Wednesdays, 6:15-7:55 p.m.
402 Shaffer Hall (Computer Lab)
Exploding myths about the past; exploring how we build for the future
The objective of this course is to examine how our ideas about what a city is and and what a city ought to be have changed in the seventy-five years since we became a truly urbanized society. We begin with the efforts to create cities in the wilderness of Maryland on the banks of the St. Mary's River (St. Mary's City) and on the banks of the Severn (Annapolis). We will then examine the origins and rise of three cities: Chicago, Los Angeles, and Baltimore, placing the latter into the context of the civil unrest of 1967-1968 and the recommendations of David Rusk in Baltimore Unbound. We will conclude by exploring the newest phenomenon of urban development, 'Edge Cities," traveling via the Internet to a course being taught at the Univesity of Virginia and Catholic University on "Owings Mills" as the city of the future. I hope to have at least one outgoing and one new city official join us for our discussions of the future of Baltimore.
Edward Papenfuse. Doing good to Posterity Annapolis: Maryland State Archives, 1995,
William Cronon. Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West New York: Norton & Co., 1991
Robert M. Fogelson The Fragmented Metropolis, Los Angeles, 1850-1930 Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993 [1967]
"Is Baltimore Burning?" a document packet on the meaning, legality, and consequences of rhetoric, 1964-1968 from the Maryland State Archives,
David Rusk. Baltimore Unbound A Strategy for Regional Renewal Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, for the Abell Foundation, 1995, and
Joel Garreau Edge City Life on the New Frontier New York: Doubleday,1991.
Recommended: Tony Hiss, The Experience of Place. 1990.
All reading should be completed according to the schedule and in advance of class discussion. Students should prepare discussion outlines of the argument and points of interest in each book for purposes of discussion and to submit the week following the completion of the class discussion.
In addition, each member of the class will be expected to submit a final paper (which will constitute the final exam and 50% of the grade) on some aspect of the future of Baltimore City as placed in the context of the Baltimore 2000 report of the Goldseker foundation which is included in the document packet Is Baltimore Burning? The discussion outlines and final paper are to be submitted on disk as well as on paper. The syllabus and most reading materials are available on WEB and locally on the network in 402 Shaffer. This course is intended to be an introduction to the resources and tools for history available on the internet and the World Wide Web. Students are expected to own a copy of The Mosaic Handbook for Microsoft Windows which includes a license to use EMOSAIC. Although any wordprocessor that can export to a simple text file can be used to prepare papers, they must be submitted on disk in a basic HTML format readable and printable by the EMOSAIC browser.
Each of the five discussion outlines will be worth up to 9 points each. The
final paper will be worth up to fifty points of which up to five points will be based upon the oral presentation at the final. Up to five points of the total grade will be based upon over-all class participation. Five points will be deducted for every day an assignbment is late.
A=90-100 points; B=80-89 points; C=70-79 points; D=60-69 points; F=
anything less than 60 points.
NOTE: The direct quoting of someone else's work (anything more than a phrase or two) without using quotation marks and citing the specific source of the quote (author, title, edition, and page) will not be tolerated and will result in an automatic 'F' on the assignment. Adopting an author's point of view is not considered plagiarism as long as the source is identified by some form of annotation of your text (i.e. footnotes, Turabian short form; note on sources at the end of your essay or review, or some other format approved in advance by the instructor).
©Dr. Edward C. Papenfuse (instructor)
State Archivist
Office Hours by appointment
Phone: (h) 410-467-6137
Last update: 24 October 1995