The Official Blog of the Urban History Association
By Katharine G. Trostel and Valentino L. Zullo The work of the Rust Belt Humanities Institute at Ursuline College is rooted in imagining and co-creating new futures. As two native Clevelanders (raised by the Rust Belt) teaching at a local institution—the majority of our students are firmly anchored in the greater Cleveland region—we occupy a […]
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Editor’s note: In anticipation of the Urban History Association’s 2023 conference being held in Pittsburgh from October 26 – October 29, The Metropole is making the Steel City its Metropolis of the Month for January 2023. The CFP remains open until February 20, 2023. See here for details. By David S. Rotenstein Introduction Pittsburgh is […]
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By Julius L. Jones The history of African Americans on the Chicago Police Department (CPD) begins in 1871. The same year the Great Chicago Fire destroyed approximately three-and-a-half square miles of the city, leaving 100,000 people unhoused, James L. Shelton was appointed the first African American member of CPD. Since then, African Americans have served […]
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David Hochfelder, PhD Associate Professor History Department, University at Albany, SUNY Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? My current research is on the history of urban renewal, in particular, a public/digital history of urban renewal in New York State we’re calling Picturing Urban Renewal. I and my two colleagues, Ann Pfau and […]
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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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By Stefanie Chambers & Betsy Kalin This post focuses on the Somali American experience in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. We are currently in the process of making a documentary film about this important community. Interestingly, the film is the result of a collaboration between a professor (Chambers) who wrote a […]
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Julio Capó, Jr. Associate Professor of History and Deputy Director of the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab Florida International University @juliocapojr Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? Thanks for asking! I’m currently revising my second monograph, which is based on my dissertation research (and which, incidentally, won the Urban Historian Association’s Best […]
Read MoreAmanda I. Seligman Professor University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee @AmandaISeligman Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? My central goal in teaching urban history is to help students to read the history of the American city in the landscapes they see. Editing the Encyclopedia of Milwaukee (EMKE) gave me the chance to extend that mission […]
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By Avigail Oren On April 28th UHA past-president Richard Harris emailed me the link to Ariel Aberg-Riger’s newest visual story for CityLab, and my immediate response after reading it was “we should reach out and interview her for The Metropole about how she came up with this idea!!” I had the privilege of chatting with […]
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By Bob Carey At the end of the First World War, influenza swept across the globe killing fifty million. But this, the deadliest pandemic in history, has never been given the prominence of say, the bubonic plague, cholera, or AIDS. The Mütter Museum of medical history has now launched a most welcome, and what promises […]
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