The Function of History in an Americanism Program

This article discusses how local history can be used by teachers to help develop historical thinking skills such as source analysis, the collection of data, and the creation of historical arguments. Using New York City as a case study, this article argues that urban spaces and local communities provide historical evidence that can be read and analyzed. It uses different streets, buildings, and neighborhoods from New York City to show how historical conclusions can be drawn from those resources. It also discusses instructional ideas that teachers can develop in their classrooms.     

Black Gotham: African Americans in New York City, 1900–2000

For almost four centuries, African Americans in New York City have engaged in ethnic “dream-work,” shaping the city and being shaped by the city in return. The longstanding practice of racism forced a heterogeneous community of Blacks—originating in different parts of the country and the world, speaking many languages, and comprised of different economic classes— to coalesce as a community in order to challenge their subjugation. This article explores the issues, conditions, and experiences that frame the coalescence of the African American community in New York City during the twentieth century, highlighting how racial identities have been produced in the city. In the first part of this article, I reflect on the presence of Blacks in New York City to illuminate some of the common themes that have emerged from the African American experience in Gotham. The second section is a historical exploration of the black experience in New York City, illuminating the conditions, expectations, events, and spaces that have shaped its formation.

     

Urban ecosystem management and change during the past millennium: a case study from New York City

Changes in a deciduous forest and salt marsh ecosystem, Hunter Island, New York City, are related to management over the past millennium. Sequential methods, fossil pollen analysis, map and aerial photography series, and vegetation resampling were performed to supplement the historical and archaeological records. The enhanced ecosystem management history provides an expanded context to examine management planning alternatives.Siwanoy native Americans utilized Hunter Island to provide fuel, land for corn planting, and living space through cutting forests in at least the northeast portion of the island. The fossil pollen record indicates that about the time of site abandonment, the Siwanoy planted the forest opening with hickory. Dutch colonial settlers protected forest in the area, but later the island's forest was cut for the British Navy during the American Revolution. John Hunter created a gentleman's farm on the island beginning in 1812.The New York City Parks Department purchased Hunter Island in 1888 and permitted social agencies to clear trees for recreation during the next 46 years. The chestnut blight eliminated American chestnut from the forest in 1908, and at the same time a hickory bark beetle infestation decimated the hickory population. A survey in 1934 showed that the northeast portion of the Island contained a forest, dominated by oak and yellow poplar, and a field. The island became a day-use picnic site in 1943, and for this purpose all the woody plants with stems less than 10 cm in diameter were removed.Aerial photography demonstrated a trend of forest replacing field over the past century. A resurvey of the northeast section of the island in 1988 revealed that oak and yellow popular remained dominant in the old forest, and the field became a hickory and sassafras stand. The hickory dominance, which is typical of Hunter Island, is unusual for New York City forests and could be related to native American plantings over 700 years ago. The management plan for Hunter Island is focused on preservation of the field and forest legacy of the recent recreation period. Instead of preserving an environmental patchwork common in New York City parks, an alternative management focus could enhance the hickory forest component to represent the former native American cultural setting.     

Development of a short-form scale of public attitudes toward homelessness

How do urban Americans regard the problem of homelessness? Recent surveys by pollsters and social scientists seem to document a “backlash” during the 1980s, with public sentiment shifting from sympathy to resentment. The U.S. Supreme Court, for example, recently upheld a controversial 1990 New York City law forbidding poor people from panhandling in the city's subways. This study was designed to develop a brief, reliable, valid scale to more precisely assess public attitudes toward homelessness (acronym PATH), which future researchers can use to more exactly chart changes and correlates of public opinion toward homelessness. Here, a cross section of 222 adults in New York City responded to a 38- item survey containing PATH and five other brief scales. Analysis of responses found general support for four initial hypotheses: (1) There was indeed a remarkable diversity of public opinion, from 3 to 20 points on the 0– 20- point PA TH Scale, ranging from profound sympathy to anger and disgust. (2) A short- form of MacDonald's Poverty Scale correlated only modestly with one's PATH score (r=+0.49) that, along with respondents' comments, suggests these two forms of social distress may now be viewed quite separately in the American psyche. (3) Psychometrically, the 5- item PATH proved to be high in internal reliability (α=0.74), and in construct validity, with significant correlations with 4 other items. (4) Results so far indicate at least some personality basis for PATH. As expected, those most sympathetic to the homeless were significantly lower in authoritarian personality (r=?0.24) and in belief in a just world (r=?0.13). Unexpectedly, PATH correlated negatively with Social Desirability (r=? 0.15, p < 0.05). Potential uses of this PATH scale are explored, along with the notion of important distinctions in poverty and homelessness as two increasingly separate forms of social distress.     

