Back of the yards : the making of a local democracy /

In this study of the stockyards neighborhood of Chicago, Slayton analyzes the evolution of the Irish and German communities from 1865 to 1900 and of the Slavic community from 1900 to 1970. Ten topical chapters explore successive dimensions of life-the worlds of children, including their schools; religious training and games; women, including their household lives; men, including their lives in the packing houses; the religious and ethnic bases underlying the social order; and the various spheres of power, ranging from city and state politics and the University of Chicago Settlement House to the formation of the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council in 1939. Based on a wide range of records, including a rich collection of personal interviews, the author draws on the growing recent literature in the ``New Social History'' to probe the complex search for community and democracy, especially the processes by which ethnic animosities gave way to the political coalitions essential to neighborhood autonomy. A sensitive, fresh, and insightful work, this is both a model case study as well as a revealing window on immigrant life in all large northern industrial cities. The illustrations are superb. Highly recommended for public and academic collections, lower-division through graduate.-P.J. Coleman, University of Illinois at Chicago

Until now, the historic Back of the Yards neighborhood of Chicago has been neglected by social historians. The packinghouse district, made famous by Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (1906), provides a case study in the evolution of an immigrant community over two generations. Originally fragmented by religion and ethnicity, people gradually were drawn together into ever-larger interest groups. Slayton's book, based partly on interviews, presents a colorful and moving picture of this diverse area, its people, their homes, and their jobs. The author's sensitivity to the community's character sometimes leads him dangerously close to veneration and a facile interpretation of democratic progress. Nevertheless, this is recommended for those interested in the emergence of cities. Charles K. Piehl, Director of Grants Management, Mankato State Univ., Minn. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.