History of Crowd Management and Control

This dissertation project is currently in the data collection phase. If you have documents that might be of interest for the project, contact me using the form at the bottom of the home page.

For this project, I am interested in writing a history of how U.S. institutions charged with controlling, managing, or marshaling crowds go about that task.

To do that, I am visiting archives and collecting documents with details about that history: training manuals, news and periodical articles, internal correspondence, event reports, and so on.

I focus on three domains of practice:

1. crowd management by private security staff at events & entertainment venues;

2. crowd management and control by police for parades, festivals, and political demonstrations; and

3. crowd marshalling by protest marshals for political demonstrations.

Based on my review of the materials I have collected so far, I anticipate this history to trace how all three groups have developed increasingly sophisticated methods for...

• securing the safety of their constituents,

• promoting the enjoyment of gathering for events or free expression, and

• using de-escalation strategies to minimize conflict and confrontations.

While this is the overall trend in the documents, the context varies by organization and by city. Attending to those contexts can help us answer these questions:

• How do crowd management, control, and marshaling methods vary between groups and across time?

• What do those variations have to do with each group's specific historical situation?

• In practice, how do members of each group navigate their social and legal constraints, fulfill their commitments, and honor their priorities while managing, controlling, or marshalling crowds?

If you're interested in following along with this research project, be sure to save this website and check out my social media accounts!