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Secrecy and the city, 1870–1939

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2011

David Vincent
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Abstract

This paper discusses the treatment of space and social interaction in the emerging modern city, and argues that the notion of ‘reserve’ developed by Georg Simmel blurs the key polarity between secrecy and privacy. Case histories of home visiting and gossip are used to examine how the boundaries between the two forms of blocked communication were constructed and negotiated in the late nineteenth and early twentiethcentury British city. There was no unilinear transition from open to closed personal contacts, but rather a series of conflicts and anxieties generated by issues of class and political authority. The contingent distinction between privacy and secrecy revolved around the question of trust, which was in turn a function of domestic and corporate prosperity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , December 1995 , pp. 341 - 359
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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