The Metropole stormed into January with some great content, setting the tone for an exciting year. What were our New Years resolutions, you ask? We simply have one: to continue putting out the kind of great research and reflection that makes our blog the digital hub for urban history, read by experts and enthusiasts alike.

Last week we kicked off our first Metropolis of the Month for 2018 with John Sherrer’s bibliography of Columbia, South Carolina. This capitol city is hosting our upcoming Urban History Association Biennial Conference in October, and after reading Sherrer’s sweeping overview of the city’s history I have a better sense of Columbia’s early development, its role in the Civil War, and its evolution throughout the twentieth century. We also featured a post by Robert Greene II about Congaree Swamp (now Congaree National Park) and the role it played in sustaining Columbia’s black community from slavery through the end of the nineteenth century. As Greene writes:

Understanding the story of African American resilience in Congaree is key to knowing more about the history of African American freedom in South Carolina and across the United States. For African Americans, land was power. Self-sufficiency and free labor meant freedom. All of this was proven time and again in Congaree.

Stay tuned next week for more posts about Columbia, including a history of South Carolina’s black press and some insight into the difficulty of removing Confederate monuments.

In addition to our Metropolis of the Month coverage, we also announced the winner of the inaugural UHA/The Metropole Grad Student Blogging Contest, placed our first book on The Metropole Book Shelf, and published a historian’s reaction the “new” trend among urban policy makers for land-value taxes.

Love seeing more on George and urban finance. Owner-occupancy deserves to drive the analysis here. It’s where property ownership and home ownership align that troubles each step in this political economy.

— Alexia Yates (@alexia_yates) January 11, 2018

For those in SoCal, also make sure not to miss the upcoming sessions of the LA History & Metro Studies Group.

For UHA Grad Students, check out the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship in History Education at the Museum of the City of New York–applications are due on March 7. It’s $30,900 for two days per week of work, plus relocation expenses! I rarely wish I could rewind the clock and do grad school over again, but when I read about this fellowship I felt sad that I’d missed the opportunity to work at one of my favorite museums.

Also for UHA Grad Students, Carnegie Mellon University’s digital scholarship center, dSHARP, is offering a paid eight week summer internship–one of the projects is urban oriented (Bridges of Pittsburgh). Improve those DH skills and spend the summer in the great city of Pittsburgh? That’s a hard deal to beat.

For the Americanists in our ranks, the deadline to submit for the 2019 OAH Conference has been extended until January 23.

And finally, we close with our customary dose of humor:

Describing his research to his ever-supportive grandmother, the grad student watches her eager eyes steadily glaze over. pic.twitter.com/FMqgTGDSKc

— Lego Grad Student (@legogradstudent) January 3, 2018

Faithfully yours,

The Editors