| This dissertation examines the tensions between the public and private domains in nineteenth century urban space through a close study of the development of street railways in Brooklyn and New York between 1850 and 1896.;According to all legal precedents, urban streets at this time were unquestionably public property, meaning that they belonged to everyone and no one. Private individuals were thus prohibited from infringing upon this public space on behalf of their personal interests. Street railway corporations, however, were the distinct exception to this rule.;These corporations, created to facilitate the aggregation of capital necessary for meeting public demands generated by urbanization and industrialization, had uniquely public mandate and effect. Although private business enterprises, street railways were granted "franchises," special privileges to engage in activities denied non-corporate entities, to lay permanent rails on the public streets to which they had exclusive use. The street railways, therefore, provoked an interesting social and economic conundrum: On the one hand, the grant under which they operated obligated railways to prioritize the needs and convenience of the public. On the other hand, the corporate form of the enterprise was designed to privilege investors and shareholders, i.e. private individuals. Although these were not necessarily mutually exclusive ends, they often clashed at decisive points, such as street railway workers' strikes, where public obligation conflicted with private interest.;This study examines street railways across three primary axes and shows that interrelation between the private corporate structure of street railways and its public implications. First, it examines the changes in the legal structures that defined corporate identity and power, particularly as expressed in statute and case law, which in turn allowed street railway corporations to commodify public streets for their own, rather than the public's, interest. Second, the study examines the implications of laying permanent, privately-owned rails onto public streets for pedestrians and other street users. Efforts to exclude or segregate African Americans in the early formation of street railway systems, and the responses of African Americans themselves, made visible the shifting contours of "the public" as defined in relation to street railways' obligations of public service. The laying of rails also destabilized long-established social and cultural practices related to the use of public space, both inside and outside of streetcars. Inside the cars, this destabilization was manifested primarily the mixing of cultures and classes at close quarters and concomitant changing notions of etiquette and deference to gender differences. Outside, changes were felt most acutely through the increasing presence of accidents wrought by introducing a new technology onto public space. As a third and final axis, this dissertation closely examines labor regime of street railway workers, who were widely viewed to be among the most oppressed labor force in the nineteenth century urban environment. Although private servants, they were often expected to function in the public interest, even when it was against their own. Through a combination of legal, business, social, and labor history, therefore, this dissertation uses the development of the street railway industry in Brooklyn and New York to provide a new understanding of the irrevocable transformation undergone in the public domain of nineteenth century urban social life. |
