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Chicago in American History: Advanced Research Seminar History C-95-3 Northwestern University Instructor: Amanda Seligman Class: Mondays, 2-4 This course is designed to follow a pair of courses in United States Urban History taught by Professor Henry Binford. In this course, we will examine some of the same themes, but we will focus on them through the lens of Chicago. Assigned readings will give a broad overview of Chicago's history; discussion of these sources will link up Chicago's history with the nation's. An essay on Chicago's neighborhoods will test the interpretation of scholars who saw Chicago as a laboratory for understanding American cities. Finally, students will write term papers on topics relating to Chicago's history. In the last class meetings, students will present their research to each other. Course grades will be based on participation, an essay about a Chicago neighborhood, timely completion of several short assignments related to the term paper, and the term paper itself. Detailed instructions about the two papers follow the course schedule in the syllabus. Weights for each of these assignments will be allotted as follows: Statement of topic: 2% Annotated bibliography: 4% Journal entry: 4% Participation: 20% Neighborhoods Assignment: 20% Term Paper: 50% Late papers will be accepted, but with a penalty of 2 letter grades per week. This means that a paper that is 1 week late can receive no grade higher than a C. If you are going to turn in a paper after the due date, you must arrange with the instructor for delivery. Papers failing to meet the University's standards of academic integrity may result in failure of the entire course. This course is a seminar. Students are expected to come to class having completed and thought about the assigned readings and to be prepared to discuss them with colleagues and instructor. Discussion of readings will open with brief comments by each student. Participation grades for the course will reflect not only quantity but also quality of discussion. There are six books required for this course. They are available at the Norris Center bookstore and are also on reserve at the Main library. They are: • Roger Biles, Richard J. Daley: Politics, Race & The Governing of Chicago • Grady Clay Close Up: How to Read the American City, • James Gilbert, Perfect Cities, University of Chicago Press • Harold M. Mayer and Richard C. Wade, Chicago: Growth of a Metropolis • Karen Sawislak, Smoldering City • Harvey Warren Zorbaugh, The Gold Coast and the Slum: A Sociological Study of Chicago's Near North Side In addition, a small course packet will be for sale at Dyo-Mite Copies, at 1625 Chicago Avenue in Evanston. The packet will not be immediately available, but is expected to be completed around the third week of class. Their phone number is 847-475-3620. Two additional useful books not assigned for this course, but are available at Northwestern's library. Both discuss and illustrate proper documentation of sources. The Short Guide has a sample term paper and many useful tips for thinking about constructing an historical argument. They are: • Kate Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations • Richard Marius, A Short Guide to Writing About History There are several ways to get in touch with me: • Come to my office hours. On Sunday evenings, between 7 pm and 9:30 pm, you will find me at 1813 Hinman Avenue. The phone number at this office is supposed to be (847)-467-5178. I have, however, been waiting for the installation of this phone for 2 months and am no longer sanguine about its appearance. Do not expect to reach me at my office except during scheduled office hours or appointments there. • Outside of official class times, the best way to reach me and get a quick response is email me at seligman@merle.acns.nwu.edu. I check my email daily. • Call me at home: (847)-864-0518. I am not usually at home during the day, but I do have an answering machine. Let me know how--and when--to reach you in the next day or so. Please do not call before 9 am or after 10 pm. • Make an appointment with me. • Fill out a suggestion sheet. At the end of this syllabus is a suggestion sheet, which you may fill out and turn in to me at any time during the course. I welcome feedback.
Week 1 (April 1): Introduction Week 2 (April 7): Overview of Chicago History Read: Mayer and Wade, Chicago: Growth of a Metropolis. Do not read this as you would a standard historical monograph. I will ask each of you to focus on one chapter to read carefully; the rest you may read in order to get the overall idea rather than the details. I intend for you to read to get a big picture, and then to know where to look back as you later find that you need to know more. A useful strategy for reading this book is first to go through and look at the pictures and the captions; then to return and read the text. In class: Library Consultation. Class will meet in the Reference Classroom (across from the escalator) in the University Library. Week 3 (April 14): The Great Chicago Fire Read: Sawislak, Smoldering City Optional: Visit the Chicago Historical Society exhibit "The Great Chicago Fire and the Web of Memory." The exhibit's curator is Northwestern Professor Carl Smith. The exhibit can be found through CHS's web page, at http://www.chicagohs.org.
