The Evolution of American Urban Society

Peter C. Baldwin is Professor of History at the University of Connecticut. He is the author of two other books: In the Watches of the Night: Life in the Nocturnal City, 1820-1930 (Chicago: 2012), which traces the changing schedules of nocturnal activity in the urban Northeast and Midwest during the long century when cities became fully illuminated by gaslight and electricity; and Domesticating the Street: The Reform of Public Space in Hartford, 1850-1930 (Columbus: 1999), which explores civic reformers’ efforts to make the use of streets conform to values associated with the middle-class home. His essays have appeared in the Journal of Urban History, Journal of Social History, and Environmental History, among others. He is co-editor, with Howard Chudacoff, of Major Problems in American Urban and Suburban History, 2nd ed. He is currently working on a micro-history of religion and sexuality in the mid-nineteenth century, focusing on the diaries of a Massachusetts-born educator.

Chapter 1. Urban America in the Colonial Age, 1500-1776 Chapter 2. Urban Expansion in the New Nation, 1776-1860 Chapter 3. Life in the Walking City, 1820-1865 Chapter 4. Industrialization and the Changing Shape of the City, 1865-1920 Chapter 5. Newcomers and the Urban Core, 1865-1920 Chapter 6. Bosses and Reformers in City Politics, 1870-1920 Chapter 7. Reforming the Social and Physical Environment, 1870-1920 Chapter 8. Cities in an Age of Metropolitanism:The 1920s and 1930s Chapter 9. The EmergingUrban Crisis 1941-1975 Chapter 10.New Hope and New Concerns in the American City