Ambiguous Modernities
Moscow and Chicago (1890-1936)

Bildinfo

Looking north from the building of the Board of Trade in the south of LaSalle Street, 1916. Photo: Chicago Daily News, LaSalle Street from old Chicago Board of Trade Building, public domain, details on Wikimedia Commons

Research project

The metropolitan Cities of Moscow and Chicago stood in many ways for their nations’ path to modernity. They were places of hope and despair, of reform and revolution, of violence and civility. This comparative study traces the growing focus on urban issues in Russia and the United States and explores them in comparative perspective: How were the social and political problems in these cities described? Which notions of reform developed in local contexts? Who supported them? How did they fit into the international debate on urban reform? How was urban modernity perceived in Moscow and in Chicago? The study will explore how urban modernity was dealt with in two different cultural contexts that were confronted with often similar problems.

Open

Bildinfo

Jan C. Behrends

Leibniz-Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung
Am Neuen Markt 1
14467 Potsdam

Email: behrends [at] zzf-potsdam.de
Telefon: 0331/74510-136

zur Mitarbeiterseite