Cole S. Manley

Fields

• U.S. History
• Urban History
• Spatial Politics
• Environmental History

Contact Information

• Office: Bldg. 47, Rm. 25L
• Phone: (805) 756-3530
• E-mail: cmanle01@calpoly.edu

 

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Education

• PhD, University of California, Davis
• MA and MSc, Columbia University and the London School of Economics (LSE)
• BA, Stanford University

Research and teaching Interests

My teaching and research interests include 19th and 20th-century U.S. history; the Civil Rights Movement of the post-World War II era; California history; and urban history. I am particularly interested in spatial politics and urban planning, and how social movements for transit access and mobility have transformed cities across the country. My book, The Unlikely World of the Montgomery Bus Boycott (University of Georgia Press, NewSouth Books, 2021) analyzes the global influences and impact of the Boycott of 1955–1956. I interrogate how Black Montgomery boycotters thought about their movement in relationship to global freedom struggles, from the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa to the anti-color bar battles in the United Kingdom. Recently, I’ve had articles published in the Journal of Urban History, on the long and pernicious history of restrictive covenants in real estate in Oakland, California, and in Western Historical Quarterly, on a series of lawsuits targeting discriminatory streetcar companies in San Francisco. Currently, I am in the process of revising my dissertation manuscript for publication, entitled “Missed Connections: The Politics of Race, Space, and Mobility across San Francisco and Oakland.” In my free time, I enjoy running and drinking coffee.

Selected Fellowships and Awards

• Provost’s Fellowship in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, UC Davis
• Mellon Public Scholar, UC Davis and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
• Huntington Library, Duncan Gleason Fellow in Maritime History, 2024-25
• Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley, Summer Study Award, 2024
• Phi Beta Kappa, Stanford University

Selected Conference Presentations

• “The Subdivision, the Racial Covenant, and the Streetcar in Oakland, California,1900-1930,” Panelist, Urban History Association (UHA), Los Angeles, October 2025
• “Disruptive infrastructures, Race, and Resistance in the American West,” Panelist, Western History Association (WHA), Kansas City, MO, October 2024
• “Transit, Real Estate, and Race in California History,” Panelist, American Historical Association (AHA), San Francisco, CA, January 2024
• “Racial Exclusion on the Streetcars of San Francisco: The Cases of Mary Ellen Pleasant and Charlotte Brown, 1863-1868,” Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association (AHA), 2022

Courses Taught

• HIST 2202 United States History Since 1877