American Urban History II
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this seminar on the physical environment of American cities, tracing how features like parks, cemeteries, tenements, suburbs, zoos, skyscrapers, department stores, supermarkets, and amusement parks took shape over time. The course centers on primary source documents, with readings and class discussions built around them, teaching students to read historical evidence directly rather than through secondary summaries. Students use these skills to develop their own research question and write a term paper, working through the same archival methods historians use. Materials include the syllabus, reading lists, and assignment guidelines as published by MIT. No lectures or video are included, but the course provides a complete structure for independent study of urban history through material culture and the built environment, free to access through MIT OpenCourseWare.