The Streets of the late 19th Century

       19th century culture is something we can only gain insight to through art. Since the oldest living person on the planet was born in 1900, we are officially out of people that were able to experience any part of that century. However, because George Bellows was born in 1882 and painted Both Members of This Club in 1909, we can count this piece as a primary source of the time period. Maggie, Girl of the Streets can also be grouped in this category because it was published in 1892. Unlike Bellows, Stephen Crane did not live a tough life in the harsh streets of NYC, and could only

Both Members of This Club - George Bellows (1909)

 pretend to know the inner struggle of city life.   So one obvious connection that students will be able to draw is that both of these works can be considered primary sources, and come from the same time period. They would have to dig a little deeper than surface value, however, to find more than just time period in common.
      After doing a little bit of research on Bellows, and the painting itself, I found that this painting was inspired by the time in New York when a corrupt power had made public boxing illegal, closing it to any fighter that couldn't gain access. Over 15 years before this was painted, the very opening scene of Maggie is a fight between children in an alley. I would like for my students   to be able to draw the connections between what class these boxers probably come out of, and the class of the "urchins" we see brawling in the book. The violent tendencies portrayed by the lower class in the novel, and how far they escalated, were probably what caused boxing to be banned in the first place. So unless fighters were sanctioned by the same, or two different, athletic facilities they would not be allowed to fight. This is where the phrase "both members of this club" comes from. When two fighters from the same athletic facility participated in a bout, the announcer would say this phrase to indicate the sanction of the fight. I would also like for my students to draw this similarity from the context research. Children would fight in the streets of New York, but it was mostly overlooked by the public because they appeared to be "members of the same club." But only the parents would know the difference between the urchins (the orphans) and their own children, thus breaking up the fight. It is also important to realize that the parental fighting was viewed as sanctioned because they were also members of the same team.
          I think it would also be important for students to think about whats going on with the crowd around the boxers in the painting. The expressions on the faces of the fight watchers are almost sadistic in their enjoyment. Aside from the fighters, what I notice most about the painting is the one cluster of bright fans beneath the black fighter. The faces, and the posture, of anticipation is reminiscent of the blood-lust experienced in the days of the gladiators. I would want my students to understand these fighting incidents as a way to claim territory and exercise dominance. But as it was for the gladiators and the boxers, fights are only sanctioned for the benefits of others. When the children fight for themselves, it is broken up, but the parents are allowed to keep going because they are "members of the same club."