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Comments from the Book Review Editor

Continuing a recent tradition, COMMONWEALTH presents several 
reviews of books either pertaining to Pennsylvania’s history, government, and 
politics, or whose authors are Pennsylvania political scientists. Two books 
deal with African American history in the state. The first concerns Octavius 
Catto, a black civil-rights activist of the Civil War era; the second explores 
race relations in Pittsburgh after World War II. Two other books address 
environmental matters. One is a memoir by Franklin Kury, a former member 
of the Pennsylvania General Assembly and a renowned environmental 
activist. The other is a collection of essays tracing Philadelphia’s advances 
in environmental preservation and sustainability. The remaining volume is 
an introductory textbook on political philosophy by Donald Tannenbaum 
of Gettysburg College. Readers are encouraged to recommend books for 
review and to submit proposals for reviews. Guidelines for doing so can be 
found in the back section of this volume.

— Thomas J. Baldino, Book Review Editor



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Tasting Freedom: Octavius Catto and the Battle for Equality in Civil 
War America. By Daniel Biddle and Murray Dubin. Philadelphia, PA: 
Temple University Press, 2010. 632p. $32.95 cloth. ISBN: 1-59213-465-3

In their hefty biography of Octavius Catto, journalists Dan Biddle and 
Murray Dubin intended, in their own words, to spin “a good yarn.” They 
have succeeded. In fact, they have spun two yarns, for this is really two 
books in one. The book is first a delightful exploration of how a generation 
of young black activists came of age during the Civil War, how they saw 
their parents’ wildest dreams realized in that war, and how those dreams 
were dashed by the postwar outbreak of white violence just as, in the words 
of W.E.B. Du Bois, “they were first tasting freedom” (474). But the book 
is also a tribute to their more battle-worn parents, some of whom—like the 
Reverend William Catto, a self-made man not unlike Frederick Douglass—
had escaped slavery, while others were veterans of the violence against 
blacks and abolitionists that plagued northern cities. After whites terrorized 
several of Philadelphia’s black neighborhoods in 1842 by attacking churches 
and schools, Robert Purvis remarked, “I am convinced of our utter and 
complete nothingness in public estimation” (57).

Despite these dark days, Catto, Purvis, James Forten, James Le Count, 
and Jacob White Sr. managed to raise children who expected to enjoy real 
racial equality. It was an inestimable gift that Octavius Catto, Harriet Purvis, 
Charlotte Forten, Caroline Le Count, and Jacob White, to name a few, 
received from their parents, and one that they did not waste. Indeed, a central 
tragedy of the book’s story is that William Catto managed to survive slavery 
and raise four free children only to have the youngest of them, Octavius, die 
before him—not on a distant Civil War battlefield but rather in a city that in 
William’s day had been a beacon of hope for the enslaved. Octavius Catto 
died in Election Day violence in the City of Brotherly Love in 1871.

Veteran newspapermen, Dubin and Biddle have done superb sleuth work 
here, excavating what little there is to know about Octavius Catto—even 
digging up an aging Catto ancestor, Leonard Garnet Smith, Catto’s great-
grandnephew, who was stumping for presidential candidate Barack Obama 
when the authors made contact with him. Besides finding the biographer’s 
Holy Grail that provided them with the perfect closing anecdote, the authors 
discovered in period newspapers all sorts of surprises. For example, they 
tell the little known tale of a substantial slave auction held in 1859 by 
Philadelphia resident Pierce Butler, otherwise known as Fanny Kemble’s 
ex (the famous British actor had divorced her slave-owning husband years 
before). Although the auction took place near Butler’s Georgia plantation, a 
reporter covered the dramatic sale of hundreds of men, women, and children 
and the breakup of their families; and the story helped to fuel sectional 
sentiments in an otherwise very southern city. Readers might also find 



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interesting the story about the secession of a substantial number of the 
University of Pennsylvania’s medical students in 1860. And scholars will 
want to examine a newspaper expose in which a reporter set out to get a 
feel for black life in the city. Like an early social worker, the reporter visited 
the homes of the rich and poor and described what he saw for white readers 
who were used to averting their eyes. This was a particularly wonderful 
find, considering that scholars usually date the first such study to 1896, 
when a young Harvard-trained sociologist named Du Bois set out to survey 
Philadelphia’s Seventh Ward.