Week 4 (April 21): The World's Columbian Exposition Read: Gilbert, Perfect Cities Week 5 (April 28): The Near North Side in the 1920s Read: Zorbaugh, The Gold Coast and the Slum
Week 6 (May 5): Viewing Cities Read: Grady Clay, Close-Up: How to Read the American City Week 7 (May 12): What is a Chicago Neighborhood? Read: Packet materials
Week 8 (May 19): Chicago after World War II Read: Biles, Richard J. Daley (May 24: University closed and no class due to the Memorial Day holiday, but)
Week 9 (June 2): Student Research In Class: Presentations Each student will be allotted 20 minutes to present his or her research and get feedback from other people in the class. We will schedule an additional meeting for reading week to hear remaining reports.
It is a point of pride to many Chicagoans that they live in a "city of neighborhoods." The point of this assignment is for you to evaluate the extent to which this label holds true for a Chicago neighborhood of your choosing. Perhaps the most convenient source that identifies Chicago neighborhoods is the Local Community Fact Book series. There are copies of this series both in the Main Library's Government Publications department and Reference. This series gives statistical data and brief histories of 77 "community areas" within the city. As you can infer from some of the packet readings assigned for the May 12 class meeting, the community areas were laid out during the 1920s by scholars at the University of Chicago. These scholars, primarily sociologists and social workers, were searching for a way to track social conditions such as juvenile delinquency, infant mortality, etc., over time. The use of census tracts had not yet been worked out; political wards were the basis of census counts, but these divisions were redrawn with each decennial census. So these scholars endeavored to create units that reflected real divisions and cohesive areas within the city. The map they laid out has in fact changed very little in the past 70 years; O'Hare was added, and the Edgewater area petitioned for separate status from Uptown. Your assignment is to pick one of these community areas, document its history, visit it, and to write a short paper that evaluates whether it ever was and is now, a locale that can accurately be called a neighborhood. You may wish to study an area that bears some relationship to your term paper topic. For example, a neighborhood assignment essay about the Near West Side could complement a term paper about Jane Addams. In the class session on May 12, we will pool our collective experience and discuss whether Chicago was and is a city of neighborhoods. There are not strict word limits for this assignment. Your paper should be typed, double-spaced, and properly documented, with footnotes and a bibliography. You may want to include photographs. I have asked the University bookstore at Norris Center to lay in a small stock of throw-away cameras in case you do not have access to a multi-use camera. Following this section of the syllabus is a list of books you might find useful for learning about the history of the area you have decided to study. Please do not check these books out of the library, but reshelve them so that other people in the class can use them for this assignment. The reading assignments for weeks 5-7 should also help you reflect on how to see neighborhoods in Chicago. In addition to these published sources, I wish to draw your attention to a variety of other resources that will help you to think about whether the area you are studying coheres as a neighborhood. • Chicago Historical Society has clipping files on most of the neighborhoods. Their card catalog will also guide you to books and articles that have sections about the various neighborhoods in Chicago. The reports by Melaniphy and Associates are particularly useful for late twentieth century developments. • The Sulzer Regional Library (the North Side branch of the Chicago Public Library system) has collections that document the history of many of the neighborhoods on the city's North Side. • The Special Collections Department of the Harold Washington Public Library has neighborhood collections for many of the South Side and West Side neighborhoods. • Some of the community areas (such as Rogers Park) have their own historical societies. The papers of other historical societies (such as that which used to document the West Side) are held by the Harold Washington library. Check the phone book. • The Chicago Architecture Foundation offers tours of some city neighborhoods. Check the schedule early if you are thinking of doing this, as the tours do not run frequently. • Go to the neighborhood itself. Ask shopkeepers, ministers, residents, local employees, and people at other local institutions, whether they think the area is and was a neighborhood. Ask them what they call the area. Are there local newspapers available? Are there other signs of neighborly activity, such as community festivals? Additional Suggested Bibliography • Glen E. Holt and Dominic A. Pacyga, Chicago, a historical guide to the neighborhoods: the Loop and South Side (Chicago: Chicago Historical Society, 1979). 977.311 H758C • Dominic A. Pacyga and Ellen Skerret, Chicago, City of Neighborhoods (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1986). 917.7311 P122c • Local Community Fact Book series. L317.7311 L811 (Reference and Government Publications) • Ernest Burgess, editor, Census Data of the City of Chicago, 1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1933) 312.733 N537 1933 (Government Publications) • Charles Shelton Newcomb, editor, Census Data of the City of Chicago, 1934. L312.773 N537 (Main) • Chicago Department of Development and Planning, Chicago Statistical Abstract (1970, 1980). L317.7311 c532c (Reference and Government Publications) • United Way of Metropolitan Chicago, Community Analysis Project (1975, 1976), L317.73 U5855. • Chicago Recreation Commission and Northwestern University, Chicago Recreation Survey, 1937 L790 C5322 • Chicago Plan Commission, Housing in Chicago Communities (1940) L331.83 C5323 • Chicago Plan Commission, Chicago Land Use Survey L331.83 c5323r • Chicago Plan Commission, Forty-Four Cities in the City of Chicago L711 1532fo • George Olcott, Olcott's Land Values Blue Book of Chicago 333 043 • Ira Bach, Chicago on Foot 917.731 B118c 1973
