The “Men” of the Crowd

Mobs, Armies and Public Space in Classic American Literature

Abstract

The meaning of crowds in US culture has always been controversial, and the disruptive potential they might have has generally been considered dangerous. Historically, the few large manifestations of this latent power and its impact on the public space trace back to the revolutionary years: in 1776, a crowd of New Yorkers tore down the statue of George III. They were not only erasing a symbol of oppression, but also modifying the shape of the city, because the relationship between people and the space they inhabit is not unequivocal: the agency of mobs determines tangible effects on space, defining public space in many ways through its massive occupation. The article investigates the military nature of crowds portrayed in classic American literature, by analyzing crowd scenes in Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” (1819), Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “My Kinsman, Major Molineaux” (1832), Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Man of the Crowd” (1840), and Herman Melville’s Israel Potter (1855).