Carl Smith

American literature and cultural history

Office: 306 University Hall
Phone: 847-491-7136
E-mail: cjsmithnorthwestern.edu

Carl Smith (Ph.D. American Studies, Yale University) is Franklyn Bliss Snyder Professor of English & American Studies. He is the author of Chicago and the American Literary Imagination, 1880-1920 (1984) and of Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief: The Great Chicago Fire, the Haymarket Bomb, and the Model Town of Pullman (1994), which won the Urban History Association's prize for Best Book in North American Urban History and the Society of Midland Authors' first prize for non-fiction. In collaboration with Academic Technologies at Northwestern and the Chicago Historical Society, he is curator of the online Chicago Historical Society exhibitions, The Great Chicago Fire and the Web of Memory (http://www.chicagohistory.org/fire) and The Dramas of Haymarket (http://www.chicagohistory.org/dramas), which appeared in 1996 and 2000, respectively. With the additional participation of the Art Institute of Chicago, he wrote the text and coordinated the preparation of the digital essay, The Plan of Chicago
(http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/10537.html),
in the electronic version of the Encyclopedia of Chicago (2005). A recipient of a WCAS Outstanding Teaching Award, Smith was named Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence in 1994. He teaches American literature and cultural history and holds a joint appointment in the history department.