All this effort pays off, and the result is a lively biography of a little-
known leader of the civil-rights movement in the years following the Civil 
War. Indeed, it might seem brash of the authors to offer up a 500-page 
biography of a young man who died at the sprightly age of thirty-two. But 
Catto’s untimely death puts him squarely in the company of civil-rights 
leaders about whom volumes have been written; it pays to remember that 
Medgar Evers was thirty-seven when he died and Martin Luther King was 
thirty-nine. Of course, Evers’s biographers have the best of all sources in 
his wife, Myrlie Evers-Williams, and the FBI thankfully kept close tabs 
on King. Catto left behind Caroline Le Count, a black educator and civil 
rights activist, but Le Count seems to have left no paper trail at all. Not 
deterred, Murray and Dubin fill in the substantial blanks by populating 
the book with Catto’s friends and fellow travelers—and the ward bosses, 
corrupt politicians, and backroom dealers who ensured that Catto’s killer, 
Frank Kelly, never faced justice.

Scholars will raise some quibbles about the book’s structure. The 
endnote style was likely the publisher’s choice; while keeping down the page 
count, it takes some getting used to. The narrative occasionally suffers from 
a strained transition, as the authors zealously piece together disparate events 
occurring in Boston, Cincinnati, and Charleston. The fast-paced narrative 
makes the book a quick read, but there are times when I found myself 
wanting to linger, as during the account of celebrations of the enactment 
of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870 when Catto, Purvis, Douglass, and 
other luminaries addressed crowds of black celebrants and then adjourned 
to enjoy an exclusive dinner, leaving the common celebrants to evade as best 
as they could white thugs in the streets. Here the disjuncture seemed to call 
for some discussion of class and the economics that separated the black elite 
from those who lived in city slums.

Ambitious book clubbers will look in vain for an appended list of short 
biographies of the major characters in the book, indicating their relationship 
to each other. Like most elites, Philadelphia’s black Brahmins had a tendency 
to intermarry—when Harriet Forten Purvis and Frances (Fanny) Jackson 
Coppin married, they each joined two elite families—but even determined 
readers might puzzle over the entwined limbs of their family trees.



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None of these problems detract from a book that brings Octavius 
Catto and his generation to life. More than that, Tasting Freedom offers 
readers a nuanced and multi-layered portrait of Philadelphia during the 
Reconstruction era.

—Judith Giesberg, Villanova University

Nature’s Entrepôt—Philadelphia’s Urban Sphere and Its Environmental 
Thresholds. Edited by Brian C. Black and Michael J. Chiarappa. Pittsburgh, 
PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012. 304p. $38.00 cloth. ISBN: 978-
0-8229-4417-1

Nature’s Entrepôt is a collection of essays documenting the 
environmental history of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—America’s First City. 
The contributors track and discuss the many events that have influenced 
the navigation of Philadelphia’s sustainability journey. The book is divided 
into four parts: “Ideal and Reality in the Early City,” “Locating Patterns of 
Industry and Commerce in the Expanding City,” “Landscape Transformation 
in the Growing City,” and “Confronting the Ecologies.” The chapters are 
organized to flow from Philadelphia before 1800 in Part I. Part II considers 
events in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Philadelphia. Part 
III continues the examination of ensuing developments from the nineteenth 
through the early twentieth century. Part IV reflects on the ramifications of 
these earlier activities and provides discussion points and action items for 
the future direction of Philadelphia, as well as any other city. Inspirational 
stories and case studies are used by knowledgeable contributors to explain 
successes; and important lessons are drawn from failures. The essays delve 
into significant environmental themes that provide insight into understanding 
Philadelphia’s current environmental status.

