Introduction

The primary responsibility of students is to complete the reading on time and contribute their thoughtful, reflective opinions in class discussion. The books can be interpreted in a variety of ways and students should formulate some initial positions and questions to offer in the class discussion. In addition, each students will be responsible for leading a class discussion on a reading of their choice. Topics will be divided up and assigned during the introductory class. During the first semester, students will write a series of short analytical papers on readings of their choice in consultation with the instructor. This will prepare them for a longer research paper on a topic of their choice in the second semester. Finally, since the class meets only once a week, a series of field trips are scheduled for one Friday each month.

Suggested Texts

• John Reps, THE MAKING OF URBAN AMERICA (Princeton University, 1965)
• Kenneth T. Jackson and Stanley Schultz (eds.) CITIES IN AMERICAN HISTORY (Oxford, 1972)
• Sam Bass Warner, THE URBAN WILDERNESS: A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN CITY (Harper, 1972)
• John Tauranac, ESSENTIAL NEW YORK: A GUIDE TO THE HISTORY AND ARCHITECTURE OF MANHATTAN'S MOST IMPORTANT BUILDINGS, PARKS, AND BRIDGES (Holt Rinehart Winston, 1979)
• Norval White and Elliot Willensky, THE A.I.A. GUIDE TO NEW YORK CITY (Macmillan, 1978, revised edition)

SEPTEMBER 9: Introduction

SEPTEMBER 16: Starting from Zero: Making the Colonial Community

• Sylvia D. Fries, THE URBAN IDEA IN COLONIAL AMERICA (Temple, 1977)

• Darrett B. Rutman, WINTHROP'S BOSTON: A PORTRAIT OF A PURITAN TOWN, 1630-1649 (Norton, 1965)



• Thomas J. Archdeacon, NEW YORK CITY: 1664-1710: CONQUEST AND CHANGE (Cornell, 1976) OPTIONAL

SEPTEMBER 23: The American Revolution and the City

• Gary B. Nash, THE URBAN CRUCIBLE: SOCIAL CHANGE, POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS, AND THE ORIGINS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (Harvard, 1979)

SEPTEMBER 30: The Commercial Foundations of New York

• Robert G. Albion, THE RISE OF NEW YORK PORT, 1815-1860 (Northeastern University, 1939, 1984)

OCTOBER 7: Social Structure in the Antebellum Industrial City

• Sean Wilentz, CHANTS DEMOCRATIC: NEW YORK CITY AND THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN WORKING CLASS, 1788-1850 (Oxford, 1984)

OCTOBER 14: Gender in the Antebellum Industrial City

• Christine Stansell, CITY OF WOMEN: SEX AND CLASS IN NEW YORK, 1789-1860 (Knopf, 1986)

OCTOBER 21: Do Cities Make Men Crazy?

• David Rothman, THE DISCOVERY OF THE ASYLUM: SOCIAL ORDER AND DISORDER IN THE NEW REPUBLIC (University of Chicago, 1971)
• Paul Boyer, URBAN MASSES AND MORAL ORDER IN AMERICA, 1820-1920 (Harvard, 1978) OPTIONAL

OCTOBER 28: Disease in the City

• Charles E. Rosenberg, THE CHOLERA YEARS: THE UNITED STATES IN 1832, 1849, AND 1866 (University of Chicago, 1962)
• Jay P. Dolan, THE IMMIGRANT CHURCH: NEW YORK'S IRISH AND GERMAN CATHOLICS, 1815-1865 (Johns Hopkins, 1975)


• OPTIONAL:
  Edward K. Spann, THE NEW METROPOLIS: NEW YORK CITY, 1840-1857 (Columbia, 1981)

NOVEMBER 4: Disorder and Danger in the City

• Wilbur Miller, COPS AND BOBBIES: POLICE AUTHORITY IN NEW YORK AND LONDON, 1830-1870 (University of Chicago, 1977)

November 11: Violence and Crime in the City

• Roger Lane, ROOTS OF VIOLENCE IN BLACK PHILADELPHIA, 1860-1900 (Harvard, 1986)

