U.S. Urban History

History 304/504

J. Mark Souther, Ph.D.
Rhodes Tower 1904
Department of History
Cleveland State University
Spring Semester 2007

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This course considers the development of American cities from the colonial era to the present, focusing especially on the formation and evolution of the physical urban environment, race and class interactions, political and economic development, growth and decline, suburbanization, and responses to urban crisis and decay. Throughout the course we will not only analyze urban development but will connect it to the broader patterns of American social, cultural, political, and economic history. The course examines cities in a comparative context as well as through individual case studies, notably New York, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and New Orleans. We will also explore 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. In class meetings, you should expect a mixture of lecture and discussion. Lectures will include a visual component. Class discussions will revolve around assigned reading. Occasionally we will also view portions of films.

This image from Peaceful Shaker Village, a late-1920s promotional booklet for the planned Cleveland, Ohio, suburb of Shaker Heights, shows fanciful houses in the clouds, ostensibly linked to downtown Cleveland as symbolized by the Terminal Tower. It suggests a hopeful vision of an urban future in which downtown and suburb could coexist harmoniously—a vision which proved illusive.