Figures of Misery: The Berlin Housing Survey (1901-1920) as an Epistemic Project
Research output: Contribution to journal › Research article › Contributed › peer-review
Contributors
Abstract
From 1901 until 1920, Albert Kohn, director of the Berlin insurance organization Allgemeine Ortskrankenkasse, conducted a systematic housing survey of defective apartments. The work included statistics, reports, and photographs. I situate the project within the context of social surveys in the years around 1900. In the larger history of housing surveys, Kohn’s project was one of the first that amalgamated diverse media and data visualizations. The original publication exhibits a crucial connection between statistics, reports, and apartment photographs. I will show that both reports and photographs epistemically hinged on numerical data gained from a questionnaire. The assemblage of shocking figures in statistics, reports, and photographs was intended to make visible an epistemic object: the misery of the lower classes. Hence, Kohn’s depictions of urban misery did not depend on a specific form of representation, but rather on the consistency between descriptive registers.
Details
Original language | English |
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Number of pages | 24 |
Journal | Journal of Urban History |
Volume | 50 |
Issue number | 4 |
Publication status | Published - 9 Jun 2022 |
Peer-reviewed | Yes |
Externally published | Yes |
External IDs
Scopus | 85131732876 |
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Mendeley | 6b29cba0-fb2d-3cdf-a87f-7ee54504ab3b |
Keywords
Research priority areas of TU Dresden
DFG Classification of Subject Areas according to Review Boards
Subject groups, research areas, subject areas according to Destatis
Sustainable Development Goals
Keywords
- Figures, housing, Housing conditions, numbers, data visualisation, narrative, Berlin, Hygiene, misery, surveys, data visualization, photography