-Scenes of Pfaffs

https://www.lehigh.edu/~asj316/pfaffs/bohemians_as_they_are.png

In the years leading up to the Civil War, Walt Whitman spent most nights at Charles Pfaff’s beer cellar in downtown Manhattan. Pfaff’s was the meeting place for a group of writers, artists, and intellectuals who were attempting to recreate the bohemian culture of Paris’s Latin Quarter recently made popular by Henri Murger’s 1851 book Scénes de la vie de Bohème [Scenes of Bohemian Life]. What actually took place at Pfaff’s has long been a mystery, in large part because period accounts are incomplete and inconsistent. As this pair of illustrations from 1864 suggest, it was uncertain if the bohemians were hedonists or students of the arts—or if women had a meaningful role in the community or not.

Frank Bellew (1828 - 1888).
“Bohemians as they are—declared by one of their own number”.
Demorest’s New York Illustrated News.
February 6, 1864.           
 
Frank Bellew (1828 - 1888).
“As they were said to be by a knight of The Round Table.”
Demorest’s New York Illustrated News.
February 6, 1864.

Images courtesy of The Vault at Pfaffs.


Henri Murger (1822 - 1861).
Scénes de la vie de Bohème.
Paris: Calmann Lévy, 1861.

Lehigh University Catalog Record: https://asa.lib.lehigh.edu/Record/295382

A version of this text has been digitized and is available through the Internet Archive.

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