Rites of passage: Youthful walking and the rhythms of the city, c.1850–1914

Sleight takes to the bustling streets of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century city to explore young people’s access to, and use of, the outdoor urban realm. Primary and secondary archival evidence from London, New York and Melbourne yields both hard data and well-informed speculations. Sleight argues that, though often marginalized in contemporary cities, the sheer variety and prevalence of young people’s walking practices shows the centrality of these individuals to nineteenth- and early twentieth-century city life. In an era of burgeoning mass transit and the take-up of bicycles, the main mode of movement was still on foot. As Sleight makes clear, young city walkers have long dwelt in a world of scattered horizons contingent upon age, gender, class and ethnicity.