Usable pasts

Abstract

In this working paper, I argue that caregiving is a public, physical matter, as well as a personal and social need. The principal example is a ten-acre site in North Oakland that the Ladies' Relief Society developed into an important node in the city's landscape of charity during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I review the history of the site and discuss present-day controversies concerning the restoration of the Studio One Arts Center to show that we have a "usable past" concerning caregiving. Attending to the changing landscapes of urban architecture gives a useful insight into the state of social and civic infrastructures designed to meet the needs of contemporary working families. On this large parcel of urban land, material culture — the architecture of the place – instantiates and celebrates public solutions to private needs. Taken together, the buildings in this setting meet a variety of needs associated with the life cycle of contemporary working families, drawing people from all walks of life to a place that was once segregated along racial lines. Nevertheless, the buildings reveal the contours of class, gender, race, and other social relations that continue to affect caregiving in the present day (as they did historically). The history of the site, particularly the story of Studio One, also sheds light on the causes and potential solutions to the much-touted decline of civic infrastructures in contemporary American society.