The Official Blog of the Urban History Association
This blog post is the third in a series of posts supporting the UHA’s inaugural Membership Drive. These posts will introduce you to some of the many amazing scholars, activists, teachers, and others in the UHA’s membership community, as well as highlight the role played by the UHA in the lives and careers of its […]
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Marta Gutman You wear a lot of hats! What are your many and varied affiliations? I am Interim Dean and Professor of Architecture (History and Theory) at the Spitzer School of Architecture, City College of the City University of New York, and Professor of Art History and Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Graduate Center […]
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Martin, Sean and John J. Grabowski, eds. Cleveland Jews and the Making of a Midwestern Community. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2020. Reviewed by Avigail Oren Despite having lived in Pittsburgh for nearly a decade, I love Cleveland. This is anathema in my adopted home, though the source of animosity between the two cities […]
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Jon Wiener and Mike Davis. Set the Night on Fire: L. A. in the Sixties. New York: Verso Books, 2020. Reviewed by Ryan Reft Anyone who chooses to focus on Southern California history must consult the work of Mike Davis. Full stop. Keep in mind you don’t necessarily have to agree with Davis, but you […]
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It would be difficult to identify two words more in use this year than “coping” and “self-care.” Some UHA members travel the Norwegian route embracing hygge interior design to attain some level of “coziness,” though 2020 conventional wisdom says Danish Hygge is tired but Swedish Hygge is wired. Others, pound Ben and Jerry’s. In the […]
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By Avigail Oren On November 16, Pittsburgh NPR affiliate WESA dropped a five-part podcast called Land and Power, about a fight for housing in the city’s historically Black neighborhood of East Liberty. In 2015, residents of the Penn Plaza apartment buildings found out they’d have to leave their homes to make way for new development. […]
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For decades, Hollywood viewed television and film actors the way the public thinks about the two houses of Congress. Like television, the House of Representatives, though important, lacks the august credibility of the Senate. In entertainment, the top talent and best quality flowed into film. Yet, since the alleged “Golden Era” of television — which […]
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You know how newsletters in your email from prominent journalists (Clare Malone, Dave Weigel, Anne Helen Peterson, etc. etc.), while all the rage (as the kids in their mid-60s like to say), are really just a veiled return to the sort of chain emails that dominated the internets early years, but now in a more […]
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Is there anything better than slinging out “Best Of” lists? How often do we have a platform from which to proselytize for one’s favorite films, books, movies and so forth? At The Metropole, we asked our editors if they wanted take the opportunity to hype those things that got them through this very difficult year. […]
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By Avigail Oren The recent work of historical anthropologist Katherine Hayes has focused on decolonizing the narratives interpreted at public heritage sites, including St. Paul’s Historic Fort Snelling at Bdote. The United States military constructed Fort Snelling in 1819-20 to protect the area’s fur trade, a role it served until Minnesota gained statehood in 1858 […]
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