11/3/17

ARC 342R (#00764)/ ARC 388R (00904)/ CRP 392C (01148) Spring 2017 History of American City-building Associate Professor Michael Holleran Tuesdays 2:00 – 5:00 holleran@utexas.edu Sutton 2.110 512.471.3792 office: Sutton 2.122 office hours Tuesdays 5:00 – 6:00 or by appointment

Charles Addams, The New Yorker, 2.20.1989

Planning history often focuses on utopias, reforms, and precedents, and design history on the superlative and the avant garde. This course looks instead at changing norms: how the ordinary environment was ordinarily produced, and by whom. Its focus is the United States from the early 19th century to the 1960s.

1. 1/16

introduction: what is history for? the pre-industrial city I

2. 1/23

due: exercise 1

the mid-19th century city II the development process and the cast of characters changing roles for the various actors involved in producing cities: surveyor, engineer, developer, architect, landscape architect, planner.

Michael Holleran, ‘Changeful Times’: Preservation, Planning, and Permanence in Boston, 1860-1930 (Baltimore, 1998), ch. 1: ‘The culture of change’; 2: ‘Problems with change.’ Doucet, Michael J. ‘Urban Land Development in Nineteenth-Century North America: Themes in the Literature.’ Journal of Urban History 8 (1982): 299-342. PRIMARY SOURCE (FOR THIS WEEK): Richard M. Hurd, Principles of City Land Values (New York, 1902), part of ch. 4: ‘Ground Plan of Cities,’ 47-55.

History of American City-Building (Holleran) Spring 2017: 2

3. 1/30

the domestic environment I technology of climate control, lighting, cooking and waste; changing standards of space and comfort; the evolving ideology of domesticity, family, and work; changing relations of indoors and out, and evolution of the yard.

Gwendolyn Wright, Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America (MIT, 1981), ch 6: ‘Victorian Suburbs and the Cult of Domesticity’; ch. 9: ‘The Progressive Housewife and the Bungalow’ David Handlin, The American Home: Architecture and Society, 1815-1915 (Boston, 1979), ch. 7: ‘The Heart of the Home’ PRIMARY SOURCE: First National Conference of Developers of High Class Residential Property (1917), excerpt

4. 2/6

due: selections for books 3 & 4

the domestic environment II

5. 2/13

the production of housing, and integration of the development process the transition from a fragmented system of subdividers, speculators, and builders, to an integrated industry.

Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier, ch. 7: ‘Affordable Homes for the Common Man’ Marc Weiss, Rise of the Community Builders, ch. 2: ‘The Rise of the Community Builders’ PRIMARY SOURCE: Second National Conference of Developers of High Class Residential Property (1918), excerpt

6. 2/20

due: prelim proposal for research paper

construction and the technology of building the technology of building and the organization of the construction industry.

Michael J. Doucet & John C. Weaver, ‘Material Culture and the North American House: The Era of the Common Man, 1870-1920,’ Journal of American History 72:3 (December 1985): 560-87. Charlotte V. Brown, ‘The Advance in Industrial Enterprise: Building with the New Technology, 1865-1900,’ ch. 5 in Catherine W. Bishir, et al., Architects and Builders in North Carolina: A History of the Practice of Building (Chapel Hill, 1990), 240-89.

7. 2/27

due: literature review 1

infrastructure water and cities in the east and west; where water goes when we finish with it; plugging the house into the city; telegraph and telephone and their role in redefining home and work

Stanley K. Schultz, Constructing Urban Culture, ch. 7: ‘Promoting Public Works’ Michael Southworth and Eran Ben-Joseph, ‘Street Standards and the Shaping of Suburbia,’ Journal of the American Planning Association 61 (1995), 65-81.

History of American City-Building (Holleran) Spring 2017: 3

8. 3/6

regulating city-building regulation by whom and for what: building & fire codes, deed restrictions, zoning; and their design consequences.

Holleran, ‘Changeful Times,’ ch. 3: ‘Selling permanence,’ ch. 10: ‘Public controls’ Weiss, Rise of the Community Builders, ch. 4: ‘The Los Angeles Realty Board and Zoning,’ 79-106. PRIMARY SOURCE: deed restrictions: Norton Estate, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Palos Verdes (excerpts), Stonegate Village (excerpts)

3/13 s p r i n g b r e a k

9. 3/20

due: literature review 2

suburbs (and transit and downtown) the rail century, the automobile century, and the suburban environment.

Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: ch. 5: ‘The Main Line: Elite Suburbs and Commuter Railroads’; ch. 10: ‘Subdivision Development Between the Wars’; and ch. 13: ‘The Baby Boom and the Age of the Subdivision’

10. 3/27

downtown (and transit and suburbs) skyscrapers, department stores, and movie palaces. the market and distribution; streetcar and automobile strips; urban space as a medium of communication.

