personal feel and creates an interesting read. 

What I found most interesting, but at the same time most unsurprising, was the fact that nobody in the ‘community’ knew their neighbours. This was illustrated most clearly with the interview on page 75, when a man was looking for another man in a rooming house. When he spoke to the land lady he had to describe the appearance of the gentleman in question because she did not recognise his name, and then a week later the man just left without a forwarding address and although this shocked the interviewee, no one else appeared to be surprised. Although this lack of information is quite shocking, I cannot say I was too surprised, because as Zorbaugh wrote people were always coming and going in the boarding houses and rooming houses, and we have already discussed in class how there is a loss of community in the city. 

As we walked around the Gold Coast on our walking tour we viewed the McCormick mansion (or more accurately one of them), and this past week I visited the Cantigny grounds and museum in which I saw the McCormick family’s ‘summer home’ (although I would call it an American Palace). Visiting the lavish grounds and expensively decorated rooms in the house (one of the rooms was called the Gold Theatre because the original roof was actually covered in real gold!) I could really understand the sorts of money someone had to own in order to live in the Gold Cost where ladies had to get their hair dressed twice a week to keep up in society (55). As an aside I would highly recommend visiting Cantigny (doubly so because the tour of the house is free) to truly appreciate what Zorbaugh was talking about in the Gold Coast. 

It's alright for some! (Jenny Riley, 28th September2011)