Participant Info
- First Name
- Catherine
- Last Name
- Flinn
- Country
- United States
- State
- 32
- catherinecflinn@gmail.com
- Affiliation
- Unaffiliated
- Website URL
- Keywords
- Modern British history, Second World War, postwar, reconstruction, political history, economic history, local history, planning history, architectural history, garden history, American history particularly early American and women's history since 1600.
- Availability
- Media Contact
- Additional Contact Information
- PhD
- PhD
Personal Info
- Photo
- About Me
I’m a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. I have a multi-disciplinary background. Originally educated in landscape architecture and architectural history (two advanced degrees), I then worked professionally in the design professions in London and Boston. At the same time I led educational tours and taught guides in Boston on American history from the colonial era to the 20th century. When I returned to academia I took an MA and PhD in modern British history because I was interested in the backstory to the built environment. I work mainly on political and economic impacts on cities and urban planning but have taught widely in British, American and global history. Most recently I have taught on U.S. women’s history since 1600. I am comfortable working in and discussing: urban history; political, economic and social history; planning or architectural history. I have appeared on television and radio for the BBC, the Travel Channel and WB (Boston) as well as a heavily subscribed YouTube channel. I have also been on NPR & American Public Media radio. I am a long time guide of walking tours in Boston and Oxford.
- Recent Publications
Book:
Rebuilding Britain’s Blitzed Cities: Hopeful Dreams, Stark Realities (Bloomsbury, December 2018/paperback 2020) ISBN 9781350067622
Other peer-reviewed:
‘The Peculiarity of British Post-War Reconstruction?’ (2023) for the Municipal Dreams blog (20k subscribers), published January 24 & 31, 2023. Link to Part I: https://municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2023/01/24/post-war_reconstruction_part_1/
‘Hull’s Postwar Plans’ for It’s Never Dull in Hull (co-author John Broughton) a public project/zine for The Modernist (2021). ISBN: 9781916471818
‘Forgetful or Purposeful? The Remaking of Place After the Blitz’ Storia Urbana (Italy) n. 158 (2018), 61-85. DOI:10.3280/SU2018-158004
‘The impact of the automobile on post-war city centre plans’ in ‘Infrastructure and the rebuilt post-war city’, Working Paper No 22, ed. Peter Larkham (Birmingham City University 2013).
‘Reconstruction Constraints: Political and Economic Realities’, Chapter 7 in The Blitz and Its Legacy, eds. Mark Clapson and Peter Larkham (Ashgate 2014).
“‘The City of Our Dreams?’ The Political and Economic Realities of Rebuilding Britain’s Blitzed Cities, 1945-1954”, Twentieth Century British History, 23:2 (2012), 221-245.
“‘Exeter Phoenix’: Politics and the Rebuilding of a Blitzed City”, Southern History, Vol. 30 (2008), 104-127.
- Media Coverage
- BBC, NPR, local news
- bostonoxford
- Country Focus
- UK, EU, US
- Expertise by Geography
- England, United Kingdom, United States
- Expertise by Chronology
- 3, 4, 5, 7, 8
- Expertise by Topic
- Art & Architectural History, Economic History, Gender, Libraries & Archives, Local & Regional, Material Culture, Politics, Public History, Urban History, Women, World War II
