Blair A. Ruble

This book traces the history of the U Street neighborhood in Washington, D.C., from its Civil War–era origins to its recent gentrification. Home throughout the years to important scholars, entertainers, and political figures, as well as to historically prominent African American institutions, Washington’s U Street neighborhood is a critical zone of contact between black and white America. Howard University and the Howard Theater are both located there; Duke Ellington grew up in the neighborhood; and diplomat Ralph Bunche, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and medical researcher Charles Drew were all members of the community. This robustly diverse neighborhood included residents of different races and economic classes when it arose during the Civil War. Jim Crow laws came to the District after the Compromise of 1877, and segregation followed in the mid-1880s. Over the next century, U Street emerged as an energetic center of African American life in Washington. The mid-twentieth-century rise of cultural and educational institutions brought with it the establishment of African American middle and elite classes, ironically fostering biases within the black community. Later, with residential desegregation, many of the elites moved on and U Street entered decades of decline, suffered rioting in 1968, but has seen an initially fitful resurgence that has recently taken hold. Blair A. Ruble, a jazz aficionado, prominent urbanist, and longtime resident of Washington, D.C., is uniquely equipped to undertake the history of this culturally important area. His work is a rare instance of original research told in an engaging and compelling voice.

A Biography

Washington's U Street

John Czaplicka

Nida M. Gelazis

Cities after the Fall of Communism traces the cultural reorientation of East European cities since 1989. Analyzing the architecture, commemorative practices, and urban planning of cities such as Lviv, Vilnius, and Odessa, the contributors to this volume demonstrate how history may be selectively re-imagined in light of present political and cultural realities. These essays show that while East European cities gravitate nostalgically toward Habsburg, Baltic, Imperial Russian, and Germanic pasts, they are also embracing new urban identities grounded in ethnic-national, European, Western, and global contexts. Ultimately, the editors argue that one can see a "New Europe" taking shape in these cities, where a strained discourse between different versions of the past and variously envisioned futures is being set in stone, steel, and glass.

Reshaping Cultural Landscapes and European Identity

Cities After the Fall of Communism

Explores the reorganization of Russian life during the initial post-Soviet era by examining the politics of property in Yaroslavl.

The Changing Politics of Urban Space in Post-Soviet Yaroslavl

Money Sings

This book explores how social fragmentation led to pluralistic public policies in Chicago, Moscow, and Osaka.

Pragmatic Pluralism in Gilded Age Chicago, Silver Age Moscow, and Meiji Osaka

Second Metropolis

Maurice Jackson

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Poems -- Introduction -- 1 Jazz, "Great Black Music," and the Struggle for Racial and Social Equality in Washington, DC -- 2 Seventh Street: Black DC's Musical Mecca -- 3 Washington's Duke Ellington -- 4 Bill Brower: Notes from a Keen Observer and Scene Maker -- 5 Jazz Radio in Washington, DC -- 6 Legislating Jazz -- 7 The Beautiful Struggle: A Look at Women Who Have Helped Shape the DC Jazz Scene -- 8 No Church without a Choir: Howard University and Jazz in Washington, DC -- 9 From Federal City College to UDC: A Retrospective on Washington's Jazz University -- 10 Researching Jazz History in Washington, DC -- List of Contributors -- Photo Credits and Permissions -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z

Stories of Jazz Music in Washington, DC

DC Jazz

Soviet Research Institutes Project

The familiar history of jazz music in the United States begins with its birth in New Orleans, moves upstream along the Mississippi River to Chicago, then by rail into New York before exploding across the globe. That telling of history, however, overlooks the pivotal role the nation's capital has played for jazz for a century. Some of the most important clubs in the jazz world have opened and closed their doors in Washington, DC, some of its greatest players and promoters were born there and continue to reside in the area, and some of the institutions so critical to national support of this uniquely American form of music, including Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the Kennedy Center, the Library of Congress and the Historical Society of Washington, D.C., are rooted in the city. Closer to the ground, a network of local schools like the Duke Ellington High School for the Performing Arts, jazz programs at the University of the District of Columbia and Howard University, churches, informal associations, locally focused media, and clubs keeps the music alive to this day. Noted historians Maurice Jackson and Blair Ruble, editors of this book, present a collection of original and fascinating stories about the DC jazz scene throughout its history, including a portrait of the cultural hotbed of Seventh and U Streets, the role of jazz in desegregating the city, a portrait of the great Edward "Duke" Ellington’s time in DC, notable women in DC jazz, and the seminal contributions of the University of District of Columbia and Howard University to the scene. The book also includes three jazz poems by celebrated Washington, DC, poet E. Ethelbert Miller. Collectively, these stories and poems underscore the deep connection between creativity and place. A copublishing initiative with the Historical Society of Washington, DC, the book includes over thirty museum-quality photographs and a guide to resources for learning more about DC jazz.

Soviet Research Institutes Project: The humanities

Soviet Research Institutes Project: The social sciences

This book, first published in 1981, represents a systematic attempt to describe and analyse the evolution of Soviet trade union organisations. It examines union activities both at the national level and on the shop floor. The main focus is on the development and workings of the Soviet trade unions, but their history throughout the Soviet period is also covered. Soviet trade unions were an important component in Stalin's system of rigid control over workers. Beginning with Khrushchev, party leaders sought to dismantle a system rooted in terror while seeking alternative ways to ensure compliance with civil authority. Yet no such way has been found to establish a sense of trust between managers and workers as a basis for such compliance. The question then arises of whose interest Soviet trade union organisations serve - that of the state or that of the workers? In analysing these relationships - especially the relationship between production concerns and worker welfare - Soviet Trade Unions focuses on the nature of change and continuity in Soviet labour relations.

Their Development in the 1970s

Soviet Trade Unions

Cynthia J. Buckley

Erin Trouth Hofmann

Migration, a force throughout the world, has special meanings in the former Soviet lands. Soviet successor countries, each with strong ethnic associations, have pushed some racial groups out and pulled others back home. Forcible relocations of the Stalin era were reversed, and areas previously closed for security reasons were opened to newcomers. These countries represent a fascinating mix of the motivations and achievements of migration in Russia and Central Asia. Migration, Homeland, and Belonging in Eurasia examines patterns of migration and sheds new light on government interests, migrant motivations, historical precedents, and community identities. The contributors come from a variety of disciplines: political science, sociology, history, and geography. Initial chapters offer overall assessments of contemporary migration debates in the region. Subsequent chapters feature individual case studies that highlight continuity and change in migration debates in imperial and Soviet periods. Several chapters treat specific topics in Central Eurasia and the Far East, such as the movement of ethnic Kazakhs from Mongolia to Kazakhstan and the continuing attractiveness to migrants of supposedly uneconomical cities in Siberia.

Migration, Homeland, and Belonging in Eurasia

Dominique Arel

An examination of post-Soviet society through ethnic, religious, and linguistic criteria, this volume turns what is typically anthropological subject matter into the basis of politics, sociology, and history. Ten chapters cover such diverse subjects as Ukrainian language revival, Tatar language revival, nationalist separatism and assimilation in Russia, religious pluralism in Russia and in Ukraine, mobilization against Chinese immigration, and even the politics of mapmaking. A few of these chapters are principally historical, connecting tsarist and Soviet constructions to today's systems and struggles. The introduction by Dominique Arel sets out the project in terms of new scholarly approaches to identity, and the conclusion by Blair A. Ruble draws out political and social implications that challenge citizens and policy makers. Rebounding Identities is based on a series of workshops held at the Kennan Institute in 2002 and 2003.

Blair A. Ruble

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