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About Me

I research the history of housing segregation in the nineteenth and twentieth century. My first book, entitled How the Suburbs Were Segregated: Developers and the Business of Exclusionary Housing, 1890-1960 was the winner of the Kenneth Jackson Award for Best Book in North American Urban History and a finalist for the Business History Conference Hagley Prize. It was published in 2020 by Columbia University Press.

How the Suburbs Were Segregated charts how suburban developers, including Baltimore’s Roland Park Company, ushered in modern housing segregation with the help of transnational financiers, real estate institutions, and public policymakers. The effects of their efforts continue to be felt today.

Portions of my research have been published in the Journal of Urban History and Enterprise and Society. My scholarship has also been profiled by The American Historical Association and the Baltimore Sun.

I am also interested in the connections between the rise of Jim Crow and colonialism and slavery worldwide. My digital project, Building Suburban Power, maps the British investors who financed one of the first segregated suburbs in the United States. In keeping with this turn toward global urban history, my next project will focus on the interactions between American realtors and Latin American consumers in the mid-twentieth century.

My teaching interests include U.S. history, transnational history, cities, business, and politics. Regardless of the specific topic, I alert students to the historical dimension of processes they might take to be natural.

In addition to conducting research and teaching, I have been invited to lead tours and give talks on urban history.

Recent Publications

Books

Transnational Peripheries: Remaking Suburbs in the United States and Latin America (In progress.)

How the Suburbs Were Segregated: Developers and the Business of Exclusionary Housing, 1890-1960. New York: Columbia University Press, Columbia Studies in the History of U.S. Capitalism, April, 2020.

• Winner, Kenneth Jackson Award for Best Book in North American Urban History, 2021, Urban History Association
• Finalist, Hagley Prize in Business History, 2021, Business History Conference.

Scholarly Articles and Chapters

“Developing Spaces of Exclusion,” in Segregation and Resistance in America’s Landscapes, Eric Avila and Thaisa Way, eds. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collections, 2022. (In press.)

“‘To Interfere on Their Behalf:’ Sovereignty, Networks, and Capital in the Dominican Republic, Enterprise and Society (2021). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/eso.2021.42

“Redlining, Predatory Inclusion, and Housing Segregation,” Black Perspectives, Mar. 10, 2021. <https://www.aaihs.org/redlining-predatory-inclusion-and-housing-segregation/>

“The Connections Between Urban Investment and Colonialism.” Black Perspectives, Nov. 27, 2017. <https://www.aaihs.org/the-connections-between-urban-development-and-colonialism>

“Real Estate and the City: Considering the History of Capitalism and Urban History.” The Journal of Urban History 42, no. 2 (2016): 438-445.

“Exclusion in Arcadia: How Suburban Developers Circulated Ideas about Discrimination, 1890-1950.” The Journal of Urban History 41, no. 3 (2015): 479-49.

“Who Bankrolled Jim Crow?” Public Seminar, Sept. 22, 2015. <http://www.publicseminar.org/2015/09/who-bankrolled-jim-crow>

Media Coverage

Social Media

@apaigeoutofhist

Country Focus

United States

Expertise by Geography

United States

Expertise by Chronology

19th century, 20th century

Expertise by Topic

Capitalism, Local & Regional, Politics, Race, Urban History