This syllabus also can be viewed at Dr. Graff's website (http://csbs.utsa.edu/users/hgraff/hst3372.html).

The Development of American Urban Society offers a thematic and chronological overview of the development of cities and urban society in North America from the early modern era to the present. Toward that end, we examine both the factors that stimulated and shaped urban development and the impact of urbanization during a critical period in the history of American, and Western, civilization. Of principal concern are the consequences of urban life and the configurations of social and spatial forms as they differed by time, place, class, ethnic group, race, and gender. In part, we seek to understand the social, economic, political, and cultural dimensions of a set of the most significant changes that have transformed society over the past several centuries; in part, we seek to understand better the causes of our own contemporary "urban crisis" and the future(s) that lurk beyond it. Thus, we focus on such topics as urban societies, spatial organization, migration, urban systems, city life and cultural styles, technology and communications, and the tensions between forces of centralization and decentralization. Special attention is given to United States developments, but within a comparative North American and Western European perspective, and to the period from the mid-eighteenth through the late-twentieth centuries.

This course fulfills one-half of the Texas State American History Requirement.

Requirements: regular reading, attendance, and class participation; a book review essay; a final reflections-research essay. Detailed information and instructions for the two written asssignments will be provided in class.

• David Goldfield and Blaine Brownell, Urban America: A History, 2nd ed. Houghton, Mifflin, 1990.
• Stephan Thernstrom, Poverty and Progress. Harvard, 1964.
• Sam Bass Warner, Jr., Streetcar Suburbs. Harvard, 1962.
• Judith Smith, Family Connections. SUNY Press, 1985.
• Kenneth Kusmer, A Ghetto Takes Shape. Illinois, 1976.
• Jon Teaford, The Twentieth-Century American City. 2nd ed. Johns Hopkins, 1993.

• Paul Hohenberg and Lynn Lees, The Making of Urban Europe, 1000-1994. Revised edition. Harvard, 1995.
• Neil Stout, Getting the Most Out of Your U.S. History Course. DC Heath, 1990

• Goldfield and Brownell, Urban America, Introduction.
• Optional:
• *Eric Lampard, "Urbanization and Social Change," in The Historian and the City, ed. Oscar Handlin and John Borchart (MIT Press, 1963), 225-247.
• *Roy Lubove, "The Urbanization Process," Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 33 (1967), 33-39.
• *Theodore Hershberg, "The New Urban History," Journal of Urban History, 5 (1978), 3-40.
• Film: The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (55 mins.)

• Optional: Hohenberg and Lees, The Making of Urban Europe, Pts I & II, pp. 1-171.

• Goldfield and Brownell, Urban America, Chs. 1-2.
• Review essays assigned

• Goldfield and Brownell, Urban America, Chs. 2-4.
• Optional: *Gary Nash, The Urban Crucible. Harvard, 1979.

• Goldfield and Brownell, Urban America, Chs. 4-6.
• Slide/Tape: Daughters of Free Men (30 mins).

• Stephan Thernstrom, Poverty and Progress.
• *Lynn Lees and John Modell, "The Irish Countryman Urbanized," Journal of Urban History, 3 (1977), 391-408.

• *Michael B. Katz, "The Origins of Public Education," History of Education Quarterly, 16 (1976), 381-408.
• *_____, "Origins of the Institutional State," Marxist Perspectives, 1 (1978), 6-23.
• *John T. Cumbler, "The City and Community," Journal of Urban History, 3 (1977), 427-442.
• Slide/Tape: The Five Points (30 mins.)


Book Review Essays Due: Mon., Oct. 21

• Goldfield and Brownell, Urban America, chs. 7-8.
• *Michael Frisch, "The Community Elite and the Emergence of Urban Politics," in Nineteenth-Century Cities, ed. Stephan Thernstrom and Richard Sennett (Yale, 1969), 277-296.
• *Sam Bass Warner, Jr., The Private City (Pennsylvania, 1968), 79-98, 99-124.
• *Melvin G. Holli, "Varieties of Urban Reform," in American Urban History, 2nd ed., ed. Alexander Callow (Oxford, 1973), 249-264.
• Film: The City, 1939 (45 mins.)

• *Mary Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class (Cambridge, 1981), Chs. 4-5.
• *Christine Stansell, "Women, Children, and the Uses of the Streets: Class and Gender Conflict in New York City, 1850-1860," Feminist Studies, 8 (1982), 309-335.
• *Elizabeth Pleck, "A Mother's Wages," in The American Family, 2nd ed., Michael Gordon (St. Martins, 1978), 490-510.
• *Tamara Hareven, "The Dynamics of Kin," in Turning Points, ed. John Demos and Sarane Boocock (Chicago, 1978), 151-181.

• Sam Bass Warner,Jr., Streetcar Suburbs.
• Film: Suburbs: Arcadia for Everyone (55 mins.)
• Reflections-Research Essays Assigned

• Goldfield and Brownell, Urban America, Chs. 8-11.
• Jon Teaford, The Twentieth-Century American City, Chs. 1-3.
• *Samuel P. Hays, "The Changing Political Structure of the City," in Hays, American Political History as Social Analysis (Tennessee, 1980), 326-356.
• Film: Proud Towers (55 mins.)

• Judith Smith, Family Connections.
• Film: Mission Hill and the Miracle of Boston (60 mins.)

• Kenneth Kusmer, A Ghetto Takes Shape.
• Film: Dallas at the Crossroads ( ) or Goin' to Chicago (70)

• Goldfield and Brownell, Urban America, Chs. 11-13.
• Teaford, Twentieth-Century American City, Chs. 4-7.
• *Optional: H.J. Dyos, "Some Historical Reflections on the Quality of Urban Life," Urban Affairs Annual Review, 3 (1969), 31-60.
• Video: Saving the Cities (30 mins.)/City as Enterprise (15 mins)
• Reflections-Research Essays Due: Mon., Dec. 9