Description:

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Presented by Professor Henry Binford

Friday, November 9th

6pm Program

7pm Reception

@ Congdon Schaffer Mansion (405 Church Street, Evanston)

This is a talk about what happened when a celebrity and media darling was displaced by younger rivals. During the first half of the nineteenth century, Cincinnati, Ohio was the biggest, fastest-growing, and most watched city west of the Appalachian Mountains. Beginning as a struggling little river town in the late eighteenth century, it became the sixth largest city in the nation by the 1840s. Stardom, of course, never lasts. By the late 1860s, Cincinnati had been surpassed in population by Chicago and St. Louis. But the Queen City’s civic elite did not just cry in their beer; they launched a number of endeavors to remake their city and its reputation. Their achievements and failures may be of interest, as Chicago and so many other cities strive to become successfully post-industrial.

Henry Binford is an associate professor of history and a specialist in the study of cities and urbanization. He is the author of The First Suburbs: Residential Communities on the Boston Periphery, 1815–1860. He is at work on a study of 19th-century slums. He has received Weinberg College Outstanding Teaching Award, the Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Charles Deering McCormick Professorship of Teaching Excellence, and the National Faculty Award of the Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs. His PhD is from Harvard University.

Hosted by Northwestern University's School of Professional Studies
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http://sps.northwestern.edu/program-areas/