Goldberger, Paul, The Skyscraper (New York, 1981) ‘Chicago Beginnings’ and ‘New York as Theater’, pp. 17-47. Carol Willis, Form Follows Finance, first half

11. 4/3

commercial strip and shopping center the market and distribution; streetcar and automobile strips; urban space as a medium of communication.

Chester Liebs, Main Street to Miracle Mile: American Roadside Architecture (Boston, 1985), ch. 1. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier, ch. 14: ‘The Drive-In Culture of Contemporary America’

12. 4/10

nature in the city cemeteries; parks and parkways; playgrounds; turf; nature and infrastructure: the irrigated oasis

Daniel Bluestone, Constructing Chicago (New Haven, 1991), ch. 2: ‘“A Different Style of Beauty”: Park Designs, 1865-1880.’

Holleran, ‘Changeful Times,’ ch. 5: ‘Parks and the permanent landscape’

13. 4/17

14. 4/24

Presentation of students’ research-in-progress

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15. 5/1

rebuilding the city re-use, redevelopment, and preservation. the city today and tomorrow

5/4 due: final research paper

Canvas™ Course materials will be available on Canvas. Assignments are to be turned in there (a discussion board will be set up for each. Please post assignments as attachments in .doc or .pdf format. Please use your lastname as the beginning of the file name). Note that this means your assignments will be available to the rest of the class. You are encouraged to take a look at the papers of other students who are working on topics related to yours. Any revisions to the syllabus will be announced in class, and the current version of the syllabus will be posted on the Canvas site. The site includes links to web resources. Please help us develop this section by sharing reviews of the sites listed, and suggestions of others that you’ve discovered.

Readings These two books (available at the Co-op) are required of everyone:

• Michael Holleran, Boston’s “Changeful Times”: Origins of Preservation and Planning in America • Kenneth Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States

Other readings are listed on the class schedule above, and are available on the Blackboard site. Additional readings may be assigned. By class 3, read Boston’s “Changeful Times.” By class 4, read Crabgrass Frontier. By class 4, choose two more books from the supplementary reading list (attached), and read them by class 6.

Assignments The class is taught as a lecture/seminar. The readings form the basis of class discussions, so you must read them all before the scheduled class. Due dates mean before the beginning of class on the date specified. Word counts are maximum; you may include supplemental material as appendices.

Primary source discussions (√/+/-) A primary source directly records a phenomenon; a secondary source synthesizes information drawn from primary sources. Scholarly books and articles are secondary sources; contemporary articles and advertisements, real estate records, maps, and photographs are primary sources. The environment itself may be treated (as archaeologists do) as a primary source. Primary sources will be posted to the Blackboard site for several of the classes. Please examine them before class. For what kinds of questions can they provide evidence? For what purpose

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were they originally recorded; does this suggest potential biases or limitations in their data?

Exercise 1: newspaper as primary source (√/+/-) (250 words maximum) due class 2 Find a full facsimile (not text-only) historic newspaper online, from before 1970. The Blackboard site includes a number of links. The Dallas Morning News maintains a facsimile archive 1885-1977, available for a fee. You may also use newspapers on microfilm if you wish. Browse for at least half an hour. Pay attention to advertisements as well as articles. Figure out which days of the week have real estate columns and advertising. Pick a page and copy the whole thing (it will probably require more than one sheet). This page is your text. Examine everything on it. Hand in a hard copy of your page. 1. Collect examples of various roles in the city-building process. Are these the same actors who play the same roles today, or do you find evidence of differences? 2. What else can you learn from it about how urban buildings and spaces were made? What questions does the text raise? Can you answer any from your reading of Richard Hurd?

Literature review 1 (A/B/C) (350 words maximum) due class 7 For books 3 and 4, discuss in a paragraph each their thesis and methodology. In the remainder of the paper, discuss any of their main themes in relation to one another, to other course readings or discussions, or to your own research project.

Literature review 2 (A/B/C) (600 words maximum) due class 10 Discuss the sources available for your research project. What have you found through library catalogs? What have you found through journal index searches? What have you found through citations in readings? There will be lots more stuff than you can read: into what categories can you divide the literature, and which pieces seem most relevant and useful? Are there things you need that don’t seem to be covered? What primary sources are available for your research? What questions can they help you to answer, and how will you use them? No paper should rely entirely on online sources, no paper should ignore them.

