This course will explore the social, economic, and cultural lives of three
cities, each of which at its zenith seemed to contemporaries to represent definitive
aspects of "American" development. We will begin with Boston-the country's first
"big" city and the nominal capital of Puritan New England-in the colonial and
early national periods. From there we will move to Chicago, the transportation
and commercial hub of the emerging national economy in the nineteenth century.
Finally we will turn to Los Angeles, "The City of Dreams" and the center of
the popular entertainment industry in the twentieth century. In each case, drawing
on a variety of sources, we will examine the city's origins, the factors that
promoted its growth, and the distinctive society it engendered. Then we will
consider some of the city's cultural expressions-expressions that seem to characterize
not only changing the nature of urban life, but the particular meanings each
city gave to the nation's experience at the time. What made these cities seem
simultaneously, as they did, so alluring and so threatening to the fabric of
national community and identity?
Format: seminar. Written work in the course will consist of two short papers
and a longer essay analyzing selected primary texts. There will be no hour test
or final exam. Enrollment limit: 20 (expected: 15). Preference to History majors.
Group A