For example, Apel’s essay on yellow fever in Philadelphia between 
1793 and 1805 provides perspective on environmental health and its 
connection to the labor system at the time. Sciotte reviews environmental 
justice and environmental racism between 1981 and 2001, highlighting 
the environmental hazards that have resulted since the 1970s because of 
decreased manufacturing in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Vitiello 
discusses evolving trends and policy failures in local agriculture and food 
security initiatives. Greene’s chronology of the history of deer in a city 
setting shows the challenges and important policy issues of dealing with 
urban wildlife and animal management. Rilling presents an interesting 
perspective on solid-waste management in her tale of Charles Cummings, 
the bone boiler. Milroy reviews the history, legacy, and current challenges 
of one of Philadelphia’s jewels, the Fairmount Park System. The issues 
Milroy identifies and discusses will be important to all who are interested in 
protecting public parks and recreational facilities.



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Philadelphia is known for its grid-based street system. Levine traces the 
history of the grid system and its continued impact on the city. Spirn uses 
the history and landscape of Mill Creek as a “living laboratory” to teach 
about water, landscape, and urban design. The approach and experiences 
serve as a valuable teaching and planning model. Adams considers the role 
of the suburbs and the potential benefits of a regional approach to address 
the city’s environmental, infrastructure, and employment issues. Mason 
reviews the challenges of urban sprawl in Philadelphia and the similarity of 
the city’s issues to those of other aging metropolitan areas.

Chiarappa discusses Philadelphia’s proximity to the Delaware Estuary 
and its relationship with this important ecosystem. Examining the role of 
the oyster trade in the environmental history of the Philadelphia area, he 
explains how effective management of the Estuary’s resources is crucial to 
the development of a sustainable future for the region. McMahon uses the 
story of Dock Creek to show how water resources and waste management 
were treated in evolving urban technological systems in eighteenth-century 
Philadelphia. His essay depicts the consequences of narrow values and 
short-term thinking. Zabel lays the groundwork for understanding the 
direction that Philadelphia’s environmental history has taken by reviewing 
William Penn’s Philadelphia. Vintage maps and photographs complement 
many of the essays.

This book is a valuable resource and belongs in the library of anyone 
interested in learning about and from Philadelphia’s rich record of 
environmental triumphs and tribulations. As Benjamin Franklin observed: 
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” 
Nature’s Entrepôt provides needed direction and lessons learned on how to 
be involved in deploying effective environmental policy and urban planning.

— Marleen A. Troy, Wilkes University

Clean Politics, Clean Streams: A Legislative Autobiography and 
Reflections. By Franklin L. Kury. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 
2011. 274p. $80.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781611460742

One of the major downsides of the changing landscape of news media 
over the past few decades is declining coverage of state legislative politics. 
One source for a solid and rich understanding of state legislative process 
is the biographies and autobiographies of state political players. In his 
autobiography, Franklin Kury takes the reader on a journey through his 
time in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives (1966–1972) and the 
Pennsylvania Senate (1972–1980).

Kury divides his autobiography into four sections: “Getting There” 
(1952–1966), “The House of Representatives” (1966–1972), “The 



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State Senate” (1972–1980), and “Political Life after the Legislature 
and Reflections” (1981–2010). Kury opens his book by recounting the 
formative experience of greeting President Truman as he campaigned for 
Adlai Stevenson during a train stop in Northumberland in 1952. That event, 
combined with talking history and politics while working at Barney’s Shoe 
Service in Sunbury, the gentle persuasion of his family, and an employment 
history with the Attorney General’s Office and U.S. Representative George 
Rhodes, provided the motivation for Kury’s venture into Pennsylvania 
politics.

Kury’s political ambitions and success in running for the General 
Assembly need to be contextualized within the Republican Party machine 
of Northumberland County, led by county chairman Henry Lark. While 
the Lark machine “had discipline and a sense of direction” and “produced 
consistent electoral success” (p. 25), the organization was beginning to show 
cracks that Kury capitalized on. First, when running for the State House, 
Kury set out to create a grassroots, volunteer-only organization that would 
create its own energy and sense of direction. Second, Kury determined to 
make his race an issue-driven one, “with heavy emphasis on clean streams” 
and the Republican incumbent’s “no” vote on an important bill to bring 
coal companies within reach of the clean-streams bill (p. 27). Finally, the 
Kury campaign made every effort to acquire Republican votes and to make 
personal contact with as many voters as possible. The strategy worked, as 
Kury pulled off an upset victory by a slim margin of 939 votes.

