The Course
This graduate reading seminar will review the historical literature on urban history, with particular attention to the growth and development of urban America. The seminar will examine the major works in a variety of subjects central to urban history as well as explore the analytical and interpretive frameworks which have shaped the historical debate regarding the significance of the city in the development of America.

Central to the seminar will be the preparation of annotated bibliographies on assigned topics. Each bibliography will include:

1. major monographs related to the topic

2. important journal articles related to the topic

3. significant pieces of historical literature relevant to the topic and produced contemporaneous to the issues under discussion. (Ex. Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives; Michael Harrington, The Other America; Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House; Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders; etc.)

The final project for the seminar is the preparation of a syllabus and list of readings designed for an undergraduate course in American urban history at the 500 level.

The seminar will meet for eight sessions of approximately two hours duration:

1. General surveys of American urban history

2. Chicago School of Sociology, survey of important urban history journals, survey of recent trends in the historiography

3. Immigration, Assimilation and Social Mobility

4. African-Americans and the City

5. Leisure, Culture and Urban Environment

6. Urban Reform Movement

7. Transportation and Suburbanization

8. Urban Politics and Federal-Urban Relations