This year’s contest, The Metropole’s ninth, saw entries that considered the topic of “Light” from widely ranging perspectives, and both of this year’s entrants drew praise from the judges for “using the looseness of the blog format to make connections that might be harder in a more rule-bound academic article.”

Alexandra Miller’s “Playing With Fire: Pyrotechnic New York Youth at the Turn of the Twentieth Century” examined generational conflicts over the use of fire and fireworks in public spaces, and made intriguing connections to present-day disputes over public space and the subjective nature of what constitutes a public nuisance. Judge Nancy Kwak remarked that “Miller writes a compelling piece on nineteenth-century boys’ claims to public space using fire of various kinds – bonfires, firecrackers, milk-can fires, you name it. I was struck by how important light and sound might be in ‘owning’ a city street, and how these practices emanated from particularly male understandings of ownership and belonging.”

Charlotte Leib’s “Healing Wounds of Light: Birds, Cities and the Fast, Slow, and Forgotten Violence of Artificial Illumination” considered the environmental harm of illumination and its attendant technologies, particularly on avian ecologies. Establishing connections between places as seemingly far-flung as New Jersey and Macquarie Island in the South Pacific, Leib produced an ambitious piece linking the historical and the contemporary, highlighting often overlooked past harms and issuing a galvanizing call to action in the present. As Judge Kara Schlichting noted, “Fixing urban over-illumination is doable and can have immediate results. In a moment when the environmental crisis feels to be accelerating and is already overwhelming, Leib uses her historical expertise to encourage contemporary action.” Judge LaDale Winling found in Leib’s piece a productive provocation: “When I talk about Samuel Insull’s work spreading electricity to rural areas and facilitating metropolitan expansion, I lightly touch on the environmental aspects, but I realize [after reading Leib’s piece] I could do much more and break beyond the traditional lines of scholarship.” Nancy Kwak also applauded “the urgency with which Leib argues for an active form of urban history.”

Judges praised the quality and rigor of both posts, and ultimately deemed Charlotte Leib this year’s winner. We thank this year’s judges, Nancy Kwak, Kara Schlichting, and LaDale Winling, for their enthusiastic participation and thoughtful comments. Congratulations, Charlotte, and thank you to Charlotte and Alexandra for your illuminating work!

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Featured image (at top): The Illumination, Chicago Day, World’s Columbian Exposition, Agricultural Building at Night, 1893. Photograph by William Henry Jackson. / Photograph courtesy The Field Museum Library.