Introduction

According to one historian, the United States was born in the country and moved to the city. This course examines that social movement and the evolution of the United States from a rural and small-town society to an urban and suburban nation. Cities, and especially Chicago, have long offered some of the best laboratories for the study of American history, social structure, economic development and cultural change. Certain problems and themes recur thoughout the course of American urban and cultural history which will be focal points of this seminar: the interaction of private commerce with cultural change, the rise of distinctive working and middle classes, the segregation of public and private space, the formation of new and distinctive urban subcultures organized by gender, work, race, religion, ethnicity, and sexuality, problems of health and housing resulting from congestion, and blatant social divisions between the rich and poor, the native-born and immigrant, and blacks and whites.

The colloquium will provide a historiographical introduction to the major questions and issues in the culture and social life of American cities. Class discussion will also examine different possibilities for future research.

The course requirements include one typewritten essay (66%) and class participation (34%). Essay guidelines can be found at the end of this syllabus. The primary responsibility of students is to complete the weekly reading before the date of the scheduled class 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. Recommended readings are also included for the benefit of individual students who may wish to pursue certain topics in greater depth.

Sept. 1: Introduction

• Thomas Bender, Community and Social Change in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1978).



• Joseph Kelly & Timothy Kelly, "Social History Update: Searching the Dark Alley: New Historicism and Social History," Journal of Social History, 25 (1992), 677-94.

Sept. 8: The Forces of Urbanization

• William Cronon, Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991).

15 Sept.: Class and Culture in the l9th-Century City

• David Schuyler, The New Urban Landscape: The Redefinition of City Form in Nineteenth-Century America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press 1986).

17 Sept.: MIDNIGHT BIKE RIDE - Urban and Social History in Chicago
(Rain Date: 24 Sept. 1992)

22 Sept.: Definitions of Gender, Class, Crime, and Consumption

• Elaine S. Abelson, When Ladies Go A-Thieving: Middle-Class Shoplifters in the Victorian Department Store (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1988).

27 Sept.: The Social Construction of Urban Crime

• Roger Lane, Roots of Violence in Black Philadelphia, 1860-1900 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986).

29 Sept.: Field trip to Illinois Regional Archives Depository (IRAD),
Chicago Branch, Ronald Williams Library, Northeastern Ill. University, 5500 N. St. Louis Avenue

6 Oct.: Streets and Culture, Order and Disorder

• Susan G. Davis, Parades and Power: Street Theatre in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986).
• Lawrence Levine, Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), prologue, chapters 1, 3, epilogue.

• Timothy J. Gilfoyle, City of Eros: New York City. Prostitution. and the Commercialization of Sex. 1790-1920 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1992).

• Lewis A. Erenberg, Steppin' Out: New York Niahtlife and the Transformation of American Culture. 1890-1930 (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1981).

• Joel Perlmann, Ethnic Differences: Schooling and Social Structure Among the Irish, Italians, Jews, and Blacks in an American City, 1880-1935 (New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1988).

• Nicholas Lemann, The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How it Changed America (New York: Vintage, 1991).

• Robert A. Orsi, The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem. 1880-1950 (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1985).
• Robert A. Orsi, "The Center Out There, In Here, and Everywhere Else: The Nature of Pilgrimage to the Shrine of St. Jude, 1929-1965," Journal of Social Historv, 25 (Winter 1991), 213-32.

• Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago. 1919-1939 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

• Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985).
• Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (New York: Basic Books, 1988), introduction, chapters 1, 4, & 7.

• Arnold R. Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940-1960 (New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1983).

• Mike Davis, City of Ouartz (New York: Vintage, 1991).

Two types of essays are acceptable for this course: historiographical and research.

Historiographical essays should be based upon secondary sources, or what historians have written about a subject. Research essays should analyze a specific topic using primary sources.

Both types of assignments should be the length of a standard scholarly article (approximately 20 typewritten pages of text, plus notes). All papers should be free of typographical errors, misspellings and grammatical miscues. For every eight such mistakes, the essay's grade will be reduced by a fraction (A to A-, A- to B+, etc.). Essays are to be written for this class ONLY. No essay used to fulfill the requirements of a past or current course may be submitted. Failure to follow this rule will result in an automatic grade of F for the assignment.

TWO copies of the essay should be in the professor's possession by NOON on 5 November 1992. Extensions are granted automatically. However, grades on essays handed in 48 hours (or more late) will be reduced by a fraction (A to A-, A- to B+, etc.). Every three days thereafter another fraction will be droppped from the paper's final grade. Students who complete the essay on time have the option to rewrite the paper upon its evaluation and return (remember - the only good writing is good rewriting). Two copies of the rewritten essays are due at the final class meeting. Students who are disabled or impaired should meet with the professor within the first two weeks of the semester to discuss the need for any special arrangements.