The Modern American City: A Global Perspective

Syllabus

Hello students. Throughout the semester, I’ll post some of the sources we are going to discuss and write about. Stay tuned.

Street Scenes Circa 1900

Here are a number of photographs depicting street scenes near the turn of the century. Think about the similarities and differences between the images. Do you find anything surprising about them? What do the images tell us and what are the limitations of using these sources?

New York, Mulberry Street, 1900 — New York. Mulberry Street. 1900

The City Imagined: Literature, Poems, Paintings, and Music

Here are some documents that portray the modern city through different mediums. For our class discussion think about how these documents add to our understanding of urban history and how we historians can use these non-traditional sources in our research.

Click for an excerpt of Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie

zola — I’m Émile Zola. Click me to read an excerpt from The Belly of Paris.

I’m Charles Baudelaire. Click on me to read a few of my poems.

Upcoming Assignment: July 15

Walking Tour: Harlem through the Ages

By foot, we will explore the neighborhood of Harlem from before the Dutch settled New Amsterdam until recent times. Each of you will be assigned a selected era to research. You have the freedom to conduct your tour around a central theme (e.g., culture, architecture, etc.) or you can provide a more general overview of the area within the selected time period. You should highlight any important landmarks (extant or extinct) and be sure that you take us to the most relevant sites. The tour should last somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes and must be completed within the area bounded by Lenox Avenue and Amsterdam Avenue between 125^th street and 141^st street (see map below).

Tour Date: July 15 (Come first to our regular classroom)