Stadt und Vergnügen: Einführung

Abstract

Vaudeville and cinema, fun fairs and exhibitions, music, dance, drinks and food – the many ways of public and popular pleasure are essential to the modern city, at least since the late 1800s. This issue explores their relations by asking for social-historical implications and by focusing on a set of German towns and cities from the 1880s to the 1980s. It is based on the proposition that pleasure culture never simply follows societal customs, political practices, or technical innovations, but takes part in their shaping actively. Pleasure culture matters. Hence, the seven case studies assembled here dwell on different elements and phases of popular pleasure culture and range from dancing maids to mighty entrepreneurs, but eventually they all show how deeply popular pleasures fostered processes of city-making in the 20th century.