Dr. J. Mark Souther
Rhodes Tower 1904
Department of History
Cleveland State Univ.
Spring 2005

Home

Requirements

Readings

Schedule

Euclid Corridor Project

Syllabus (PDF)

Souther Home

Course Introduction

This course considers the development of American cities from pre-colonial times to the present, focusing especially on the formation and evolution of the physical urban environment, social interactions in urban settings, political and economic development in cities, urban growth and decline, suburbanization, and responses to urban decay. Throughout the course we will not only explore urban development but will connect it to the broader patterns of American social, cultural, political, and economic history.

The course examines a number of different cities—especially New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Boston, Baltimore, Detroit, New Orleans, and Atlanta. We will also explore the experiences of Cleveland in the context of national trends. In this course we will develop a number of useful skills that reinforce our study of American urban history. In addition to the expected concentration on developing skills such as engaged reading, critical thinking, and writing with clarity, organization, and a sustained thesis, we will explore urban history by using a variety of materials beyond scholarly works, including newspaper editorials, popular magazine articles, web sites, popular and documentary films, editorial cartoons, and even comic strips.

We will also learn how to “read” the landscape of Cleveland—both as a class and individually through the course project—to determine what it can tell us about urban change and continuity. Reading the landscape means turning to more than simply reading books and articles. It involves examining historical and contemporary photos, postcards, maps, city directories, and census records, as well as actually viewing your subject on-site. This semester we are fortunate to have the opportunity to use what we learn in the course to contribute to an ongoing urban civic project surrounding the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority's transportation-oriented redevelopment of Euclid Avenue from Public Square to East Cleveland. The Department of History is partnering with Cleveland Public Art, Ideastream, and RTA to tell the stories of the Euclid Corridor's past as a major effort to create a new sense of place.

Long one of the world's best-known urban thoroughfares, Euclid Avenue has been Cleveland's most celebrated street for generations, from its early days as "Millionaire's Row," when it was lined by the opulent mansions of some of the nation's wealthiest industrialists, to its heyday as a renowned commercial street flanked by grand department stores and the theatres of Playhouse Square. Euclid Avenue serves some of the city's most recognized institutions, including Cleveland State University and Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Clinic, the cultural attractions of University Circle, and some of the region's largest churches, community organizations, and banks. It has also been home to many thousands of Clevelanders over the years, some of whom lived in mansions, but most of whom populated the many apartment houses and tenements whose construction paralleled the city's industrial ascendancy in the early twentieth century. As was true of many cities in the years following World War II, Cleveland experienced a protracted decline as its population moved to suburbia in ever greater numbers, and as its manufacturing jobs slowly disappeared. As Clevelanders moved to inner-ring suburbs and beyond, the urban fabric of Euclid Avenue and its surrounding neighborhoods reflected these profound changes--apartments and houses faced the wrecking ball, downtown stores closed, and blight set in. Yet Euclid Avenue remains a favored business address, and in recent years the street has seen revitalization efforts, including the creation of an entertainment district at East 4th Street, new retail and loft apartments, New Urbanist residential developments in the Hough neighborhood, and the massive expansion of the Cleveland Clinic. The Euclid Corridor Transportation Project promises to encourage further revitalization.

This website serves as a real-time supplement to HIS 311/511. It will always provide the most up-to-date class information, so you should consult it often.