GIVE NOW about ocw help & faqs contact us
11.013J | Spring 2025 | Undergraduate

# American Urban History

Addams, Jane. Twenty Years at Hull House. MacMillan, 1910.

Arbuckle, Roscoe “Fatty,” director. Coney Island (film). Paramount Pictures, 1917.

Baldwin, Peter C. “Nightlife in the American City,” in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

Barth, Gunther. “Ball Park,” in Alexander B. Callow Jr., editor, American Urban History: An Interpretive Reader with Commentaries, pp. 141–171. Oxford, 1982.

Brooks, Charlotte. “Immigration to American Cities, 1924–2017,” in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

Connolly, James J. “Politics in Urban America Before 1940,” in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

Davis, Kingsley. “The Urbanization of the Human Population.” Scientific American, September 1965. Reprinted in Legates, Richard T., and Frederic Stout, editors, The City Reader, pp. 17–26. Routledge, 2007.

DeForest, Robert W., and Lawrence Veiller, editors. The Tenement House Problem: Including the report of the New York State Tenement House Commission of 1900. New York: MacMillan, 1903.

DuBois, W. E. B.. The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1899.

Elkins, Alex. “Riots and Rioting in US Cities, 1800–2000,” in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

Engels, Frederick. The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844, trans. Florence Kelley. John W. Lovell, 1887. [Originally published in German as Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England. (Leipzig: Otto Wigand, 1845)]

Erickson, Ansley T. “Schools in US Cities,” in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

Flanagan, Maureen A. “Progressives and Progressivism in an Era of Reform,” in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

Fryer, William J., editor. The Tenement House Law of the City of New York, with headings, paragraphs, marginal notes and full indexes. The Record and Guide Press, 1901.

Garb, Margaret. “Municipal Housing in America,” in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

George, Henry. Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy. New York: Appleton, 1879.

Hays, Samuel P. “The Politics of Reform in Municipal Government in the Progressive Era,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly, October 1964, pp. 157–168.

Hirota, Hidetaka. “Immigration to American Cities, 1800–1924,” in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

Hower, Joseph E. “Public Sector Unions in the United States,” in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

Hunt, D. Bradford. “Public Housing in Urban America,” in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

Katz, Michael B. In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America. Basic Books, 1996.

Keating, Ann. “Suburbanization in the United States Before 1945," in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

Lepore, Jill. “The Invention of the Police.” The New Yorker, July 20, 2020.

Lobel, Cindy. “Food in the 19th-Century American City,” in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

MacAdoo, William. “Why the Police Are Not More Effective” (1906), in Anselm Strauss, editor, The American City: a Sourcebook for Urban Imagery. Aldine Publishing Company, 1968.

Merton, Robert K. “The Latent Functions of the Machine,” in Alexander B. Callow Jr., editor, American Urban History: An Interpretive Reader with Commentaries, pp. 181–190. Oxford, 1982.

Olmsted, Frederick Law. “Frederick Law Olmsted Advocates Parks as Cures for Urban Malaise, 1870,” in Howard P. Chudacoff, editor, Major Problems in American Urban History. Houghton Mifflin, 1994.

Peiss, Kathy. “Leisure and Labor,” in Raymond A. Mohl, editor, The Making of Urban America, pp. 167–186. Scholarly Resources, 1997.

Pliley, Jessica. “Prostitutes and Prostitution in America,” in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

Rees, Jonathan, “Industry, Commerce, and Urbanization in the United States, 1880–1929," in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

Remus, Emily. “The Central Business District in American Cities,” in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

Riess, Steven A. “Professional Team Sports in the United States,” in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

Riis, Jacob A. How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1890.

Riordon, William L. Plunkitt of Tammany Hall: A Series of Very Plain Talks on Very Practical Politics, Delivered by Ex-Senator George Washington Plunkitt, the Tammany Philosopher, from His Rostrum—the New York County Court House Bootblack Stand. McClure, Philips, 1905.

Schley, David. “Industry, Commerce, and Urbanization in the United States, 1790–1870," in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

Schuyler, David. “Parks in Urban America,” in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

Stanger-Ross, Jordan. “Ethnicity and US Neighborhoods,” in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

Steptoe, Tyina. “The Great Migration and Black Urban Life in the United States, 1914–1970,” in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

Susman, Warren. Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century. Smithsonian Books, 1984.

Tanenhaus, David S. “Juvenile Justice in the United States,” in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

Tarr, Joel A. “Water and Sewers in the American City," in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

The Tenement House Department of the City of New York and the Tenement House Committee of the Charity Organization Society. For You. It Is Hard to Get Money. It Is Harder to Spend It Right. Health Is Wealth. Issued by The Tenement House Department of the City of New York and the Tenement House Committee of the Charity Organization Society, 1917.

Thompson, H. Paul. “Temperance and Prohibition,” in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

Vaz, Matthew. “Gambling in Northern US Cities,” in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

Wilson, Daniel. “Contagious Diseases and Public Health in the American City,” in Timothy J. Gilfoyle, editor, The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Oxford University Press, April 2019.

Wilson, James Q. “The Dilemma of the Urban Police,” in Alexander B. Callow Jr., editor, American Urban History: An Interpretive Reader with Commentaries, pp. 445–454. Oxford, 1982

Wirth, Louis. “Urbanism as a Way of Life.” American Journal of Sociology, 1938. Reprinted in Legates, Richard T., and Frederic Stout, editors, The City Reader (Routledge: 2007), pp. 90–97.

Young, Jay, and Robert M. Fogelson. “Mass Transit in 19th- and 20th-Century America,” in Jay Young and Robert M. Fogelson, editors, Downtown: Its Rise and Fall, 1880–1950. Yale University Press, 2001.

## Course Info

##### Instructor

- Ezra Haber Glenn

##### Departments

- Urban Studies and Planning
- History

##### As Taught In

Spring 2025

##### Level

Undergraduate

##### Topics

- Humanities
  - History
    - American History
- Social Science
  - Urban Studies

##### Learning Resource Types

assignment Written Assignments
Student Work
Readings

Browse Resources

# You are leaving MIT OpenCourseWare

Please be advised that external sites may have terms and conditions, including license rights, that differ from ours. MIT OCW is not responsible for any content on third party sites, nor does a link suggest an endorsement of those sites and/or their content.