Jack at South Carolina College: Remembering Enslaved People in Columbia

By Jill Found In December, the University of South Carolina dedicated two new historic plaques on the Horseshoe, the school’s original campus. Each marker described the school’s ownership of enslaved people and use of enslaved labor from its founding until the Civil War. One included the names of sixteen individuals owned by the college or […]

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Member of the Week: René Luís Alvarez

René Luís Alvarez, PhD Lecturer in History Arrupe College of Loyola University Chicago   Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest?  I have researched and written about the history of American urban education, focusing mainly on Chicago’s Mexican American community. While the teaching and administrative responsibilities of my current position at Arrupe […]

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Cities and the Legacy of 1968

By Jim Wunsch Happy 2018, if the statute of limitations has not yet run out on such greetings. What will the new year bring? When it comes to prognosticating, historians are probably no better than any others. As to the past, however, we would be remiss to overlook that it has been a half-century since the year 1968–arguably the annus mirabilis of […]

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ICYMI: The “How is it almost February?” Edition

By Avigail Oren We’re approaching the end of our Metropolis of the Month coverage of Columbia, SC, and I confess that I’m feeling sad about it. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with our many contributors and the response from you all, dear readers, has been so enthusiastic. My consolation is that we have one more […]

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The City Bureaucracy Rebuilt: Columbia’s Mid-Century Moment

Image above: 1919 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Ward 1, the African American neighborhood the university acquired and demolished through Urban Renewal. LBC&W’s Carolina Coliseum was built on the block just south of Greene Street, facing east onto Assembly Street. Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of South Carolina Collection, South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina. By […]

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Member of the Week: Matt Lasner

Matthew G. Lasner Associate Professor, Urban Policy and Planning Hunter College, City University of New York   Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? I am writing a new book tentatively entitled the rather cumbersome Bay Area Urbanism: Architecture, Real Estate, and Progressive Community Planning in the United States from the New […]

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Member of the Week: Dakota Irvin

Dakota Irvin Doctoral Candidate in History University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill @ddirvin1 Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? I’m currently writing my dissertation on the history of the city of Ekaterinburg, Russia, during the Russian Revolution, Civil War, and first years of Soviet power (1917-1922). My research traces the […]

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Printing the Good Fight: The Importance of Black Newspapers in Columbia, S.C.

Editor’s note: Both as part of our continuing coverage of the January Metropolis of the Month  Columbia, S.C. and as a nod to the Martin Luther King holiday, University of Minnesota Professor of Journalism, Sid Bedingfield provides an account of how the Black press in Columbia and the state more broadly, proved integral to the burgeoning […]

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ICYMI: The First One of 2018 Edition

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. […]

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The Metropole Book Shelf: Adam Arenson’s Banking on Beauty

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 Adam Arenson  Adam Arenson. 2018. Banking on Beauty: Millard Sheets and Midcentury Commercial Architecture in California. Austin: University of Texas Press, 368 pp. 157 color and 17 […]

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