Historical Thinking and Sports History: A Case Study Using the Brooklyn Dodgers

Abstract

This article discusses how the history of sports can serve as way to understand abstract concepts associated with local history and social studies education. An introductory discussion outlines how sports can engage and interest students, focusing especially on ideas related to history thinking (such as change and continuity). A case study using the Brooklyn Dodgers’ move to Los Angeles is used to illustrate these ideas, focusing on themes associated with suburbanization and urban renewal. A lesson plan is also provided.     

“If you’re gonna help me,help me”: Barriers to housing among unsheltered homeless adults

Despite a legally-mandated right to shelter and extensive outreach efforts, an estimated 3,675 homeless individuals were living on the streets of New York City in 2018. Through interviews with 43 unsheltered homeless individuals in the borough of Manhattan (age range 21–74 years), this qualitative study examined barriers they face in accessing housing and other services as well as experiences surviving on the street. Through thematic analysis of the interview data, the most common barriers found were obtaining required identification documents, lack of accessibility of shelters amid complex healthcare needs, waiting as part of the process, and exclusion of pets from shelters and housing options. Themes capturing survival on the street included sleeping safe, avoiding shelters, and meeting daily needs. Virtually all barriers street homeless New Yorkers face stem from bureaucratic policies that, however well-intentioned, do not address their diverse needs. Thus, long delays and poor communication, combined with crowded, unsafe shelters, lead to frustration and alienation. While homelessness is ultimately the result of a severe and chronic shortage of affordable housing, creating accessible, safe, pet-friendly shelter and safe haven options and instituting a smoother, more transparent process for moving from the streets could substantially reduce street homelessness.     

A Tentative Study of New Historicism in China

The concept of New Historicism provides us with a new and critical perspective to understand the historical truth. Influencedby New Historicism, more and more scholars have been tapping into the truth of history by interpreting the literary texts of history inChina. This paper aims at telling the impact of New Historicism on Chinese scholars, writers, and readers by analyzing the characteristics ofhistory books, historical novels and new historical novels.     

Unrolling the Map in American History

Cinematic feature films are a big part of youth popular culture. When blockbuster movies are about historical topics, it is reasonable for teachers to be drawn to using them in the classroom to motivate students interest. This article overviews research on film in the history classroom and describes three learning functions that history movies can have fact and ficion; constructing the past and the people in it; and reacting to the past.     

A Sense of Place: The Politics of Immigration and the Symbolic Construction of Identity in Southern California and the New York Metropolitan Area

American immigration has long been characterized by spatial concentration within major urban areas. Los Angeles and New York City are two of the most important immigrant meccas today. Recent studies of immigrant adaptation within these cities have emphasized material factors at the expense of cultural considerations. This paper adopts a comparative perspective to demonstrate extreme differences in the symbolic construction of identity vis-a-vis immigrants in these two urban areas. Using The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times as indicators of elite cultural orientations, a content analysis is performed. The results demonstrate the social construction of an exclusive threat narrative in Southern California, and an inclusive immigrant as victim narrative in the New York metropolitan area. I argue that this extreme variation in cultural orientations must be understood as the result of divergent material and symbolic contexts. In order to demonstrate the importance of cultural factors, this paper focuses on symbolic differences between these areas and the influence these differences have on the political process of inclusion/exclusion.     

