The Official Blog of the Urban History Association
In 1993, the Hawaii Supreme Court issued a ruling that would prove prescient. Ninia Baehr and Genora Dancel, along with two other couples, had filed a lawsuit against the state in order to have a marriage license issued to them. At the time, Hawaii state law banned same sex nuptials. Surprisingly, while the court did […]
Read More
Critics often assail Joan Didion with accusations of solipsism. At first glance, Didion’s writings regarding her time in Honolulu confirm such assertions. “I am a thirty four year old woman with long straight hair and an old bikini bathing suit and bad nerves sitting on an island in the middle of the Pacific waiting for […]
Read More
University of Hawai’i Professor William Chapman has spent a lifetime working in historic preservation. A former Fulbright scholar and two time Fulbright Senior Specialist, he knows a thing or two about preserving urban history and architecture for future generations. Chapman currently serves on three international committees dedicated to preserving historical sites: History and Theory, Historic Towns […]
Read MoreScarlett Rebman PhD Candidate in History Syracuse University @scarlettrebman Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? My dissertation, “Saving Salt City: Fighting Inequality through Policy and Activism in Syracuse, New York (1955-1975),” uses mid-twentieth-century Syracuse, New York, as a lens to explore the relationship between grassroots activism and federal, state, and local […]
Read More
Until I read Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, William Finnegan’s Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir of his life as a surfer, I had little desire to visit Hawai’i. Like Ryan, my impression of the islands was drawn largely from Hollywood films and television, and reinforced by friends’ honeymoon photo albums on Facebook. Seen through these lenses, Hawaii […]
Read MoreIt’s been a big week for history (and counterfactual history) in the media and around the web! Matt Guariglia, the editor of The Metropole‘s Disciplining the City series, published an historical look at surveillance data collection in the Washington Post’s new Made By History vertical. A notable anti-surveillance advocate re-tweeted. Surveillance scholar @mguariglia on the […]
Read More
Translated as either “calm bay” or “sheltered harbor,” Honolulu is, after Auckland, New Zealand, the second largest city in Polynesia; it has been since 1845 the capital of the Kingdom of Hawai’i, and it is by far the most populous of the state of Hawai‘is metropolitan areas with just under 1,000,000 residents.[1] Honolulu has the […]
Read MoreJohn D. Fairfield Xavier University, Cincinnati, OH Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? I’m currently working on several projects. I recently drafted an essay on my late friend/mentor/editor Zane L. Miller called “’The Metropolitan Mode of Thought’: Zane L. Miller and the History of Ideas.” I hope it will be part […]
Read More
There is something undeniably charming about the Honolulu Airport’s late 1950s/early 1960s aesthetic. I’m not sure about smelling “tuberose and plumeria” upon arrival as one writer promised, but that might be because I don’t actually know what either of those scents smell like. I do know that the airport’s baggage claim area has distressingly low ceilings […]
Read MoreMichael D. Pante Assistant Professor Department of History, Ateneo de Manila University Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? My current research deals with the history of Quezon City, especially in terms of its evolving social geography throughout the twentieth century. I was drawn to this topic primarily because of my affinity […]
Read More
The Metropole 