Digital Summer School: Chicago Elections Project

After sojourning to the East Coast to visit the Gotham Center’s Gotham blog last week, we now travel to capital of the Midwest, Chicago, where LaDale Winling and others have embarked on an ambitious project that combines political science, history and GIS mapping to create the Chicago Elections Project (CEP). Winling, who has both a new book […]

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Grad Student Blog Contest Deadline Extended to August 1

We couldn’t resist extending the Second Annual UHA/Metropole Grad Student Blog Contest two more weeks! Why? Why not?! You know have until August 1 to enter the contest. First prize claims $100 but as important is the value of contributing to a lively public discourse and active dialogue within the profession of urban history. It […]

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Digital Summer School: Gotham

Digital Summer School began with Tropics of Meta where co-editors Romeo Guzman and Alex Sayf Cummings talked about the old and new initiatives at the academic/cultural website. We then moved the classroom to the Midwestern metropolis of Milwaukee as Amanda Seligman discussed the Encyclopedia of Milwaukee. Today, we travel to New York City and The Gotham […]

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Remember the Grad Student Blog Contest deadline is approaching July 15!

You’ve undoubtedly spent the past few days gorging yourselves with barbecued food, imbibing adult beverages, and semi-enjoying fireworks as you beat away thousands of swarming mosquitoes. But now it’s Monday and if you’re an intrepid, enterprising, UHA member and grad student, you have until this Sunday to enter our second annual competition. First prize claims […]

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Digital Summer School: The Encyclopedia of Milwaukee

In our second installment of Digital Summer School, Amanda Seligman, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee historian and co-founder of the online project the Encyclopedia of Milwaukee (EMKE), discusses the challenges, triumphs, and goals of the EMKE. Twitter handle for EMKE: @MkeEncyclopedia Why did you establish this digital project and who is your audience? Urban history encyclopedias have been […]

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Fighting for Clearance: SoCal, the Military Industrial Complex, and Gay Liberation or Your Weekly Reminder to enter The Grad Student Blog Contest

Security clearances have been a topic of great controversy in recent months. The process of issuing access to government secrets has always been opaque, but for decades it was also discriminatory. In 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower issued executive order #10450, which banned homosexuals from government employment and labeled them a threat to national security. “Throughout […]

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Member of the Week: Brett Abrams

Brett L. Abrams Senior Archivist National Archives and Records Administration Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest?  I am examining the role of visual arts in the development of Washington, D.C. during the twentieth century. My previous books examined the intersection between popular culture and urban history. Hollywood Bohemians looks at transgressive […]

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From Point Break to La La Land: Travel, Film, and the Circus that is L.A

Perhaps it’s fitting that I ended my week-long sojourn to the City of Angels eating Sushi on Sunset Boulevard while sitting behind 1990s super model Fabio. As someone who came of age in the 1990s – I graduated high school in 1994 and college in 1998 — the Los Angeles of 20th century fin de […]

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A Quick Reflection on the Member of the Week Series

While I’m waiting for the newest batch of responses to roll into the UHA’s inbox, I wanted to share some thoughts on the first year-and-a-quarter of editing the Member of the Week series: First and foremost, I am unceasingly amazed at the generosity of UHA members. I have solicited just over 50 posts since we […]

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Slums: Alan Mayne Responds

The Metropole‘s recently launched a new series of book reviews, edited by Jim Wunsch. UHA President Richard Harris inaugurated the series in May with a review of Alan Mayne’s Slums: The History of a Global Injustice. Wunsch contacted Professor Mayne regarding his response to Harris’ review, which Mayne generously wrote and shared: I thank Richard […]

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