America's Urban History

The history of the American city is, in many ways, the history of the United States. Although rural traditions have also left their impact on the country, cities and urban living have been vital components of America for centuries, and an understanding of the urban experience is essential to comprehending America?s past. America?s Urban History is an engaging and accessible overview of the life of American cities, from Native American settlements before the arrival of Europeans to the present-day landscape of suburban sprawl, urban renewal, and a heavily urbanized population.

The book provides readers with a rich chronological and thematic narrative, covering themes including:

• The role of cities in the European settlement of North America
• Cities and westward expansion
• Social reform in the industrialized cities
• The impact of the New Deal
• The growth of the suburbs
• The relationships between urban forms and social issues of race, class, and gender

Covering the evolving story of the American city with depth and insight, America's Urban History will be the first stop for all those seeking to explore the American urban experience.

Introduction: Discovering and Defining the "City upon a Hill"

Chapter One: Pre-Colonial and Seventeenth-Century Native American Settlements

Chapter Two: Transplanting Cities and Urban Networks: Spain, France, and Holland in Colonial America, 1565-1821

Chapter Three: City, Plantation, Metropolis: The Anglo-American Urban Experience, 1587-1800

Chapter Four: An Urban Frontier: The American West, 1800-1869

Chapter Five: The Urban Cauldron: City Growth and the Rise of Social Reform, 1850-1920

Chapter Six: The Urban Nation: Middletown and Metropolis

Chapter Seven: New Deal, New Cities: The 1930s

Chapter Eight: War and Postwar Metropolis: Cites, Suburbs, and Exurbs, 1940s-1950s

Chapter Nine: The Frontier of Imagination: American Cities in the 1960s

Chapter Ten: Attempting Revival and Renaissance: The 1970s-1980s

Chapter Eleven: The Modern City: Fear, Technology, and Inequality, 1990-Present

Bibliography

Lisa Krissoff Boehm is Interim Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at Worcester State University.

Steven H. Corey is Professor and Chair of the Department of Humanities, History, and Social Sciences at Columbia College Chicago.

Together, they are the editors of The American Urban Reader, an anthology of primary and secondary sources in American urban history.