Armed with historical maps and images, this year's American Metropolitan Evolution class, known in the department simply as "Metro," walked the city's southernmost neighborhood, Quinsigamond Village in October. The idea of Metro fieldwork is to walk a neighborhood and assess the elements of it that have changed or remained the same over time. Famously settled by large numbers of Swedes brought by the Washburn and Moen Company to work in its Southworks factory, this pioneering group left an imprint on the neighborhood in its churches, businesses, and indelibly on its built environment. Street names such as Halmstad, Stockholm, Kosta, and Malmo still survive in the village, and a variety of churches built to accommodate Swedish denominations still survive as houses of worship to different denominations. Students walked from the Blackstone Visitor's Center to Greenwood Park, wandering through the history of this place, seeing how old and new come together.
A blog for the activities of the Department of Urban Studies at Worcester State University.