U.S. Urban History
(HST 1543)

Clay McShane
c.mcshane@neu.edu
Northeastern University
Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Fall 2002

SYLLABUS
Texts | Class Schedule | Term Papers

Goals
Students should learn to understand the 350 year long historical process that produced today’s cities. This course will emphasize changes in the physical environment, social structure and political organization of American cities.
Texts
Mike Davis
City of Quartz : Excavating the Future in Los Angeles
(New York : Vintage Books, 1992)
Nancy Foner, ed.,
New Immigrants in New York, 2nd edition
(NY: Columbia U Press 2001)
Joel Garreau
Edge City : Life on the New Frontier (NY: Doubleday, 1991)
Raymond A. Mohl, ed.
Making of Urban America, 2nd edition
(Wilmington, Del: Scholarly Resources, 1997)
• See also the Review (H-Urban: September 1997) by Georgina Hickey

Videos (as noted below)

Grades
Grades will be based ten percent on attendance/participation, twenty percent on the midterm, thirty percent on the final and forty percent on term papers. You must provide me with stamped cards from the Media Center for each video. Those videos in BOLD ITALICS will be viewed in class

~~~~~   Schedule   ~~~~~


Colonial Cities, 1607-1820
September 19 Introduction  
September 23 Central Places Mohl, pp. 15-36
September 24   Video: NEW YORK: THE COUNTRTY AND THE CITY (MV7-7162) in Ric Burns, "New York: A Documentary History" (New York: PBS, 2001), Tape 1 of original 6 Tapes.
September 26   Video: NEW YORK: THE COUNTRTY AND THE CITY (MV7-7162)
September 30 Urban Politics and Society  

Imperial Cities, 1820-1870
October 1 Central Places Mohl, pp. 37-89
October 3 Immigration  
October 7 Urban Politics  
October 8 Disasters Video: The Great San Francisco Earthquake (MV7-3113) Alexandria, VA: PBS Video, 1989, 1988.
October 10 Midterm

Industrial Cities, 1870-1920
October 14 Holiday  
October 15 Central Places Mohl, pp. 93-104
October 17   Video: Ken Burns, BROOKLYN BRIDGE (MV7-1878), New York: Florentine Films, 1996, 1981.
October 21 Urban Design Mohl, pp. 105-131
October 22 Streetcar Suburbs Assignment 1 due
October 24 Race and Ethnicity Mohl, pp. 131-66, 187-207
October 28 Social Structure Assignment 2 due
October 29 Urban Politics Video: Ken Eluto, Scandalous Mayor (MV7-3063), WETA-TV/Alexandria VA: PBS Video (distributor), 1991. [about James Michael Curley]
October 31 Central places  

The Modern City, 1920-Present
November 4 Images of Cities Davis, ch 1.
November 5 The New Social Geography Video: Ralph Steiner and Willard Van Dyke, The City (MV7-3387),  Santa Monica: Pyramid Films, 1939. See also U. of Virginia's Crossroads short articles on Willard Van Dyke and the film at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Huffman/Frontier/vandyke.html and http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Huffman/Frontier/city.html
November 7 Elites Assignment 2 due
November 11 The New Federalism Mohl, 249-64
November 12 Urban Design Davis, chs. 3 and 4
November 14 The Black Revolution Videos: Time Has Come, 1964-1966 (MV7-2220) and Keys to the Kingdom, 1974-1980 (MV7-2221) from "Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years", a presentation of WGBH (produced by Blackside, Inc., 1995)
November 18 Latino Migration Mohl, pp. 231-248, 283-308;
Foner, chs. 9 and 10
November 19 The New Immigrants Foner, chs 1 and 8
November 21 Urban Politics Davis, chs. 5, 6 and 7
November 25 Edge Cities Garreau, "Introduction", chs. 1, 3, 6, 10, 12
November 26   Video: Michael Pack, THE RODNEY KING INCIDENT: RACE AND JUSTICE IN AMERICA (MV7 3759), Princeton, N.J.: Films for the Humanities & Sciences : Distributed in association with Henninger Media, 1998 [shown on The Learning Channel]
November 28 Holiday  
December 2 Globalization Assignment 3 due
December 3 September 11 Read the commentary on H-Urban, an electronic discussion group of urban scholars for one month after September 11 using the monthly logs at http://www.h-net.org/~urban/

Term Papers
Students must do two of the following three term papers. They must by typed, with appropriate footnotes. The fourth paper may be done for extra credit, but will count only half as much as the other papers. Papers will be penalized five percent for each day that they are late.

1. Read through the contents of the Making Sense of Maps website at http://historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/maps/ then answer the questions about 1871 and 1902 at the Pittsburgh section of the website. (Due October 22)

2. Pick any block in the city of Boston. Make a map of that block for 1880, 1935, and 1993 (using the Sanborn Maps in Snell Library and a map of your own making for 1993). How has land use and building construction on that block changed over time? Why? Take a photo(s) of the block today. What remains from the past? (Due November 7).

3. Go to American Memory at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amhome.html or other photographic resources listed on the H-Urban web links at http://www.h-net.org/~urban/ compile a short photographic history of any large American city since 1870. How has the presentation of that city changed over time? (Due December 2)

Extra Credit
4. Look at the websites for individual US cities at the H-Urban (http://www.h-net.org/~urban/) web links. Which are the best websites? Why? (due with final exam)


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Syllabus prepared for the H-Urban Syllabus Archive 10 October 2002.