Review by Choice Review
Silcox takes a familiar subject, the role of Irish-American Catholics in 19th-century municipal politics, and uses the half-century career of William McMullen, a controversial Philadelphia Democrat, to illustrate urban life from the bottom up. A street tough turned Jacksonian, McMullen ignored national politics, except for his alliance with Congressman Samuel J. Randall, and concentrated on localism. McMullen's constituents faced multiple and interrelated problems including rapid urbanization, bitter ethnocultural conflicts, bewildering dislocations in the job market, growing poverty, epidemic diseases, sharp class frictions, and virulent racial tensions. In dealing with these difficulties, McMullen revealed a remarkable ability, often bordering on opportunism, to adapt to new circumstances. What emerges from this biography is a functionalist view of politics and a sense of Philadelphia's social history, largely from the viewpoint of its underside. Adequate index and good bibliography. Recommended for libraries specializing in Pennsylvania and/or urban history. -J. Mushkat, The University of Akron
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
