Hailed by some as the Eighth Wonder of the World when it opened in
1883, the Brooklyn Bridge is one of the world's most recognizable
and beloved icons. For over one hundred years it has excited and
fascinated with stories of ingenuity and heroism and it has been
endorsed as a flawless symbol of municipal improvement and a prime
emblem of American technological progress. Despite its impressive
physical presence, however, Brooklyn's grand old bridge is much
more than a testament of engineering and architectural achievement.
As Richard Haw shows in this first-of-its-kind cultural history,
the Brooklyn Bridge owes as much to the imagination of the public
as it does to the historical events and technical prowess that were
integral to its construction. Bringing together more than sixty
images of the bridge that, over the years, have graced postcards,
magazine covers and book jackets and appeared in advertisements,
cartoons, films and photographs, Haw traces the diverse and
sometimes jarring ways in which this majestic structure has been
received, adopted and interpreted as an American idea. Haw's
account is not a history of how the bridge was made, but rather of
what people have made of the Brooklyn Bridge--in film, music,
literature, art and politics--from its opening ceremonies to the
blackout of 2003. Classic accounts from such writers and artists as
H. G. Wells, Charles Reznikoff, Hart Crane, Lewis Mumford, Joseph
Pennell, Walker Evans and Georgia O'Keeffe, among many others,
present the bridge as a deserted, purely aestheticized romantic
ideal, while others, including Henry James, Joseph Stella, Yun Gee,
Ernest Poole, Alfred Kazin, Paul Auster and Don DeLillo, offer a
counter-narrativeas they question not only the role of the bridge
in American society, but its function as a profoundly public,
communal place. Also included are never-before-published
photographs by William Gedney and a discussion of Alexis Rockman's
provocative new mural "Manifest Destiny. Drawing on hundreds of
cultural artifacts, from the poignant, to the intellectual, to the
downright quirky, "The Brooklyn Bridge sheds new light on topics
such as ethnic and foreign responses to America, nationalism,
memory, parade culture, commemoration, popular culture, and
post-9/11 America icons. In the end, we realize that this
impressive span is as culturally remarkable today as it was
technologically and physically astounding in the nineteenth
century.
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