Course Objectives

This course is designed to introduce the student to the history of American cities from the first European explorations to the present. Lectures and readings will consider the role of cities and the triumph of urbanization in America from the colonial period to the present, emphasizing the nature of life in colonial, frontier, industrial and contemporary cities. We will pay close attention to the economic reasons for the creation, location, growth, and decline of cities in the United States. We will also give special attention to the history of urban planning and design.

The course is also designed to give students familiarity with significant primary sources and documents (including maps, plans and photographs as well as texts) and with Metropolitan Cleveland as itself a document in urban history, and to provide experience in discussing and writing about cities.

Required Reading:

1. Bernard Bailyn, The Peopling of British North America (Vintage).
2. Charles Rosenberg, The Cholera Years (U. of Chicago Press).
3. Horatio Alger, Ragged Dick (Penguin).
4. Jacob A. Riis, How The Other Half Lives (Dover)
5. Sam Bass Warner, Jr. Streetcar Suburbs (Harvard U. Press).
6. David C. Hammack, Power and Society: Greater New York at the Turn of the Century (Columbia Univ. Press).
7. Allen H. Spear, Black Chicago (U. of Chicago Press)
8. Reyner Banham, Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies (Penguin)

Additional short documents will be distributed from time to time.

Requirements:

The required work for the course will include two or three short essays or exercises on the readings and on questions related to the economics of urbanization, a final paper on a topic related to the course, and mid-term and final examinations. Regular attendance and well-prepared participation in class discussions will also be expected.

Several of the lectures will emphasize slide presentations; these form an integral part of the course and may be the subject of examination questions.

Toward the end of the course the class will devote an entire day to a tour of the Cleveland area, planned, organized, and narrated by the members of the class. Each member of the class will prepare a portion of this tour.

Grades:

The short essays and exercises wall count for about 15% of the original grade, the final paper will count for 20%, the mid-term will count for 25%, and the final will count for 35%. Active participation in class discussion will count for at least 5%.

I. THE COLONIAL CITY

August 28 -- Approaches to The History of Cities

August 30 -- The Peopling of British North America

• Begin Bailyn, The Peopling of British North America

Sept. 1 -- City and Town in the Early British Empire

Sept. 3 -- Labor Day Holiday

Sept. 4 -- Colonial Towns and Town Planning

• John Winthrop, "Modell of Christian Charity"

Sept. 8 -- Eighteenth-Century Towns and the Atlantic Economy

Sept. 11 -- The Absence of Towns in Virginia

• Documents on the Chesapeake and the back country.
• Complete Bailyn, The Peopling of British North America
• First Exercise Due

Sept. 13 -- The Strange Career of Ebeneezer McIntosh

• Documents on towns in the American Revolution.

Sept. 15 -- No Class

II. THE MERCANTILE CITY

Sept. 18 -- Cities and Regions in the National Economy

• Documents and data on towns and trade.
• Begin Rosenberg, The Cholera Years.

Sept. 20 -- City Form in the Early Nations: Dock, Warehouse, Counting House, Shop, Frontier Town

Sept. 22 -- The People of the Northern Cities

Sept. 25 -- Slavery in the Cities

• Documents on southern cities and their slaves.

Sept. 27 -- Class and Diversity: Mercantile Society

• Complete Rosenberg, The Cholera Years.

Sept. 29 -- Disease and Politics: Governing the Mercantile City

Oct. 2 -- Grids, Rails, Graveyards, and Parks: The Shape of the Mercantile City

• Documents on town planning.

Oct. 4 -- Mid-Term Examination

III. THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

Oct. 6 -- Completing the Urban Network

• Warner, Streetcar Suburbs, pp. 21-31.
• Hammack, Power and Society, ch. 2.

Oct. 9 -- Cities and Industry

• Begin reading Alger, Ragged Dick.

Oct. 11 -- City People: Labor

• Riis, How the Other Half Lives, ch. 11, 12, 20.

Oct. 13 -- Industrial City People: The Immigrants

• Riis, How The Other Half Lives, ch. 3, 5, 9, 10, 13.

Oct. 16 -- Fall Break

Oct. 18 -- Industrial City People: Inequality and Opportunity

• Complete Alger, Ragged Dick.

Oct. 20 -- Industrial City People: Diversity

• Hammack, Power and Society, ch. 3.

Oct. 23 -- Industrial City Housing: Slums

• Riis, How The Other Half Lives, ch. 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 14, 24, 25, appendix.

Oct. 25 -- Industrial City Housing: Suburbs

• Warner, Streetcar Suburbs, ch. 4-6.

Oct. 27 -- Frederick Law Olmsted's Industrial City

• Solutions: Parks, Boulevards, Suburbs

Oct. 30 -- City Politics: Mayors and Interest Groups

• Hammack, Power and Society, ch. 4, 5.

Nov. 1 -- City Politics: Parties and Voters

• Hammack, Power and Society, ch. 6.
• Tour Plans and Explanations Due

Nov. 3 -- No Class

Nov. 6 -- Controlling the Industrial City: Intervention

• Riis, How the Other Half Lives, ch. 2, 7, 11, 15-25.
• Hammack, Power and Society: ch. 9.

Nov. 8 -- Controlling the Industrial City: Laissez-Faire

• Warner, Streetcar Suburbs, ch. VI, VII.
• Hammack, Power and Society, ch. 8.

Nov. 10 -- Society, Politics, and Power

• Hammack, Power and Society, ch. 1, 10.
• Second Exercise Due

IV. THE METROPOLITAN REGION

Nov. 13 -- The Old Metropolis: Turn-of-the-Century Views

Nov. 15 -- The New Metropolitan Region: Technology and Economic Change

• Banham, Los Angeles, ch. 4.

Nov. 17 -- No Class

Nov. 20 -- The Rise of the Metropolis: Planning Traditions

• Banham, Los Angeles, ch. 7.
• Documents on urban and regional planning in the twentieth century.

Nov. 22 -- Metropolitan People: Communities of Constraint

• Spear, Black Chicago.
• Banham, Los Angeles, ch. 8.

Nov. 24 -- Thanksgiving Holiday

Nov. 26 -- Tour of Cleveland

Nov. 27 -- Metropolitan People: Communities of Choice

• Banham, Los Angeles, ch. 2, 5, 7.

Nov. 29 -- Metropolitan Culture: From Baseball to Art

• Banham, Los Angeles, ch.10;
• documents to be provided.

Dec. 1 -- Controlling the Metropolis: City Politics

• Documents to be provided.

Dec. 4 -- Controlling the Metropolis: Regional Politics

• Documents to be provided.

Dec. 6 -- The Way We Live Now?

• Banham, Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies

Dec. 8 -- Cleveland: Comeback City or Standard Metropolitan Region?

• Final Paper Due

December -- FINAL EXAMINATION