"This book had its origin in a conference on the history of the peoples of Philadelphia held at Temple University April 1-2, 1971, and sponsored by the Committee for Urban Studies and the Center for the Study of Federalism [Temple University]"
Includes bibliographical references.
African American resources at Lancaster County Historical Society
Summary
"Although much has been written about elite Philadelphians, only in recent decades have historians paid attention to the Jews and working-class blacks, the immigrant Irish, Italians, and Poles who settled in the city and gave such sections as Moyamensing, Southwark, South Philadelphia, and Kensington their vitality. In this classic of social and ethnic history, the authors draw on census schedules, court records, city directories, and tax records as well as newspaper files and other sources to give a picture of the ways in which these less-privileged groups of Philadelphians lived. What emerges is a picture of Philadelphia radically different from the conventional portrait of a staid old city." [Amazon.com]
Chapters: 1. Poverty, Fear, and Continuity: An Analysis of the Poor in Late Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia/ 2. Residential Mobility Within the Nineteenth-Century City/ 3. Urbanization as a Cause of Violence: Philadelphia as a Test Case/ 4. Fire Companies and Gangs in Southwark: The 1840s/ 5. Crime Patterns in Philadelphia, 1840-70/ 6. Free Blacks in Antebellum Philadelphia/ 7. The Philadelphia Irish: Persistent Presence/ 8. "A Peaceful City": Public Order in Philadelphia from Consolidation Through the Civil War/ 9. Housing the Poor in the City of Homes: Philadelphia at the Turn of the Century/ 10. The Immigrant and the City: Poles, Italians, and Jews in Philadelphia, 1870-1920/ 11. Philadelphia's Jewish Neighborhoods/ 12. Philadelphia's South Italians in the 1920s/ 13. Recurring Themes
