Deryck W. Holdsworth

I study the historical geographies of office districts, from counting houses and coffee houses to skyscrapers, drawing on case studies in a dozen cities around the world over three centuries. See also Linking Words and Worlds of Trade.

I have studied the roles of Philadelphia speculators and Scots-Irish landowners in the emergence of psuedo-manorial landscapes in central and northern Pennsylvania in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This is current phase of an ongoing interest in the historical geographies of settlement landscapes

I also study preservation policy and practice, and have had a long-time interest in the applications of historical research, including work on the architectural and economic revitalization of Main Street, for the Heritage Canada Foundation (Reviving Main Street, 1985);

I have participated in heritage evaluation (member of the State Preservation Board in Pennsylvania, 1990-94) and heritage inventory (co-author with Jackie Melander of two National Register of Historic Places nominations for State College, PA). Also work for the State Museum of Pennsylvania towards a new long-term gallery exhibit on Pennsylvania and the Land.

Contact Information

Office address: 320 Walker Building, University Park PA 16802
Phone: 814-865-1044
E-mail: dwh6@ems.psu.edu

Background

Professor, faculty member since 1987
B.A., Geography (with Honors), University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
M.A., Geography, Ph.D., Geography, University of British Columbia, Canada
Research: historical geography, urban historical geography
One of three series editors, Cambridge Studies in Historical Geography, for Cambridge University Press

Recent Publications

Historical geography: The octupus in the graden and in the fields. Progress in Human Geography 28, 4 (2004): 528-35.

Historical geography: new ways of imaging and seeing the past. Progress in Human Geography 27, 4 (2003): 486-93.

Die Worte und Welten des Handels: Waren und die Kulturgeographie maritimer Räume (Linking words and worlds of trade: Commodities and the cultural geographies of maritime spaces). In Bernhard Klein and Gesa Mackenthun, eds., Das Meer als kulturelle Kontaktzone: Räume, Reisende, Repräsentationen (The Ocean as a Cultural Contact Zone: Spaces, Travelers, Representations), Konstanz: Universitaetsverlag Konstanz, 2003, pp. 115-142 (with H.J. Rademacher).

Historical geography: the ancients and the moderns - generational vitality. Progress in Human Geography 26,5 (2002): 671-78.

Homeplace: The Making of the Canadian Dwelling over Three Centuries. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998 (co-authored with Peter Ennals).

Landscape and archives as texts. In P. Groth and T. W. Bressi, eds., Understanding Ordinary Landscapes. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997, 44-55.

"I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK": Varied masculinities and the built environment in the industrial age. In B. Cromley and C. Hudgins, eds., Gender, Class, and Shelter; Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture V. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1995, 11-25.

Re-valuing the house. In D. F. Ley and J. Duncan, eds., Place/Culture/Representation. London: Routledge, 1993, 95-109.

Morphological change in lower Manhattan, New York, 1893-1920. In J.W.R. Whitehand and P.J. Larkham, eds., Urban Landscapes: International Perspectives. London, Routledge, 1992, 114-29.

Corporate identity and the New York office building, 1895-1915. In D. Ward and O. Zunz, eds.,The Landscape of Modernity: Essays on New York City, 1900-1940. New York: Russell Sage, 1992, 129-159 (with Gail Fenske).

Historical Atlas of Canada III: Addressing the Twentieth Century, 1891-1961. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990 (Co-Editor with D.Kerr).

The Parking Authority of Toronto 1952-1987. Toronto: The Parking Authority of Toronto, 1987. 122 pages.

Reviving Main Street. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985. 246 pages. (Editor)

Awards and Honors

Canadian Commonwealth Scholarship (1968-70)
Gold Medal, The Royal Canadian Geographical Society (1994)
Centenary Medal, The Royal Society of Canada (1994)
Exceptional Scholarly Contribution to Cartography, Canadian Cartography Association (1994)
Wilson Research Award, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, Penn State University (1995)

Teaching Interests

Geography 102: The American Scene

Geography 401W: Historical Geography of North America

Geography 418: Urban Historical Geography

Geography 597A: Historical Geography Seminar

Current Advisees

David Fyfe, Ph.D
Michael Glass, Ph.D
Kaori Nomura, Ph.D.

Past Doctoral Advisees

Hank Rademacher, Universitaat Saarland, Saarbrucken, Germany
Hilary Anne Frost-Kumpf, Public Administration, University of Illinois at Springfield
Laura Geller, Geography, Bloomsburg University, PA
Frank Boscoe, Research Scientist, Bureau of Environmental and Occupational Health, NYS Department of Health, Albany, NY
Sam Dennis, Landscape Architecture, University of Wisconsin at Madison
Brad Hunter, Defense Analyst, Washington, D.C.
Dai Chui, Business School, University of Utah
Wolfgang Hoeschele, Geography, Truman State, Missouri
Larry McGlinn, Geography, SUNY New Platz

Past Masters Advisees

Jennifer Mapes
Rob Murray
Joel Staub
David Fyfe
Jennifer Nolan, Tri-County Planning Department, Carlisle, Pennsylvania
Brian McManus
Stephen LeDuc
Amy Fox
Kaori Nomura
Mark Harrington
David Brown
Gareth John
Mike Carlin
Owen Dwyer, Geography, Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis
Sam Dennis
Ewan Allison
Jen Gober
Mandy Shear
Laura Geller
Nancy Smith
Catherine Reeves
Patrick Trimble
Randall Mason, Associate Professor, Graduate Program in Historic Preservation, School of Architecture, University of Pennsylvania
Don Mitchell, Professor of Geography, Syracuse University