Research paper (A/B/C) (4000 words maximum) due Friday 5/2 A research paper on any topic (subject to instructor’s approval) in the history of city-building. Your research must use both primary and secondary sources. Think about how to use graphics (maps, illustrations, graphs). Preliminary proposal (due class 6, direct to message board): What questions will you try to answer? How do they fit into larger themes of American city-building? What sources will you begin with? What do you expect to find? This proposal is due early in the semester; don’t worry if your topic is still indefinite. Research progress report (due class 13, orally in class): Summarize your work-in-progress and then present one problem of research or interpretation for discussion and feedback by the class. Post slides to discussion board by first thing the morning before the presentation.

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Final paper topics (these are meant as illustrations, though you’re welcome to pick one from the list): Places • the Anglo discovery of/ invention of Santa Fe • race, planning and East Austin (many of the other categories below can be limited to a specific place in order to research them in depth) People • a developer: J. C. Nichols in Kansas City. • traffic engineers: origins & growth of a profession Systems & types • origins of the cul-de-sac • the car joins the family: origins of the attached garage • the automobile & the evolution of the sign

• neon Issues • air conditioning and the rise of Texas cities • changes in the downtown environment with the emergence of uses oriented to women customers. • changes in minimum standards & the erosion of housing affordability • New Orleans, Amsterdam, Venice: the view from under water • rebuilding from disasters: Chicago, San Francisco, Galveston 1900 and 2008. Dresden, Hiroshima, Warsaw.

Evaluation

Research paper 50 % Literature review 1 10 Literature review 2 15 Graded portion of course 75% Ungraded evaluation:* 25

exercise 1 primary source discussions research-in-progress discussion class participation (incl. attendance) ____

100 % *Ungraded papers receive a (√) if they meet the requirements of the assignment, a (√+) (rarely) if they show exceptional effort or accomplishment, or a (√-) if they fall short of requirements. In final grading, these exercises essentially serve to give students the benefit of the doubt: students whose work puts them between two grades may receive the higher one based on these ungraded components. Competence of expression count: written, graphic, and class presentation. Supplementary Reading List

General Abbott, Carl. How Cities Won the West: Four Centuries of Urban Change in Western North America (UNM, 2010) Konvitz, Josef W. The Urban Millennium: The City-Building Process from the Early Middle Ages to the Present (Carbondale, Ill., 1985) Schuyler, David. The New Urban Landscape: The Redefinition of City Form in Nineteenth-Century America (Baltimore, 1986)

American cities Warner, Sam Bass. Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston, 1870-1900 (Cambridge, Mass., 1962) Beasley, Ellen. The Alleys and Back Buildings of Galveston (Texas A&M, 2007) Bluestone, Daniel. Constructing Chicago Cronon, William. Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991)

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Hoyt, Homer. One Hundred Years of Land Values in Chicago: The Relationship of the Growth of Chicago to the Rise of Its Land Values, 1830-1933 (Chicago, 1933). Still the most detailed, comprehensive, and intelligent real estate history ever written. Fogelson, Robert M. The Fragmented Metropolis: Los Angeles 1850-1930 (Cambridge, Mass., 1967) Kelman, Ari. A River and Its City: The Nature of Landscape in New Orleans (Berkeley, 2003) Rawson, Michael. Eden on the Charles: The Making of Boston (Cambridge: Harvard, 2010) Scobey, David M. Empire City: The Making and Meaning of the New York City Landscape (Philadelphia: Temple, 2002) Spann, Edward K. The New Metropolis: New York City, 1840-1857 (New York, 1981) Moudon, Anne Vernez. Built for Change: Neighborhood Architecture in San Francisco (Cambridge: MIT, 1986) Olson, Sherry. Baltimore, the Building of an American City (Baltimore, 1980) Sandweiss, Eric. St. Louis: The Evolution of an American Urban Landscape (Philadelphia: Temple, 2001) Seasholes, Nancy. Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston (Cambridge: MIT, 2003)

Other countries Olsen, Donald J. The City as a Work of Art: London, Paris, Vienna (New Haven, 1986) Dyos, H. J., Victorian Suburb: A Study of the Growth of Camberwell (Leicester, 1961). A London counterpart to Warner’s Streetcar Suburbs. Olsen, Donald J. Town Planning in London in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (New Haven, 1982) Goldthwaite, Richard, The Building of Renaissance Florence (Baltimore, 1980)

Developers and builders Hobhouse, Hermoine, Thomas Cubitt, Master Builder (London, 1971). The most comprehensive study of any developer anywhere. Cubitt built much of early-19th-century fashionable London. Hobhouse, like Cubitt himself, masters design, construction, and finance. Weiss, Marc A. The Rise of the Community Builders: The American Real Estate Industry and

Urban Land Planning (New York: Columbia, 1987) Worley, William S. J. C. Nichols and the Shaping of Kansas City (Columbia, Mo.: U. Missouri Press, 1990). The best study of any American developer.