In Part II, Kury recounts his experiences and accomplishments in 
the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. Representative Kury hit the 
ground running and within two years worked with others to reform the 
absentee ballot, which had the effect of significantly reducing absentee-
ballot controversies in Pennsylvania. Second, Kury’s chief legislative prize 
was a systematic reform of the state’s clean-streams law, which began in 
1968 while Kury was in the House minority. The bill went nowhere until 
Democrats took control of the House after the 1968 election. The clean-
streams bill catapulted to the top of the new legislative agenda. The bill, 
which became law when Governor Shafer signed it in 1970, expanded the 
definitions of key words in environmental law (e.g., “pollution” and “waters 
of the Commonwealth”), gave the Department of Health and the Sanitary 
Water Board wide authority to implement the statute, and prohibited any 
person from discharging any polluting substance into public waters.

Representative Kury’s dedication to the environment extended further 
with his objective of amending the Pennsylvania Constitution to give the 
natural environment some degree of constitutional protection. The result 
was Article I, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, which states that 
“people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the 
natural, scenic, historic, and esthetic values of the environment.” Although 



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this constitutional provision has been limited by subsequent litigation, its 
place in the Constitution is significant.

In 1972, Kury won a seat in the state senate, where he continued his 
reform efforts. During his eight years there, Kury helped shepherd changes 
to the senate’s process of confirming gubernatorial appointments, the 
determination of a governor’s disability, the rewriting of the utility law, and 
reform of the floodplain- and storm-water-management laws.

When Richard Thornburgh became Pennsylvania’s governor in 1979, 
politics shifted in the state and Kury “increasingly realized that the good 
fortune [he] had of serving in the Senate while [his] party controlled all 
three branches of government was over” (p. 146). Kury left the senate in 
1980 but remained active in politics, serving as a fundraiser for various 
Democratic politicians in Pennsylvania and working on Walter Mondale’s 
1984 presidential campaign.

Kury concludes his autobiography by offering some personal 
reflections on politics. For Kury, the keys to electoral and legislative success 
include having a set of dedicated volunteers, being a consistent leader, and 
“maintaining willingness to compromise” (p. 158). Another important 
variable for success—and one that is perhaps lacking in modern politics—
is the commitment to “doing the ‘homework’ necessary to document and 
justify the proposed legislation” (p. 158).

At a time when public distrust of politicians and government institutions 
is high, Kury’s book offers an endearing and welcome perspective on how 
politics once worked and could work again. While Kury does not offer any 
strong prescriptions for the systemic ills that plague Pennsylvania’s politics, 
the reader is left with a mildly comforting feeling that Pennsylvania’s 
problems are enduring ones that simply manifest themselves in different 
ways over time. For example, corruption and malfeasance were present 
in Kury’s time in the General Assembly, but their presence did not 
automatically preclude Kury and other reformers from passing significant 
legislation. While it may be tempting to dismiss this book as one man’s 
legislative stories, it is much more, because it provides valuable insights into 
what it takes to be an influential and respected politician able to help move 
our great Commonwealth forward.

— Kyle L. Kreider, Wilkes University

Inventors of Ideas: An Introduction to Western Political Philosophy. 3d 
ed. By Donald G. Tannenbaum. New York: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 
2012. 314p. $97.00 paper. ISBN: 9780495908241

Political philosophy, one of the pillars of political science, has been 
under attack for more than four decades. This attack in the name of the 
modern scientific method led to the banishment of political philosophy from 



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the academy at various major universities. The past decade witnessed a new 
challenge in the form of a generation of web-browsing, text-messaging 
undergraduate students who admit that they do not enjoy reading, do not 
want to read, or ultimately refuse to read. These students are experts at 
finding data and isolated facts, but they have major difficulties with critical 
analysis and the formulation of logical argument (as opposed to personal 
opinion). These problems arise, in part, because the students have essentially 
no historical context in which to analyze the disparate facts they find 
electronically and no moral context within which to reflect upon personally 
or discuss publicly the fundamental questions of political philosophy: 
What is justice? Is there a common good? What is the best regime? More 
than most students in recent memory, today’s students desperately need 
political philosophy as formulated by Plato and Aristotle and practiced by 
Machiavelli and Rousseau.

