History of the City of New York W4712x - Course Requirements

There are three requirements for this course:

  • (1) Pass Mid-Term and Final Examinations based on the lectures and the nine required books.

  • (2) Take part in enough five field trips; the all-day bus trip counts as two. The annual all-night bicycle ride will not count toward the minimum requirement.

  • (3) Undergraduate Students only should complete one of the following assignments:

         (a) In the Microfilm Room of Butler Library look up the New York Times for your birthday, the birthday of one of your parents, and the birthday of one of your grandparents. Read all three issues, including advertisements. Write a five page paper comparing a single topic on all three dates. For example, you might analyze the kinds of structures being built and the residential options available (price, location, size, transportation) to families or individuals on those different dates. Alternatively, you may focus on fashion, entertainment, crime, politics, or discrimination against a particular group (African-Americans, women, Jews, the handicapped, homosexuals, etc). Be aware that you may not find much information on the overt prejudice that was then common.
    Due December 1, 1998.

         (b) Write a five page walking tour, based upon secondary sources and interviews with residents, businessmen, or workers, of a neighborhood in New York City or the surrounding suburbs. Assume that persons taking the walking tour will have only your paper, and not you, as a guide. If you choose this option, coordinate your choice with Professor Jackson. Use precise addresses and be as visually descriptive as possible. Photographs would be helpful. Two copies of the paper must be submitted; one will be returned.
    Due December 1, 1998.

         (c) Volunteer with Columbia's Community Impact Program and work with your neighbors to address the needs of the neighborhood. You will have the greatest impact if you interact with a single individual, either through the Student Help for the Aged (in which you help senior citizens pay bills, write letters, or shop) or Big Brother/Big Sister (in which you become a mentor and friend to a youngster who needs both). Both programs require serious time commitments, however, so you may also work with other local initiatives, such as Community Lunch Program at the Broadway Presbyterian Church, Emergency Food Pantry on 114th Street, Barnard/Columbia Help for the Homeless, or Harlem Restoration. At the end of the semester you would write a two page paper summarizing your experiences and observations. Please note that you should give at least four hours every week to this effort.
    Approval by September 25; two-page report due on December 1, 1998.

         (d) Volunteer as an unpaid intern with the South Street Seaport Museum , the New York Historical Society (contact Margaret Heilbrun at 873-3400), or the Municipal Archives of the City of New York (contact Kenneth Cobb at 788-8585). Work at least six hours per week to help these important but financially strapped institutions continue their good work. This option requires coordination with Professor Jackson.
    Approval by September 25; two-page report due on December 1, 1998.

         (e) Explore The Encyclopedia of New York City. Select one person or place or neighborhood and then trace five other entries as in six degrees of separation. Suppose, for example, you select Stanford White. This might lead you to Madison Square Garden, which might lead you to the Hippodrome and then to P.T. Barnum, etc. Doing this should provide you with the background to write a six page critique of the encyclopedia.
    Due December 1, 1998.

    Graduate and Professional Students only should write a six page (not one word longer please), comparative book review of any three of the following five books:

  • Elizabeth Blackmar, Manhattan for Rent, 1785-1850 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989)

  • Sean Wilentz, Chantz Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984)

  • Christine Stansell, City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789-1860 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986)

  • Eric Homberger, Scenes From the Life of a City (New Haven: Yale Univ Press, 1994)

  • Patricia Cline Cohen, The Murder of Helen Jewett: The Life and Death of a Prostitute in Nineteenth Century New York (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998).

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