Welcome to the website for Hilary Iris Lowe’s course Reading Philadelphia, History 4296
This page will be used to document and share research and will be the primary touch point for student projects.
In this class we will examine writings about Philadelphia as a place and destination, ranging from Dickens’s reflections of Philadelphia in the 1840s to WPA travel guides of the 1930s to guides to the Bicentennial, and focus on the built environment. This writing intensive course is designed to put into practice the skills of historical research and writing that you have acquired as a history major. Each student will write a research paper about an historic building, a neighborhood block, or other extant physical feature of Philadelphia’s historic environment–making use of original research and using primary sources on aspects of Philadelphia history since 1840 that are particularly important in telling the stories associated that place and the people who have worked, lived, or otherwise used it over time. This class, while primarily a class where you will flex your research and writing muscles as new historians, is also one part urban history, one part local history, and one part architectural history. The conversations that go on in each of these fields of inquiry will be visited upon Philadelphia-regional content.
In addition to a regular research paper (and to facilitate it), particular emphasis will be placed on tracing and tracking your research via student blogs. These blogs will document your visits to archives across the city, your original research, and the primary sources you find, and be the central place where you collect data about your places and their occupants, uses, and communities.