Construction and the technology of building Bishir, Catherine W., Charlotte V. Brown, Carl R. Lounsbury, and Ernest H. Wood III. Architects and Builders in North Carolina: A History of the Practice of Building (Chapel Hill, 1990). A comprehensive account of the whole building system, from architect to laborer, from statehouse to outhouse, for three and a half centuries. There is no other book like this. Wermiel, Sara E. The Fireproof Building: Technology and Public Safety in the Nineteenth-Century American City (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000)

Housing and the domestic environment Gowans, Alan. The Comfortable House: North American Suburban Architecture, 1890-1930 (Cambridge: MIT, 1986). Focuses on mail-order house plans and houses. Handlin, David. The American Home: Architecture and Society, 1815-1915 (Boston, 1979) Plunz, Richard. A History of Housing in New York City: Dwelling Type and Social Change in the American Metropolis (New York: Columbia, 1990) Wallis, Allan D. Wheel Estate: The Rise and Decline of Mobile Homes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). Wright, Gwendolyn. Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America (Cambridge, Mass., 1981). The best overall history of American housing, covering both ordinary practice and reformers’ ideas. Wright, Gwendolyn. Moralism and the Model Home: Domestic Architecture and Cultural Conflict in Chicago, 1873-1913 (Chicago, 1980)

Suburbs Fishman, Robert. Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall of Suburbia (New York, 1987) Fogelson, Robert M. Bourgeois Nightmares: Suburbia, 1870-1930 (New Haven, 2005) Stilgoe, John R. Borderland: Origins of the American Suburb, 1820-1939 (New Haven, 1988)

Downtown

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Fogelson, Robert M. Downtown: Its Rise and Fall, 1880-1950 (New Haven: Yale, 2001)

Infrastructure and transportation Caro, Robert A., The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (New York, 1974). A long and merciless book about a long and merciless career. McShane, Clay. Down the Asphalt Path: The Automobile and the American City (New York: Columbia, 1994) Melosi, Martin V. The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America from Colonial Times to the Present (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2000) Schultz, Stanley K. Constructing Urban Culture: American Cities and City Planning, 1800-1920 (Philadelphia, 1989) Stilgoe, John R. Metropolitan Corridor: Railroads and the American Scene (New Haven: Yale, 1983)

Commercial strip and shopping center Liebs, Chester. Main Street to Miracle Mile: American Roadside Architecture Longstreth, Richard. City Center to Regional Mall: Architecture, the Automobile, and Retailing in Los

Angeles, 1920-1950 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997) Longstreth, Richard. The American Department Store Transformed, 1920-1960 (New Haven: Yale, 2010)

Regulating city-building Hall, Peter. Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century (Oxford, 1987). The best history of city planning. Hall, who teaches in both England and California, takes a truly international perspective. Perin, Constance. Everything in Its Place: Social Order and Land Use in America (Princeton, 1970). Not an historical study, but the best explanation of the relationship between our development regulations and our culture. Peterson, Jon. The Birth of City Planning in the United States, 1840-1917 (Baltimore, 2003) Toll, Seymour I. Zoned American (New York, 1969) Tretter, Eliot M. Austin Restricted: Progressivism, Zoning, Private Racial Covenants, and the Making of a Segregated City (Austin, 2012)

I m p o r t a n t B o i l e r p l a t e F i n e P r i n t

PLAGIARISM, COLLABORATION,

MULTIPLE SUBMISSION OF WORK:

Plagiarism is the presentation of someone else’s work as your own. It is a serious offense - an academic felony - and we will prosecute cases of plagiarism to the maximum extent possible under University rules. Collaboration is students working together to produce a joint product (when it’s acknowledged. For unacknowledged collaboration, see plagiarism, above). Collaboration is permitted only with the permission of the instructor beforehand, and with requirements and grading adjusted to maintain an equitable work load. Multiple submission of work to more than one course is not ordinarily permitted. It will be allowed only by permission of both instructors, in advance, where the project is separately appropriate to the assignments in each course. Requirements and grading will be adjusted to maintain an equitable work load. When in doubt, ask.

CELL PHONES & SUCH MACHINES

Should be off during class. Students may make arrangements with the instructor in urgent or exceptional circumstances.

STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

May request appropriate academic accommodations from the UT Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, Services for Students with Disabilities, 512.471.6259.

RELIGIOUS ACCOMMODATIONS

By UT Austin policy, you must notify THE INSTRUCTOR of your pending absence at least fourteen days prior to the date of observance of a religious holy day. If you must miss a class, an examination, a work assignment, or a project in order to observe a religious holy day, you will be given an opportunity to complete the missed work within a reasonable time after the absence.

DEADLINES Count.