New Life for an Old Subject

in Historical and Political Science appeared, a scholarly monument to the birth of the history profession in the United States. Focusing on institutions, this seminal work testified to the profession's early fascination with local government structure, a fascination that during the next few years produced Johns Hopkins monographs on the municipal history of Philadelphia, Boston, Saint Louis, New Haven, New Orleans, and San Francisco. ' Anyone scanning the table of contents of these early volumes would think that historical and political science was chiefly the study of the development of local government structure. This was the subject on which the nascent profession cut its first teeth and tested its infant skills. During the following decades, other books and articles tackled the troublesome question of how city government developed. Some journalist-historians, such as Lloyd Wendt and Herman Kogan, focused on the fascinating scoundrels in the municipal past who betrayed the public trust, but who also left a rich legacy of rumors and tales worth repeating in popular histories.2 Others, such as Ernest Griffith, remained true to the Johns Hopkins tradition of historical science

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• City and suburb

  Jon C Teaford•City and suburb•1979

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