Thus Donald Tannenbaum’s third edition of Inventors of Ideas: 
Introduction to Western Political Philosophy is a welcome counterweight 
and a valuable addition to the textbooks available for undergraduate courses 
in political philosophy. A balanced combination of breadth and brevity 
remains the hallmark of this textbook. The expanded edition is still only 
300 pages long. Between an introduction and a conclusion setting out 
the author’s analysis of political/societal crises and the role of political 
philosophers in addressing them, students will discover fifteen chapters, 
each devoted to a major political philosopher (or two). Plato, Aristotle, 
Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Marx are 
all covered. Neglected political philosophers—Cicero, Burke, Mill, and 
Mary Wollstonecraft—also receive individual chapters. Luther and Calvin 
are paired in one chapter, and Freud and Nietzsche are paired in the final 
substantive chapter. Professors of political philosophy will find that the 
chapters on Cicero, Luther and Calvin, Burke, and Freud and Nietzsche 
provide both historical and moral context for undergraduates not readily 
available elsewhere.

Inventors of Ideas differs from other textbooks that seek to explain 
one or two of each political philosopher’s key texts, e.g., Plato’s Apology or 
Machiavelli’s Prince. Tannenbaum explicates key terms and concepts (human 
nature, forms of government, law and citizenship) in each philosopher’s 
work as a whole without expecting students to have read the original. For 
example, his chapter on Aristotle addresses “Happiness, Values, and Human 
Nature,” “Community,” and “Political Change,” (34–44), while the chapter 
on Rousseau variously treats “State of Nature and Human Nature,” “The 
Social Contract,” “Citizenship, Gender and Education,” and “Forms of 
Government” (188–204).

Each chapter contains a variety of study aids, including a one- 
or two-page conclusion by Tannenbaum, “Notes to the Chapter,” and 



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recommendations for “Additional Readings.” This edition for the first 
time also contains a wide range of useful charts and figures to illustrate 
graphically the author’s analysis, such as Figure 11.3, “Comparing the 
Contracts of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau” (194), and Figure 15.1, “Marx: 
The Stages of History” (267).

Another strength of this textbook is that from the beginning, the author 
asks students to reflect upon the methodologies of classical, medieval, and 
modern political philosophers and apply them to contemporary political 
problems. What if your regime allowed or compelled only one religion? 
What if you knew a friend was being convicted of a crime but was innocent? 
Is democracy the best regime under all conditions? If a law is unjust, must 
it be obeyed until it can be changed?

From Aristotle’s recognition that politics is choice of actions directed 
to ends, Tannenbaum wants students to find in the classical, medieval, 
and modern political philosophers not dried up, empty relics of fact or 
history but living choices that prevail today in many authoritarian and 
nominally democratic regimes. Interestingly, in her Political Philosophy in 
the Twentieth Century: Authors and Arguments (2011), Katherine Zuckert 
also sought to defend human agency and political choice by focusing upon 
the upwelling of political philosophy in the mid-twentieth century in the 
persons of Hannah Arendt, Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, Jurgen Habermas, 
and John Rawls, among others. In different ways, Zuckert and Tannenbaum 
each seek to advance “a rich and vibrant tradition of reflection and debate 
about the most fundamental issues of human existence” (Zuckert, 6).

Any two professors of political philosophy could disagree about the 
most reasonable interpretation of the key texts in political philosophy. Was 
Socrates describing an ideal state in The Republic or merely constructing 
a “city in speech”? Was Machiavelli a modern realist or a “teacher of 
evil”? Are Hobbes and Locke polar opposites or are they part of a common 
brotherhood of “possessive individualism”? Thus, I do not address 
the author’s interpretations of various political philosophers. Rather, 
disagreement about both “human nature” and the “best regime” may be 
indispensable to retaining the “tradition of reflection and debate” that both 
Tannenbaum and Zuckert seek.

