City Readings Page:

The City in the American Imagination

HR 300,   Fall 1998

With the exception of the textbook, locations for readings are designated below as follows:

• (P) Reading packet
• (R) Reserve readings
• (W) Course website

Introductory Web Readings:

• Origin of Cities slides
• Excerpts from Genesis and Joshua
• Excerpts from Plato's Republic
• Excerpts from Aristotle's Politics
• Web presentation on The Ancient City of Athens (photographs and essays)
• Short Biography of Leon Battista Alberti
• Short Biography of Christine de Pizan
• Excerpts from Thomas More's Utopia, 1516

Cities Planned According to the Ordinances of the Laws of Indies:

• The Philadelphia Group's City
• The Washington, D. C. Group's City
• The Chicago Group's City
• The New York Group's City
• The Los Angeles Group's City

Philadelphia Web Readings:

• A Short History of the City of Philadelphia, From Its Foundation to the Present Time (1880; Arden Press) By Susan Coolidge.  This book provides a comprehensive history of the city of Philadelphia from its earliest settlements in the 1600's all the way to 1880, the year of the Centennial Exhibition (288 pp.)
• Citizenship In Philadelphia (1919; Arden Press) By J. Lynn Barnard, Ph.D. and Jessie C. Evans. A. M.  This book presents practical information about the historical workings of the city of Philadelphia, including the public school system, waste disposal, elections, city planning, etc. (376 pp.)
• Penn's Green Country Towne (1903; Arden Press) [Sketches of Early Philadelphia and its Prominent Characters] By Rev. S. F. Hotchkin.  This book chronicles the early events of Philadelphia's history and provides sketches of some of the city's more prominent citizens. (216 pp.)
• History of Independence Hall (1859; Arden Press) [From the Earliest Period to the Present Time. Embracing Biographies of the Immortal Signers of the Declaration of Independence, with Historical Sketches of the Sacred Relics Preserved in that Sanctuary of American Freedom.]  By D.W. Belisle.  This book presents an interesting history of what is Philadelphia's - and perhaps America's - most historic building. It covers the prominent events (most notably the drafting of the Constitution) as well as the people associated with this historic site. (398 pp.)
• A web presentation by Tuomi J. Forrest (U. of Virginia) on William Penn and the establishment of Philadelphia.
• Benjamin Franklin on his arrival in Philadelphia in 1723:  excerpts from his Autobiography.
• Early Images of Philadelphia from the The Society of Architectural Historians Image Exchange.
• On the establishment of Philadelphia's Water Works (also a Tuomi Forrest presentation).
• Images for Tyler's presentation.
• THE PHILADELPHIA CITY ARCHIVES.
• GENEALOGY OF PHILADELPHIA COUNTY SUBDIVISIONS.
• CHRONOLOGY OF THE POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS OF THE COUNTY OF PHILADELPHIA, 1683-1854.
• CHRONOLOGY OF THE POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, 1705-1854.
• CHRONOLOGY OF THE POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, 1854-1966.
• Map of Philadelphia, 1898.
• Maps of Philadelphia wards, 1854-1914.
• Good listing of history of Philadelphia bibliographic material.
• History of Philadelphia site.
• The Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies online resources.

 

Washington, D.C. Web Readings:

• A Web presentation by Mary Halnon (U. of Virginia) on the design of Washington, D.C.
• A Web presentation by Julie Rose on Washington, D. C. and the City Beautiful Movement.
• Thomas Jefferson's critical thoughts on cities and manufacturing (from his Notes on Virginia, 1787, and various letters).
• Excerpts from George Fitzhugh's Sociology for the South, 1857:  a critique of Northern "free society," its industry and its cities by a Southern pro-slavery advocate.
• Excerpts from Geroge Tucker's Progress of the United States in Population and Wealth (1843)
• Chapter 5 from W. E. B. Du Bois' The Souls of Black Folk (1903):  a vision of Atlanta as it appeared to emancipated Southern blacks.

Chicago Web Readings:

• Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie, 1901.  Read chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4.  These chapters describe Carrie's arrival in Chicago and her search for a job.
• Several pieces by Jane Addams from 1893-1910 describing Hull House and Chicago slums:
• Twenty Years at Hull House (1910): Chapter XIII: Public Activities and Investigations
• The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements, 1893
• The Objective Value of a Social Settlement, 1893
• A History of Chicago Web presentation
• Alexander Hesler's 12 photograph panorama of Chicago taken in 1858 from the top of the court house.
• Chicago in 1820, 1854, 1857, 1862, 1864, and 1871.
• Pre-fire Chicago landmarks.
• Chicago in 1898.
• The World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago World's Fair of 1893)
• A Web presentation by Julie Rose on the Columbian Exposition
• A Web presentation by Bruce Schulman on the Columbian Exposition
• Frederick Jackson Turner's famous essay on the end of the frontier, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," 1893.
• Maps depicting the moving frontier in pre-1675, 1675-1800, 1800-1820, 1820-1835, 1835-1850, and 1850-1890.
• Maps depicting the entry of states into the union:  1775, 1790, 1800, 1810, 1820, 1830, 1840, 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, and 1920.

New York Web Readings:

• Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York, 1890
• Lawrence Veiller description of New York City's revised Building Code: "New York's New Building Code" (1899-1900).
• Lewis E. Palmer's description of a day in the life of a tenement inspector trying to enforce the new code:  "The Day's Work of a "New Law" Tenement Inspector" (1906-1907).
• Map of the lower east side.
• Background information on the Tenement Museum.
• Photo Album and Guide of our trip to the museum.

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• Two poems by Walt Whitman:
• Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, 1856
• Manhatta, 1860
• Francis Walker, "Restriction of Immigration," 1896 (commentary on the need to end the flood of "defective new immigrants" flooding into US cities at end of century).
• Outline of the Consequences of Walker's Writings.
• Ida M. Van Etten "Russian Jews as Desirable Immigrants", 1893 (a "defense" of a "defective" new immigrant group).
• Historical Immigration Statistics, United States, 1820-1990.
• Recent data on the % Foreign Born in New York City.
• Excerpt from Robert Hunter's Poverty, 1904 (continuation of the Walker theme about the inferior "quality" of  low income groups living in big city slums).
• Robert Alston Stevenson, "The Poor in Summer," 1901 (a more sympathetic treatment of the poor in slums). 

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• On the Lower East Side.  Wonderful set of materials, some primary sources, on turn-of-the-century New York's lower east side.
• Herman Melville's Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street (1859).
• Homepage of Metropolis, the 1926 movie directed by Fritz Lang.

Los Angeles Web Readings:

• An Image Collection of 19th Century Los Angeles (by Los Angeles Unified School District).
• An Image Collection of Early 20th Century Los Angeles  (Univ. of Southern California School of Architecture).

The Society of Architectural Historians Image Exchange -- Images of American cities, city plans, buildings, etc.  from 1600 to 1976.

Urban Planning, 1794-1918: An International Anthology of Articles, Conference Papers, and Reports.  A insghtful selection of difficult to get documents on city planning, most focused on the United States, edited by  John W. Reps.

Collection of photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company Collection includes over
25,000 glass negatives and transparencies as well as about 300 color photolithograph prints, mostly
of the eastern United States, for the period 1880-1920.

Documents in Law, History and Government.  Good source for important early documents in American history..

Historical Census Information on population.

Library of Congress on-line Historical Maps of Towns and Cities.