The term paper assigned in this class gives you an opportunity to study in depth any topic related to Chicago's history that interests you. During the term, you will write a paper on the topic and make a presentation to your classmates about what you have learned. As with all history papers, your term paper should have a clear thesis statement that structures the rest of the essay. You should relate your topic to larger issues by drawing on the "urban history themes" exercise from the first day of class. You may not choose a topic about which you wrote a paper in Professor Binford's C-22 class. Early in the course you have brief written assignments due. In week 3, you need to tell me what you want to do your paper on (and give me a chance to evaluate its feasibility); in week 5, you need to show me that there are enough sources available to you to write a substantive historical paper. There is no hard and fast rule for how many sources you need to have to write your term paper; but experience has shown me that better term papers have consulted and made thoughtful use of at least six different sources. Some topics have more books and articles written on them than you will be able to read during the term; others are almost entirely inaccessible at the moment. Choose carefully. It will be possible, but difficult, to change your topic if you find that your topic is too obscure. Please consult with me if you think you need to change your topic. You may also find materials for your paper using the World Wide Web, which you can reach through the web page for my current University College course, which is also about Chicago history. The address for this page is http://www.library.nwu.edu/class/history/C92-3/. Internet search engines can help you to locate information on other topics. If you do use the Web, you should be aware that materials posted are not subject to the same scrutiny and rigor that accompanies the more familiar print publications assigned in this course. Moreover, Web pages are subject to change without notice. To cite the Web, give the full address and the date of your visit to the page. In the second half of the term, there are assignments designed to help you and your classmates think about the significance of your topic. On the day after Memorial Day (when the University has canceled all classes), you must submit a journal entry about your paper. On the last day of class (and on an additional day which we shall agree on together), you will make a presentation about your paper to your classmates. You should plan on using about half of that time to describe your project and about half to field questions and suggestions from your classmates. With the presentation, you have the opportunity both to teach your classmates and instructor something they might not know about and also to get ideas about improvements for the final draft of your paper. The final paper should be about 15 typed, double-spaced pages long. Be sure include a title page, footnotes, and a bibliography. You may use illustrations if you like. Give appropriate credit for both picture and text sources. I would like to be able to return your papers to you, which is often particularly difficult at the end of a school year. Please turn in a large, self-addressed, stamped envelope along with your paper. Weigh your paper before you turn it in--one first class stamp is not enough for a 15 page paper. A regular letter envelope is usually too small to fit a folded term paper, so please use a large envelope. You may write your term paper about anything relating to Chicago, subject to my approval. You might want to choose a person, an event, a theme, a locale, an industry, an institution, a group of people, or a time period. The following list is meant to be suggestive rather than comprehensive: People • Jane Addams • Saul Alinsky • Joseph Bernardin • Daniel Burnham • Jane Byrne • Jean Baptiste DuSable • Richard (M. or J.) Daley • Everleigh Sisters • Margaret Haley • Samuel Insull • Jesse Jackson (Sr. or Jr.) • Joseph Medill • William B. Ogden • Potter or Bertha Palmer • Julius Rosenwald • Arthur Rubloff • Sargent Shriver • Harold Washington • Frances Willard Events • Chicago Fire of 1871 • Haymarket • Democratic Convention of 1968 • Race Riot of 1919 • Civil Rights Movement • Columbian Exposition of 1893 Locales • specific neighborhoods or community areas in the city* • suburban municipalities • other areas: e.g. Black Belt, North Shore, Michigan Avenue, Prairie Avenue, West Side, South Side, Southwest Side Institutions and Organizations • Art Institute • Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council • Black Panther Party • Chicago Board of Trade • Chicago Public Schools • Chicago Symphony Orchestra • Department stores • Hull House • Michael Reese Hospital • Northwestern University • Ravinia • The Woodlawn Organization Miscellaneous • Chicago School of Sociology • Community Organizing • Gentrification • Parks • Public Housing • Pullman • Suburban Development (19th and/or 20th century) • Unions • Urban Renewal
History C-95-3 Chicago in American History: Advanced Research Seminar Spring 1997 Northwestern University Instructor: Amanda Seligman Please use the space below to tell me what is on your mind about this class. You do not have to use your name if you do not want to. Feel free to contact me more directly if you prefer. You may submit this at any time during the course. |
