In the Watches of the Night: Life in the Nocturnal City, 1820-1930

In the Watches of the Night: Life in the Nocturnal City, 1820-1930.

Presenter - Professor Peter C. Baldwin, Department of History, University of Connecticut

Before skyscrapers and streetlights glowed at all hours, American cities fell into inky blackness with each setting of the sun. But over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, new technologies began to light up streets, sidewalks, buildings and public spaces. Baldwin will discuss the changing experience of the urban night over this period, exploring work, crime, transportation and leisure, moving through the gaslight era with the spread of modern police forces and the emergence of late-night entertainment to the era of electricity, when social campaigns sought to remove women and children from public areas at night. Professor Baldwin’s presentation, based on research for his book of the same name, is an illuminating review of a vital era in American urban history.

Peter Baldwin is a Professor of History at the University of Connecticut. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University and received both an M.A. and Ph.D. in history from Brown University. He came to the University of Connecticut in 2001 where he teaches classes in the History of Urban America, History of Childhood in America and America Since 1877. He has written numerous books and other publications on urban and social history and is currently studying the experience of Civil Defense blackouts in New York during WWII.

The event is sponsored by Torrington Savings Bank. It is free and will take place in the Carriage House at the Torrington Historical Society