纽约增强城市辐射力研究——兼论对广州的启示

研究中心城市的辐射作用具有十分重要的借鉴意义。本文回顾了城市辐射的基础理论,探讨了城市辐射的机理。并以纽约为研究对象,从辐射源、辐射方式、辐射影响因素及辐射效果等方面,对纽约的城市辐射力进行了详尽的研究。最后,借鉴纽约的经验,提出了增强广州辐射力的政策建议。     

Media Publicity and the Voluntary Sector: The Case of Nonprofit Organizations in New York City

Media publicity is an important resource for contemporary voluntary associations, but very little is actually known about the resources and organizational characteristics that are most important for getting media attention. To address this question, we collected and analyzed data on the organizational attributes and news publicity of 739 nonprofit organizations in New York City. We find that an organization's income, paid staff, membership size, and library resources are significantly related to getting media publicity, whereas the number of chapter affiliations is inversely related to publicity. Association type is also a significant factor that influences an organization's ability to get publicity. We discuss the implications that these findings have for current debates about advocacy and civic engagement in the nonprofit sector.     

Development of a Short-Form Scale of Public Attitudes Toward Homelessness

Nationwide, demographic changes have led to an increased awareness of the impact of cultural diversity on the delivery of medical and psychological care. Due to the over-representation of minority and socially stigmatized groups among those affected by HIV, understanding the effects of psychosocial, linguistic and cultural membership or treatment relationships is crucial. In the psychological treatment of HIV-infected patients, psychotherapists can enhance the lives of their patients and support their involvement and compliance with medical treatment planning Case studies are presented in which psychotherapy helped resolve difficulties in the medical care of three HIV-positive women that were due to cultural misunderstanding between doctors and patients.     

Geometry,Logic and Social Studies

This article presents an approach that teachers can use to strengthen students’ ability to make sense of the past at museums. Specifically, we propose a photography exercise to help students to learn from museums and to view museums critically, weighing both the objective realities and subjective interpretations offered by museums. To get the most from a lifetime of museum-going and history learning, students should learn to view museums as reflecting the kinds of perspectives, decision-making, and challenges that accompany any effort to make sense of the past.     

Phytosociological analysis of restored and managed grassland habitat within an urban national park

Floyd Bennett Field (FBF), 579 ha in extent, is a division of Gateway National Recreation Area. It is the site of a former airfield, constructed by filling salt marshes with dredged materials. Except for the portion known locally as the North Forty, all sections of FBF have been cut over to maintain low vegetation. A grassland management plan (GRAMP) for 165 ha was initiated in 1986, to maintain habitats for open-country birds. Over the next few years, encroaching woody vegetation was removed manually and mechanically from the management area. Since then, it has been maintained as a grassland and receives annual mowing, as well as continued manual removal of the larger woody sprouts.A portion of the GRAMP management area (III) was selected for intensive study of vegetation composition. A grid system was created and vegetation cover was estimated in 127, 1 m × 1 m quadrats. The quadrats were subjected to cluster analysis (CA). Eleven clusters were recognized. These clusters were treated as plant associations. The following types were distinguished: (native) little bluestem–dewberry grassland, six-weeks fescue annual grassland, a grass marsh, a rush marsh, a switchgrass dry grassland, and a deer-tongue panicgrass grassland; (exotic) mugwort herbland, oriental bittersweet-Japanese honeysuckle vineland, Kentucky bluegrass-mixed grassland, Japanese knotweed tall herbland, and spotted knapweed-common St. Johnswort herbland. The little bluestem–dewberry association accounted for nearly half of all quadrats; six subclusters were recognized. The plant associations determined by CA were compared with plant lists compiled during traverses of all of the map categories in the six GRAMP Areas (I, II, III, IV, V, VI). A table was created to relate the quantitative data of the plant associations to the appropriate map categories. A nonmetric multidimensional scaling ordination (NMDS) was performed on the quadrat data. Finally, the plant associations were compared with those described in the literature of local vegetation studies. The mowing program has been effective in decreasing woody plant cover and has permitted the invasion of a few taxa into monospecific communities, but attendant disturbance of the substrate is likely to cause an increase in exotic plant taxa. As earlier studies noted, mowing has caused the increase in cover of sod-forming grass, and bare ground has virtually disappeared in the managed area. This has negative implications for the maintenance of those grassland bird species that require open ground for nesting.     

