The Official Blog of the Urban History Association
By David S. Rotenstein In 2009 I learned about one African American woman who briefly lived in Silver Spring, Maryland, a Washington, DC, suburb. She worked for a white physician’s family. Lucille Walker’s story as a Black domestic worker survives in bits and pieces in the memory of the physician’s daughter, Ann Scandiffio. In 1939 […]
Read More
Gale, Dennis. The Misunderstood History of Gentrification: People, Planning, Preservation, Urban Renewal, 1915-2020. Temple University Press, 2021. Reviewed by David J. Goodwin Gentrification entered the scholarly discourse on cities in 1964 with London: Aspects of Change, Ruth Glass’s study regarding the influx of middle-income residents moving into historically working-class London neighborhoods and the gradual transformation […]
Read More
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 Briana A. Thomas Writing my debut history book, Black Broadway in Washington, D.C., felt like traveling through time. Navigating through the past three centuries of rich, vibrant, […]
Read More
Summers, Martin. Madness in the City of Magnificent Expectations: A History of Race and Mental Illness in the Nation’s Capital. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Reviewed by Debra Kram-Fernandez Madness in The City of Magnificent Expectations is concerned with the history of psychiatric care for Black, Brown, and White Americans suffering from serious and/or chronic […]
Read More
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. Austin, Paula. Coming of Age in Jim Crow D.C. Navigating the Politics of Everyday Life. New York: New York University Press, 2019. By Paula Austin Coming of Age […]
Read More
The Urban History Association would like to draw your attention to the Call for Papers from the Urban Affairs Association for its 2020 conference: Shaping the Future of Urban Research. You can go to their CFP directly, however the call is also provided below. April 2-4, 2020 | Washington, DC USA | Renaissance Hotel Shaping the Future of Urban Research […]
Read More
Call for Papers: 2020 Latrobe Chapter Symposium Race, Ethnicity, and Architecture in the Nation’s Capital In 2019, the Washington Post reported that the nation’s capital had the highest intensity of gentrification of any American city, with more than 20,000 African Americans displaced from low-income neighborhoods from 2000 to 2013. For architectural and urban historians, the […]
Read More
When one thinks of Northern Virginia, Old Town Alexandria might be the first place that comes to mind. Historic, compact, and on the water, Old Town remains a popular brunch and tourist destination and a way station for intrepid souls proceeding on to nearby Mount Vernon. Yet, since the 1960s, Alexandria’s industrial areas such as […]
Read MoreVyta Baselice PhD Student in American Studies George Washington University Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? My dissertation explores the cultural history of concrete. I examine why concrete became the second most consumed material on the planet and how it came to define architectural and social modernity in the United States. […]
Read MoreBrett 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 […]
Read More
The Metropole 