Jennifer Reut, PhD | University of Virginia (original) (raw)
Mapping the Green Book by Jennifer Reut, PhD
Mapping the Green Book: Documenting the Landscape of African American Travel, 1944-1964 www... more Mapping the Green Book:
Documenting the Landscape of African American Travel, 1944-1964
www.mappingthegreenbook.tumblr.com
In Plessy v. Ferguson, commonly known as the “separate but equal” ruling, the Supreme Court established the tenets of segregation that would become the spatial expression of institutionalized racism for the next sixty years, informally known as Jim Crow laws. Through Plessy, segregation could now enforced on buses and trains as well as all the public facilities that served transportation needs. This racial proscription of space required African American travelers, who might be businessmen, musicians, teachers, tourists, school groups, or families, to navigate through a landscape of white tourist accommodations in order to find friendly businesses that would accept their patronage rather than turn them away after a humiliating exchange.
In 1936, Victor H. Green began producing what would become an annual publication, The Negro Motorist Green Book, later re-titled The Negro Traveler’s Green Book. The guide’s purpose was straightforward: The Green Book and other similar guides published listings, state by state, of hotels, restaurants, and other travel-related services that were friendly to African Americans. By providing dependable information about racial practices, the guides helped travelers navigate an always-shifting landscape, and claim a portion of the independence and mobility that automobiles had promised to white Americans.
Mapping the Green Book builds on this history of race, consumption, and travel by mapping the sites listed in African American travel guides in order to bring the less visible dynamics of segregation to the forefront of our understanding of postwar history. Mapped, the hotels and restaurants of these travel guides excavate a landscape of African American mobility that is defined by the conscriptions on leisure and physical movement during a period of profound transition, between World War II and the advent of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, which outlawed segregated facilities. While the guides offer a wealth of avenues for research, mapping is also a problematic practice, particularly when it is used to parse race and landscape.
News + Recent Projects by Jennifer Reut, PhD
Project Abstracts by Jennifer Reut, PhD
This dissertation examines the influence of architectural tourism on the reception of the histori... more This dissertation examines the influence of architectural tourism on the reception of the historic architectural landscapes of Europe after World War II. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, the project situates the damaged architectural landscape of Europe at the intersection of post-war American politics and economics, and analyses the way in which the promotion of architectural tourism to Americans became a platform for competition over cultural and political authority in the early years of the Cold War. Examining the dynamic between American travelers and European historic monuments during the era of the Marshall Plan reveals that that the phenomenon of American tourism in Europe shaped, both materially and in presentation, the development of the emerging Historic Preservation movement in the United States.
As contemporary preservation practice moves away from a single-building approach toward a more co... more As contemporary preservation practice moves away from a single-building approach toward a more comprehensive view of historic neighborhoods and landscapes, large-scale recreation sites, such as boardwalks and amusement parks, provide a model of the way buildings and streets work together to create a sense of place. The capacity of recreation sites to reflect changing attitudes toward leisure at a particular place and time is most apparent when the entire landscape that responded to the sites is embraced. Nearby hotels, motels, bars, restaurants, and streets provide collaborative activities and spaces. In addition to the primary site of recreation, theses factors must be considered in the evaluation of twentieth-century landscapes of leisure. The largely intact fabric of Wildwood, New Jersey, provides architectural historians with an opportunity to focus on several issues that are fundamental to identifying and describing twentieth-century recreation landscapes, including the influence of leisure sites on urban morphology, the importance of space for adult activities in close proximity, and the influence of changing post-war audiences on the architecture and urban form of recreation.
National Register Nomination by Jennifer Reut, PhD
Book Reviews by Jennifer Reut, PhD
Michigan Historical Review
Syllabi by Jennifer Reut, PhD
This course provides instruction in formulating academic problem statements, developing academic ... more This course provides instruction in formulating academic problem statements, developing academic arguments, organizing texts at the global and local levels, and controlling a range of prose styles. Students will write at least 25 pages over the semester. This section is built around the theme of "Postwar Culture: Perspectives on the 1950s," a focus that allows assignments to build on one another; students are thus freed to focus their energies on writing while learning how scholars ask, define, and solve academic questions.
