Black Broadway in Washington, D.C.

December 21, 2021.Reading time 8 minutes.

The Metropole Bookshelf is an opportunity for authors of forthcoming or recently published books to let the UHA community know about their new work in the field. By Briana A. Thomas Writing my debut history book, Black Broadway in Washington, D.C., felt like traveling through time. Navigating through the past three centuries of rich, vibrant, […]

The Big Fish and a Big Building: A Historic Pittsburgh Building’s Obituary

December 20, 2021.Reading time 36 minutes.

By David S. Rotenstein Introduction In the summer of 2021, crews began demolishing a historic building in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s Strip District. The building was a monumental, windowless, concrete block onto which a later owner—a fish wholesaler and retailer—had installed a large illuminated fish. The building and its fish were popular and well-loved visual landmarks in […]

Member of the Week: Lisa Krissoff Boehm

December 16, 2021.Reading time 9 minutes.

Lisa Krissoff Boehm, PhD Dean, College of Graduate Studies, Professor of History and American Studies, Bridgewater State University @BoehmLisa Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? At this time I am working on three book projects. First, with co-author Steven H. Corey, I am working on a revised edition of our 2015 […]

On Russell Maroon Shoatz’s “Death By Regulation,” 1997, with Robert Saleem Holbrook, Executive Director of the Abolitionist Law Center

December 15, 2021.Reading time 28 minutes.

This post is part of the Metropole’s Disciplining the Nation series, where we are spotlighting a primary source that is vital to the retelling of the history of racial state violence and criminalization in the United States. Learn more about the series here. By Charlotte Rosen “I am not under a court sentence of death. […]

Introducing “Disciplining the Nation”

December 14, 2021.Reading time 7 minutes.

By Matt Guariglia and Charlotte Rosen A Teaching Aid and Documentary History of Policing, Incarceration, Criminalization, and Activism in the United States For many years now, the Urban History Association and its conference has served as a type of home base for historians looking to explore and excavate the troubling histories of criminalization, policing, and […]

Cityscape Number 11: December 2021

December 13, 2021.Reading time 13 minutes.

When COVID-19 hit in late February/early March of last year, Cityscape continued its listing of current, forthcoming, and overlooked studies in urban history. But after suspending notices of museum shows and films, we initiated a series on the history of plagues in cities: yellow fever in Philadelphia, smallpox in Boston, polio in Brooklyn, cholera in […]

Rise and Fall of a Movement — A Review of “The Young Lords: A Radical History”

December 8, 2021.Reading time 11 minutes.

Fernandez, Johanna. The Young Lords: A Radical History. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2020. Reviewed by Leo Valdes In 1969 activists convened at the first Chicano Youth Liberation Conference. Among them were New York Puerto Ricans excited to learn about a group of Chicago activists who wore purple berets and carried a […]

Member of the Week: Diana J. Montaño

December 7, 2021.Reading time 9 minutes.

Diana J. Montaño Assistant Professor in History at Washington University in St. Louis @DJMontao1 Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? I am currently working on two projects, both of which interrogate the use of technology in Mexico. “Urban Palisades: Technology in the Making of Santa Fe, Mexico City” is a collaborative project […]