Building the Ivory Tower: Universities and Metropolitan Development in the Twentieth Century

260 Pages·2018·18.736 MB·English

by  LaDale C. Winling

Building the Ivory Tower
Politics and C ulture in M odern A meri ca
Series Editors: Margot Canaday, Glenda Gilmore, Michael Kazin,
Stephen Pitti, Thomas J. Sugrue
Volumes in the series narrate and analyze po liti cal and social change
in the broadest dimensions from 1865 to the pres ent, including ideas
about the ways people have sought and wielded power in the public
sphere and the language and institutions of politics at all levels— local,
national, and transnational. The series is motivated by a desire to
reverse the fragmentation of modern U.S. history and to encourage
synthetic perspectives on social movements and the state; on gender,
race, and labor; and on intellectual history and popu lar culture.
Building the
Ivory Tower
Universities and Metropolitan Development
in the Twentieth Century
LaDale C. Winling
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia
This book is made poss i ble by a collaborative grant from the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation.
Copyright © 2018 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly
citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written
permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104 - 4112
www . upenn. edu / pennpress
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca on acid- free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging- in-P ublication Data
Names: Winling, LaDale C., author.
Title: Building the ivory tower : universities and metropolitan development in the
twentieth century / LaDale C. Winling.
Other titles: Politics and culture in modern Amer i ca.
Description: 1st edition. | Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2018] |
Series: Politics and culture in modern Amer i ca | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017013306 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4968-2 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Community and college—U nited States— History—20th century—
Case studies. | University towns— Economic aspects—20th century— Case studies |
Cities and towns— United States— Growth— History—20th century— Case studies. |
Cities and towns— Effects of technological innovations on— United States—
History—20th century— Case studies. | Land use— United States— History—20th
century— Case studies.
Classification: LCC LC238 .W56 2018 | DDC 378.1/03—d c23
LC rec ord available at https:// lccn. loc . gov /2 017013306
For Kate, Ernest, and Sammy
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Contents
Introduction. The Landscape of Knowledge 1
Chapter 1. The Gravity of Capital 15
Chapter 2. The City Limits 43
Chapter 3. Origins of the University Crisis 79
Chapter 4. Radical Politics and Conservative Landscapes 119
Chapter 5. The Working Class Versus the Creative Class 151
Epilogue. The New Contested City 183
List of Abbreviations 187
Notes 189
Index 239
Acknowle dgments 249
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Introduction
The Landscape of Knowledge
Harvard University was on top of the educational world. In January 2007,
administrators announced the plan for expanding their campus in the Allston
neighborhood of Boston.1 The nation’s oldest institution of higher educa-
tion had the largest endowment in the country and was financing a bold move
to build scientific laboratories and an art museum across the Charles River
from its traditional Cambridge campus. At that time, Boston was one of the
centers of the new economy, with researchers, gradu ates, and entrepreneurs
from Harvard and the Mas sa chu setts Institute of Technology (MIT) com-
posing much of its creative class. The New York Times pointed out that Har-
vard amenities would replace nothing more than “a gas station and a Dunkin’
Donuts” at Barry’s Corner, an industrial site and working- class neighborhood
in Allston.2 Mayor Thomas Menino hailed the 2007 announcement for the
Allston campus as the first step in making Harvard “the future of Boston.”3
Harvard’s ambition was central to the growth of the region. Contractors
began clearing the site at the end of 2007.4
The fall was steep. Two years later, Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust
sent a letter out to the university’s deans in the midst of the economic crisis,
announcing that the endowment, once $36 billion, had lost nearly a third of
its value. There would be bud get cuts. The university instituted a faculty
hiring freeze and halted construction on the new campus, leaving a hole in
the Boston landscape. The nation’s wealthiest and most prestigious univer-
sity had been laid low, its signature efforts to lead the nation in biological
research were in embarrassing disarray, and a three- decade- long expansion
initiative had stalled.
The proposed science and art complex in Allston represented the volatile
potential of this new direction for growth in higher education. The increas-
ing reliance on philanthropy to compensate for shrinking public support had