NOVEMBER 18 & 25: The Urban Political Machine

• Alexander Callow, THE TWEED RING (Oxford, 1965)
• William I. Riordan, PLUNKITT OF TAMMANY HALL (Dutton, 1905, 1965)
  [Ed. There is a new edition of this with an introduction by Terrence McDonald:
  William L. Riordan, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall : a series of very plain talks on very practical politics (Boston : Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, 1994)]
• Jon Teaford, THE UNHERALDED TRIUMPH: CITY GOVERNMENT IN AMERICA, 1870- 1900 (Johns Hopkins, 1984)

DECEMBER 2: Physically Transforming the Nineteenth-Century City

• Elizabeth Barlow and William Alex, FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED'S NEW YORK (Praeger, 1972), pictures only.
• Albert Fein (ed.), LANDSCAPE INTO CITYSCAPE: FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED'S PLAN FOR A GREATER NEW YORK CITY (Cornell University, 1967), pp. 1-171, 329-41, 375-440.
• Charles E. Beveridge and David Schuyler (eds.) THE PAPERS OF FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED: VOL. III, CREATING CENTRAL PARK, 1857-1861 (Johns Hopkins, 1983), pp. 134-50, 374-452 (pictures), 346-60.

DECEMBER 9: New Cities, New Cultures

• Gunther Barth, CITY PEOPLE: THE RISE OF MODERN CITY CULTURE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA (Oxford, 1980)

DECEMBER 16: City Services: Housing the Masses

• Gwendolyn Wright, BUILDING THE DREAM: A SOCIAL HISTORY OF HOUSING IN AMERICA (Pantheon, 1981)
• Roy Lubove, THE PROGRESSIVES AND THE SLUMS: TENEMENT HOUSE REFORM IN NEW YORK CITY, 1890-1918 (University of Pittsburg, 1962; Greenwood, 1974).

SPRING SEMESTER

JANUARY 27: City Services: Housing the Masses

• Dolores Hayden, THE GRAND DOMESTIC REVOLUTION: A HISTORY OF FEMINIST DESIGNS FOR AMERICAN HOMES, NEIGHBORHOODS, AND CITIES (MIT Press, 1981)

FEBRUARY 3: City Services: Transporting the Masses

• Charles Cheape, MOVING THE MASSES: MASS TRANSIT IN NEW YORK, BOSTON, AND PHILADELPHIA, 1880-1912 (Harvard, 1980)
• RECOMMENDED:
  Sam Bass Warner, Jr., STREETCAR SUBURBS (Harvard, 1962)

FEBRUARY 10: City Services: Curing the Masses

• Allan Brandt, NO MAGIC BULLET: A SOCIAL HISTORY OF VENEREAL DISEASE IN THE UNITED STATES SINCE 1880 (Oxford, 1985)
• RECOMMENDED:
  David Rosner, A ONCE CHARITABLE ENTERPRISE: HOSPITALS AND HEALTH CARE IN BROOKLYN AND NEW YORK (Cambridge University, 1982)

February 17 & 24: Inequality, Race and Social Structure in the American Metropolis

• Gilbert Osofsky, HARLEM: THE MAKING OF A GHETTO, NEW YORK, 1890-1930 (Harper, 1966)
• Thomas Kessner, THE GOLDEN DOOR: ITALIAN AND JEWISH IMMIGRANT MOBILITY IN NEW YORK CITY, 1880-1915 (Oxford, 1975)
• Olivier Zunz, THE CHANGING FACE OF INEQUALITY: URBANIZATION, INDUSTRIALIZATION, AND IMMIGRANTS IN DETROIT, 1880-1920 (University of Chicago, 1982)
• Jacob Riis, HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES (orig. 1890) (Hill and Wang, 1957)
• Jeffrey Gurock, WHEN HARLEM WAS JEWISH (Columbia University)
• Diane Ravitch, THE GREAT SCHOOL WARS: NEW YORK CITY (1805-1973) (Basic Books, 1974)

