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The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History synthesizes three generations of urban historical scholarship, providing a thematic and chronological overview of American urban history from the pre-Columbian era until the beginning decades of the twenty-first century. The 92 articles collected in these two volumes describe and analyze the transformation of the United States from a simple agrarian and small-town society to a complex urban and suburban
nation. Each article has been authored, peer-reviewed, and edited by scholars expert in the field, offering a reliable, historiographically informed examination of a specific subject in American urban history.
The Encyclopedia differs from previous publications by providing semi-structured, synoptic articles ranging from 6,000 to 8,000 words or more. Each article is divided into three parts: 1. an accessible narrative overview of an important issue in American urban history; 2. a brief historiographical summary of significant writers and publications on the subject; and 3. a short introduction to essential primary sources. This tri-part format allows each article to serve multiple audiences:
those who simply want an informed an intelligent introduction to a given topic; those interested in identifying the leading publications on a specific subject; and those interested in performing more detailed research.
List of contents
- Varieties of Urbanization
- Mississippian Ancient Towns and Cities, 1000-1700
- Seaport Cities in North America, 1600-1800
- Industry, Commerce, and Urbanization in the United States, 1790-1870
- Industry, Commerce, and Urbanization in the United States, 1880-1929
- Urban Exceptionalism in the American South
- Company Towns in the United States
- Globalization and the American City
- Political Economies
- Politics in Urban America before 1940
- Politics in Urban America after 1945
- Slavery in American Cities
- The Central Business District in US Cities
- Progressives and Progressivism in an Era of Reform
- The Great Depression
- The New Deal
- American Labor and Working-class History, 1900-1945
- Public Sector Unions in the United States
- Public Authorities in the United States
- Service Economies and the American Postindustrial City, 1950-present
- Deindustrialization and the American Postindustrial City, 1950-present
- Universities and Information Centers in US Cities
- Tourism and the American City since 1800
- Professional Team Sports in the United States
- Informal Economies
- Gambling in Northern US Cities
- Temperance and Prohibition
- Prostitutes and Prostitution in America
- Commercial Sex in America after 1920
- Drug Subcultures in the American City
- Urban Migrations
- Immigration to American Cities, 1800-1924
- Immigration to American Cities, 1924-2017
- Ellis Island Immigration Station
- Angel Island Immigration Station
- Immigration to the United States after 1945
- The Great Migration and Black Urban Life in the United States, 1914-1970
- The Great Migration in Context: The Chicago Experience, 1916-1918
- White Internal Migration to American Cities, 1940-1970
- Polish Immigration and the American Working Class
- Irish Immigration and the American Working Class
- Neighborhood, Community, and Space
- Spatial Segregation and US Neighborhoods
- Ethnicity, Ethnic Groups, and US Neighborhoods
- LGBTQ Politics in America since 1945
- Latino Urbanism
- Native Americans and Cities
- Puerto Ricans in the United States
- Latino/a and African American Relations
- The Asian American Movement
- Japanese Resettlement in Postwar America: The Los Angeles Experience
- Vietnamese Americans in Little Saigon, California
- Building the Metropolis
- Municipal Housing in America
- Suburbanization in the United States before 1945
- Urban Destruction during the American Civil War
- Skyscrapers and Tall Buildings
- The City Beautiful Movement
- Urban Planning in the United States since 1850
- Public Housing in Urban America
- Housing Policy in the United States
- Water and Sewers in the American City
- Mass Transit in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-century America
- Streets, Roads, and Highways in the United States
- The Automobile and the American City
- Public Space in US Cities
- Nature and the Environment
- Parks in Urban America
- Environmental and Conservation Movements in Metropolitan America
- Environmental Pollution and the American City
- Contagious Diseases and Public Health in the American City
- Climate Change and the American City
- Food in the Nineteenth-century American City
- Food in the Twentieth-century American City
- The Social Fabric
- Religion in the American City, 1600-1900
- Religion in the American City, 1900-2000
- Poverty in the Modern American City
- Wars on Poverty and the Building of the American Welfare State
- Schools in US Cities
- Nightlife in the American City
- Jazz, Blues, and Ragtime in America, 1900-1945
- Jazz in America after 1945
- Rock and Roll
- Rap Music
- Violence and Disorder
- Juvenile Justice in the United States
- US Vagrancy Laws
- Riots and Rioting in US Cities, 1800-2000
- The Anti-Chinese Massacre in Los Angeles as a Reconstruction-era Event
- Asian Americas and the 1992 Los Angeles Uprising
- Street Gangs in the Twentieth-century American City
- The Postwar and Postindustrial Metropolis
- The Black Freedom Struggle in the Urban North
- The Black Freedom Struggle the Urban South
- The Sit-in Movement
- The Sixties
- Suburbanization in America after 1945
- Asian American Suburban Culture since World War II
- Urban Renewal
- Japantown and the San Francisco Fillmore District
- Zoning in Twentieth-century American Cities
- Gentrification in the United States
About the author
Timothy J. Gilfoyle is a professor and former chair of history at Loyola University Chicago, where he teaches American urban and social history. He is also a past president of the Urban History Association and an associate editor of the Journal of Urban History. Gilfoyle's research focuses on the development and evolution of various 19th-century urban underworld subcultures and informal economies, exemplified by A Pickpocket's Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York (W. W. Norton, 2006); City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790-1920 (W. W. Norton,1992); and most recently The Urban Underworld in Late Nineteenth-Century New York: The Autobiography of George Appo (Bedford/St. Martin's Press, 2013). His other books include Millennium Park: Creating a Chicago Landmark (University of Chicago Press, 2006) and The Flash Press: Sporting Men's Weeklies in the 1840s, coauthored with Patricia Cline Cohen and Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz
(University of Chicago Press, 2008).
Summary
The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Urban History synthesizes three generations of urban historical scholarship, providing a thematic and chronological overview of American urban history from the pre-Columbian era until the beginning decades of the twenty-first century. The 92 articles collected in these two volumes describe and analyze the transformation of the United States from a simple agrarian and small-town society to a complex urban and suburban nation. Each article has been authored, peer-reviewed, and edited by scholars expert in the field, offering a reliable, historiographically informed examination of a specific subject in American urban history.
The Encyclopedia differs from previous publications by providing semi-structured, synoptic articles ranging from 6,000 to 8,000 words or more. Each article is divided into three parts: 1. an accessible narrative overview of an important issue in American urban history; 2. a brief historiographical summary of significant writers and publications on the subject; and 3. a short introduction to essential primary sources. This tri-part format allows each article to serve multiple audiences: those who simply want an informed an intelligent introduction to a given topic; those interested in identifying the leading publications on a specific subject; and those interested in performing more detailed research.
