Resumen de US contributions to the construction of the modern city: Five women

María Cristina García González, Salvador Guerrero López

• This research focuses on how five US women, linked to a space and a time, held their contributions to the construction of the city. This collection of case studies begins when the dramatic situation of the urban proletariat triggered a series of initiatives that sought to improve their life conditions, as the social action introduced by Jane Addams (1860-1935) through the social settlement Hull-House in Chicago; and the practice and theoretical knowledge introduced by the Russell Sage Foundation founded by Margaret Olivia Sage (1828-1918) in New York. The point of view introduced by Theodora Kimball Hubbard (1887-1935) at Harvard University was to consolidate the urban knowledge as an act of communication; Edith Elmer Wood (1871-1945) put the housing problem in nacional perspective as is shown in Slums and Blighted Areas in the United States. Finally, Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) introduced the urban choreography from a neighbourhood of New York by The Death and Life of Great American Cities. With these US pioneers a story is built.