Kristin M. Szylvian

Associate ProfessorGraduate Director for Public History
Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon UniversityMA, 1984, Duquesne University, HistoryBA, 1983, University of Massachusetts at Lowell

Kristin M. Szylvian joined the faculty of St. John's University in January 2011. Jointly appointed in History and Library and Information Science, she directs the Public History program resulting in a Master of Arts (MA) and a dual degree program that offers an MA in Public History and a Master of Science in Library and Information Science. Dr. Szylvian's research focuses on urban history and housing and urban planning policy. She is currently working on a study of industrialized housing during the 1960s and 1970s tentatively entitled, Instant Housing. The Mutual Housing Experiment: New Deal Communities for the Urban Middle Class was published by Temple University Press in 2016. Dr. Szylvian's articles have appeared in Buildings and LandscapesThe Journal of Urban HistoryPlanning Perspectives, and Environmental History. She has previously directed the Public History programs at Western Michigan University and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

Areas of Specialization: Urban History; housing and urban policy; New Deal; and World War II

Most recent publication: The Mutual Housing Experiment: New Deal Communities for the Urban Middle Class (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2016)

Most recent presentations: Society for American City and Regional Planning History (2019) and Urban History Association (2018)

Courses Taught at St. John's University

  • Urban History
  • Oral History
  • Public History
  • Visual Culture
  • Senior Seminar: NYC World's Fairs, 1939 and 1964
  • History Museums and Historic Sites