The soil seed bank and its relationship to the aboveground vegetation in deciduous forests in New York City

The soil seed bank was studied in two deciduous forests in Bronx (New York City), NY. The purpose of this study was to determine how the biotic andabiotic differences between urban and rural forests arereflected in urban forest seed banks. Soil samples werecollected in two consecutive years and monitored for emergencein the greenhouse over two years. In 1993, the mean number ofemergents ranged from 4636 to 5373 m^-2 (excluding ferns), or from 6972 to 9651 m^-2 (including ferns). In 1994, the mean number of emergents ranged from 1656 to 2013 m^-2 (excluding ferns), or from 5019 to 5992 m^-2 (including ferns). Graminoids and fernscombined accounted for approximately 70% of all emergents eachyear. Three taxa, Rubus spp., Betula lenta, and Liriodendron tulipifera, comprised 60–80% of the woody emergents and were theonly woody taxa to exhibit delayed germination. A substantialnumber of forbs, graminoids and ferns (15–50%) exhibiteddelayed germination. The nonnative woody species Ailanthusaltissima, Morus alba, and Celastrus orbiculatus were absentfrom the aboveground vegetation of some forest plots yet werepresent at low densities in the seed bank. A greater meandensity of emergents and the presence of nonnative species arethe main differences between the seed banks of these urbanforests and those reported for similar nonurban forests in thisregion.     

纽约城市转型与绿色发展对北京的启示

纽约城市转型表现为由制造业到服务业再到高端知识型服务业和绿色发展的城市演变轨迹,其特征主要表现为重视创新驱动、高端服务业集群、人才教育培养、城市功能融合、城市绿化建设等。借鉴纽约城市转型经验,北京应加强城市功能的均衡化疏解、基本公共服务均等化,加强产业多中心集聚和分散布局,大力发展教育、医疗、卫生、文化休闲等服务业,完善公共交通系统,加快绿色产业、绿色技术创新和城市绿化建设,促进城市转型与绿色发展。     

Predicted outcomes in a national sample: A source of comparison for program evaluation

The lack of comparison groups is a common problem for researchers conducting evaluations of small, specialized programs. When conventional comparison groups are not available, the authors suggest a possible alternative approach which involves: (a) locating a sub-group in a national study for whom relevant variables have been measured; (b) generating a statistical model which predicts the outcome of interest in the national data; and (c) applying the predictive model to program data, in order to estimate outcomes in the absence of progam intervention. The authors illustrate this new application by presenting the results of an analysis of data from Project Talent, a national manpower study, and discuss its application to the evaluation of a medical training program in New York City.     

Combating Racial Inequity Through Local Historical Analysis: A Community-Informed Social Studies Unit

One way for teachers to use engaging and relevant social studies curriculum is by delving into local history to help students understand the influence that community activists have had on national policies and events. In this article, we provide teachers an approach to incorporate topics of racial inequity in their classrooms by showcasing a dynamic social studies unit that reveals the role of local history and community activists during the national Civil Rights Movement. As an example within the unit, we present a local, historical narrative that describes the activism of three local Black teachers in Palm Beach County, Florida, whose efforts in the 1940s significantly impacted the foundations of what was to become the Civil Rights Movement. We then present a multicultural social studies unit developed from this local history and guidelines for teachers to enact their own locally informed social studies unit. This content will help teachers expose students to the rich history of their community’s past by sharing ways that teachers can incorporate culturally relevant instruction of racially charged topics into the classroom.     

Embedded Systems: The Case of HIV/AIDS Nonprofit Organizations in New York City

In this paper the notion of an embedded system is developed as an analytic model to examine how state–nonprofit relations develop and become differentiated, using the case of HIV/AIDS nonprofit organizations. Drawing on extensive fieldwork among three prominent HIV/AIDS nonprofit organizations in New York City, this paper shows how the kinds of relationships these nonprofit organizations are likely to form with state agencies are based on their embeddedness in the state–nonprofit system of relations. Three forms of embeddedness are distinguished according to the type and regularity of state–nonprofit contact—direct, outsider, and mediating. Importantly, it is shown how the configuration of relations within which an organization is embedded determines many of the organization's constraints and opportunities.