This course provides instruction in formulating academic problem statements, developing academic ... more This course provides instruction in formulating academic problem statements, developing academic arguments, organizing texts at the global and local levels, and controlling a range of prose styles. Students will write at least 25 pages over the semester. This section is built around the theme of "Tourist Landscapes," a focus that allows the assignments to build on one another; students are thus freed to focus their energies on writing while learning how scholars ask, define, and solve academic questions.
Mapping the Green Book: Documenting the Landscape of African American Travel, 1944-1964 www... more Mapping the Green Book:
Documenting the Landscape of African American Travel, 1944-1964
www.mappingthegreenbook.tumblr.com
In Plessy v. Ferguson, commonly known as the “separate but equal” ruling, the Supreme Court established the tenets of segregation that would become the spatial expression of institutionalized racism for the next sixty years, informally known as Jim Crow laws. Through Plessy, segregation could now enforced on buses and trains as well as all the public facilities that served transportation needs. This racial proscription of space required African American travelers, who might be businessmen, musicians, teachers, tourists, school groups, or families, to navigate through a landscape of white tourist accommodations in order to find friendly businesses that would accept their patronage rather than turn them away after a humiliating exchange.
In 1936, Victor H. Green began producing what would become an annual publication, The Negro Motorist Green Book, later re-titled The Negro Traveler’s Green Book. The guide’s purpose was straightforward: The Green Book and other similar guides published listings, state by state, of hotels, restaurants, and other travel-related services that were friendly to African Americans. By providing dependable information about racial practices, the guides helped travelers navigate an always-shifting landscape, and claim a portion of the independence and mobility that automobiles had promised to white Americans.
Mapping the Green Book builds on this history of race, consumption, and travel by mapping the sites listed in African American travel guides in order to bring the less visible dynamics of segregation to the forefront of our understanding of postwar history. Mapped, the hotels and restaurants of these travel guides excavate a landscape of African American mobility that is defined by the conscriptions on leisure and physical movement during a period of profound transition, between World War II and the advent of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, which outlawed segregated facilities. While the guides offer a wealth of avenues for research, mapping is also a problematic practice, particularly when it is used to parse race and landscape.
This dissertation examines the influence of architectural tourism on the reception of the histori... more This dissertation examines the influence of architectural tourism on the reception of the historic architectural landscapes of Europe after World War II. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, the project situates the damaged architectural landscape of Europe at the intersection of post-war American politics and economics, and analyses the way in which the promotion of architectural tourism to Americans became a platform for competition over cultural and political authority in the early years of the Cold War. Examining the dynamic between American travelers and European historic monuments during the era of the Marshall Plan reveals that that the phenomenon of American tourism in Europe shaped, both materially and in presentation, the development of the emerging Historic Preservation movement in the United States.
As contemporary preservation practice moves away from a single-building approach toward a more co... more As contemporary preservation practice moves away from a single-building approach toward a more comprehensive view of historic neighborhoods and landscapes, large-scale recreation sites, such as boardwalks and amusement parks, provide a model of the way buildings and streets work together to create a sense of place. The capacity of recreation sites to reflect changing attitudes toward leisure at a particular place and time is most apparent when the entire landscape that responded to the sites is embraced. Nearby hotels, motels, bars, restaurants, and streets provide collaborative activities and spaces. In addition to the primary site of recreation, theses factors must be considered in the evaluation of twentieth-century landscapes of leisure. The largely intact fabric of Wildwood, New Jersey, provides architectural historians with an opportunity to focus on several issues that are fundamental to identifying and describing twentieth-century recreation landscapes, including the influence of leisure sites on urban morphology, the importance of space for adult activities in close proximity, and the influence of changing post-war audiences on the architecture and urban form of recreation.
This course provides instruction in formulating academic problem statements, developing academic ... more This course provides instruction in formulating academic problem statements, developing academic arguments, organizing texts at the global and local levels, and controlling a range of prose styles. Students will write at least 25 pages over the semester. This section is built around the theme of "Postwar Culture: Perspectives on the 1950s," a focus that allows assignments to build on one another; students are thus freed to focus their energies on writing while learning how scholars ask, define, and solve academic questions.
This course provides instruction in formulating academic problem statements, developing academic ... more This course provides instruction in formulating academic problem statements, developing academic arguments, organizing texts at the global and local levels, and controlling a range of prose styles. Students will write at least 25 pages over the semester. This section is built around the theme of "Tourist Landscapes," a focus that allows the assignments to build on one another; students are thus freed to focus their energies on writing while learning how scholars ask, define, and solve academic questions.