Congratulations to David H. Schley, who teaches in NYU Shanghai's writing program! His doctoral dissertation, “Making the Capitalist City: The B & O Railroad and Urban Space in Baltimore, 1827-1877,” which he completed at Johns Hopkins University in 2013, has won the 2014 dissertation prize of the Urban History Association in the USA.
In “Making the Capitalist City,” David H. Schley eloquently outlines the complicated relationship between the country’s first railroad and its terminal city. This well-written and thoroughly researched dissertation captivates as it examines the clashes and negotiations between the nations first railroad, use of city streets, and public space in the 19th-century built environment. He argues that “rather than simply ‘annihilating’ space, the transformative powers of the railroad developed amidst political conflicts over the use of city streets.”