March 2 & 9: The Construction of the City

• David McCullough, THE GREAT BRIDGE: THE EPIC STORY OF THE BUILDING OF THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE (Simon and Schuster, 1972), chapters 1-9, 12-14, 20, 21,23, epilogue.
• David Mackay, THE BUILDING OF MANHATTAN (Harper and Row, 1987)
• RECOMMENDED:
  Alan Trachtenberg, BROOKLYN BRIDGE, FACT AND SYMBOL (University of Chicago, 1979), Second Edition

MARCH 16 & APRIL 6: Ethnicity and the Welfare State in the City

• Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan, BEYOND THE MELTING POT: THE NEGROES, PUERTO RICANS, JEWS, ITALIANS, AND IRISH OF NEW YORK CITY, Second Edition (M.I.T., 1970)
• J. Anthony Lukas, COMMON GROUND: A TURBULENT DECADE IN THE LIVES OF THREE AMERICAN FAMILIES (Vintage, 1985).

• Ronald Bayor, NEIGHBORS IN CONFLICT: THE IRISH, GERMANS, JEWS AND ITALIANS OF NEW YORK CITY, 1929-1941 (Johns Hopkins, 1978)

APRIL 13: The Rise of Suburbia

• Kenneth T. Jackson, CRABGRASS FRONTIER: THE SUBURBANIZATION OF THE UNITED STATES (Oxford, 1985)
• Kenneth T. Jackson, "The Capital of Capitalism: The New York Metropolitan Region, 1890-1940, in METROPOLIS, 1890-1940, ed. Anthony Sutcliffe (University of Chicago, 1984), 319-353.

• RECOMMENDED:
  Ebenezer Howard, GARDEN CITIES FOR TO-MORROW (M.I.T., 1965)
  
  [Ed: There are several editions of this book, which was first published in 1898 as TOMORROW: A PEACEFUL PATH TO REAL REFORM BY Howard (later "Sir" Ebenezer Howard), who lived from 1850 to 1928. These include:
• GARDEN CITIES OF TO-MORROW. Edited, with a preface, by F.J. Osborn. With an introductory essay by Lewis Mumford. Faber and Faber ltd (1946).
• GARDEN CITIES OF TO-MORROW. Edited, with a preface, by F.J. Osborn. With an introductory essay by Lewis Mumford. Cambridge, Mass., M.I.T. Press (1965), 168 p. (Includes illustration of the plans). Includes the 2 prefaces and text of the 1946 ed., first published in 1898.
• GARDEN CITIES OF TOMORROW/EBENEZER HOWARD; with an introduction by Ray Thomas ; New Towns bibliography by Stephen Potter. New rev. ed. Eastbourne : Attic Books, 1985.]

APRIL 20: The Automobile, the Highway and the City

• Robert Caro, THE POWER BROKER: ROBERT MOSES AND THE RISE AND FALL OF NEW YORK (Knopf, 1974), especially introduction and chapters 12, 18-24, 29, 31, 33-35, 37-38, 40, 42, 45-47, 49-50.

APRIL 27: The Rise of the Skyscraper Metropolis

• Ada Louise Huxtable, THE TALL BUILDING URBANISTICALLY RECONSIDERED: THE SEARCH FOR A SKYSCRAPER STYLE (Pantheon, 1985).
• Tom Wolfe, FROM BAUHAUS TO OUR HOUSE (Simon and Schuster, 1981)

MAY 4: Planning the Post-Industrial City

• Jane Jacobs, THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN CITIES (Vintage, 1961), especially chapters 1-12.
• RECOMMENDED: Roger Starr, THE RISE AND FALL OF NEW YORK CITY (Basic Books, 1985)

MAY 11: THE URBAN CRISIS OF THE 1970s

• John H. Mollenkopf, THE CONTESTED CITY (Princeton University, 1983)
• Roger Alcaly and David Mermelstein (eds.), THE FISCAL CRISIS OF AMERICAN CITIES: ESSAYS ON THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF URBAN AMERICA WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS TO NEW YORK (Random, 1977)

MAY 15: The Urban Renaissance of the 1980s: Myth or Reality?

• NEW YORK ASCENDANT: REPORT OF THE COMMISSION OF TH EYEAR 2000 (June 1987)
• E.B. White, "Here is New York," (1947) in THE COLLECTED ESSAYS OF E.B. WHITE (Harper, 1977)