The Official Blog of the Urban History Association
Religion has often been a central force in urban America, particularly in the twentieth century. For example, by 1940 Los Angeles exhibited a “multiplicity and diversity of faiths…that probably cannot be duplicated in any other city on earth,” noted the authors of the WPA guide to Los Angeles. L.A.’s religious diversity included Buddhism, Catholicism, Judaism, […]
Read More
Sandoval-Strausz, A.K. Barrio America: How Latino Immigrants Saved the American City. New York: Basic Books, 2019. Reviewed by Maricio Castro In August of 2017 I moved to Durham, North Carolina. Because I could not go apartment hunting ahead of time and because I had a very large dog that many landlords would not take, I had […]
Read More
By Avigail Oren Urban historians have long visited New York City’s Municipal Archives to examine the records of mayoral administrations and city agencies—records more often created by and featuring men than women, though women likely typed up or filed them. Certainly women’s stories have popped up (sometimes thrillingly, like when Emily Brooks stumbled upon the […]
Read More
By Myrna Santiago La novia del Xolotlán. The sweetheart of the Xolotlan lake. That is what Nicaraguans romantically call their capital city, Managua, because the two are always together, next to each other. The lake, also known as Lake Managua, is the northern border of the city. Other Nicaraguans have used different adjectives: caótica (chaotic), […]
Read More
Hemphill, Katie M. Bawdy City: Commercial Sex and Regulation in Baltimore, 1790-1915. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Reviewed by Jessica R. Pliley Over 20 years ago, Timothy Gilfoyle challenged historians of prostitution to explore the flow of capital between urban brothels and the formal and informal economies of the city. More recently, Amy Dru Stanley framed the […]
Read More
By Michael D. Pante Metro Manila, the seat of political power and the economic center of the Philippines, is no stranger to natural disasters. It has been battered by numerous typhoons, earthquakes, and other calamities throughout history, with huge financial, social, and political costs. And it’s no exaggeration to suggest that the metropolis, composed of […]
Read More
Catastrophe has long shaped cities. Calamities have come in many forms and for varying durations; they have inflicted great costs in lives, suffering, and wealth. Different sorts of urban disasters—terrorist attacks, floods, earthquakes, diseases—have elicited different responses, policy prescriptions, and behaviors. Cities cannot be reduced to capital flows; they are more than built environment. “[T]hey […]
Read More
Slobin, Mark. Motor City Music: A Detroiter Looks Back. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Reviewed by Bob Carey Detroit once meant cars, speed, and movement. In his new memoir Motor City Music, Mark Slobin takes us on a leisurely, unconventional ride through the city, telling the story of growing up and being shaped by the […]
Read More
The pervasive effects of the coronavirus have forced numerous public history institutions to rethink their mission and the means by which an organization might still work toward long held goals in a radically different environment. Celebrating its 60thanniversary this year, Baltimore Heritage serves as just one example of this phenomena, as the historic preservation non-profit nimbly […]
Read More
Kotlowitz, Alex. An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago. New York: Knopf Doubleday, 2019. Reviewed by Sara Paretsky The demonstrations that swept America in the wake of George Floyd’s murder seemed to show that the country had reached a tipping point: centuries after the enslavement of Africans arrived in the New World, a majority of […]
Read More
The Metropole 