I have two suggestions for the next edition. First, include a 
recommendation for the most literal and least expensive paperback translation 
of each philosopher’s major works for faculty who want students to confront 
the original texts while still using a basic textbook. Second, expand the list 
of “Additional Readings.” Arguably, two of the most significant political 
philosophers of the twentieth century are conspicuously underrepresented. 
Leo Strauss is mentioned only in passing, and Eric Voegelin is absent 
entirely. For example, in the chapters on Plato and Aristotle alone, none of 
the following are included: Voegelin, The World of the Polis; Voegelin, Plato 



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and Aristotle; Strauss, Socrates and Aristophanes; Strauss, On Tyranny; 
Zuckert, Plato’s Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues; Seth 
Benardete, Socrates’ Second Sailing: On Plato’s Republic; Joseph Cropsey, 
On Humanity’s Intensive Introspection; Cropsey, Plato’s World: Man’s 
Place in the Cosmos; Michael Davis, The Soul of the Greeks; and Ronna 
Burger, Aristotle’s Dialogue with Socrates: On the “Nicomachean Ethics.”

— Michael R. Dillon, La Salle University

Race and Renaissance: African Americans in Pittsburgh since World 
War II. By Joe W. Trotter and Jared N. Day. Pittsburgh, PA: University of 
Pittsburgh Press, 2010. 304p. $29.95 cloth. ISBN: 978-0822943914

Joe Trotter and Jared Day, two professors of history at Carnegie 
Mellon University, embarked on a daunting task with their newest book: to 
chronicle more than half a century of African American life in Pittsburgh. 
While many studies have been done of the African American experience in 
Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and other American cities, this book is the 
first to examine Pittsburgh. Through interviews, oral histories, newspaper 
stories, and many other sources, the authors have created a fascinating and 
detailed overview of the last 60 (and more) years of the struggle of African 
Americans for equality and the obstacles they faced.

The authors believe that African American history in the United 
States cannot be fully understood without knowledge of the story of the 
black community in Pittsburgh. In writing this book, the authors provide 
a broad perspective on racial inequality in Pittsburgh since World War II. 
While reaching for improved conditions at work, school, and home, African 
Americans in the Steel City endured a deep and protracted struggle but 
eventually made great strides.

The book opens with a review of the turn of the twentieth century 
and the Great Migration of blacks to Pittsburgh. The authors discuss the 
difficulties experienced by the new arrivals in obtaining jobs and housing 
and the general discrimination they encountered. Blacks able to find work 
in the steel mills were usually employed as strike breakers or were subjected 
to constant layoffs. They were met with an attitude implying that they were 
not equipped to work in a non-farm environment. Pittsburgh’s newly arrived 
Eastern European immigrants vehemently resisted the inclusion of blacks 
in the workforce. This pattern was repeated throughout the manufacturing 
sector. Most blacks were relegated to jobs at the lowest levels of the service 
industry. The Great Northern Migration of blacks between 1910 and 1930 
brought more African Americans to Pittsburgh, thereby swelling the demand 
for housing and increasing the need for jobs.

Ever-increasing discriminatory practices forced newly arriving black 
families to live in areas of Pittsburgh that were already predominately black 



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and marked by substandard housing. These conditions led to the founding 
of a plethora of institutions to serve the black community. Fraternal 
organizations, churches, business groups, and music clubs flourished. A 
middle class grew in neighborhoods such as the Hill District. This was the 
beginning of civic engagement on a broader scale.

A presidential executive order prohibiting job discrimination in federal 
contracts, defense plants, and training programs improved opportunities 
for African Americans in employment. When World War II broke out and 
industries expanded their workforces, the new prosperity spread to the 
black community; and along with it came an increasing desire on the part 
of African Americans for greater participation in Pittsburgh’s political life.

The steel industry plays an important role in this book, for it links 
many aspects of African American daily life in Pittsburgh. From the city’s 
beginnings, steel brought people to Pittsburgh and steel is why people 
remained there. The industry’s decline and the city’s subsequent move 
to a service-oriented economy had a great impact on Pittsburgh’s black 
residents, especially the latest wave of black migrants seeking opportunity 
in the postwar years. The black portion of Pittsburgh’s population grew 
from 12% in 1950 to 20% in 1970. The book examines in great detail the 
engagement of the African American community in the processes of urban 
renewal, civil rights, politicization, and desegregation during this arduous 
period of deindustrialization.

The continued presence of inequality is not ignored by the authors. 
While conditions have improved, inequality of access to education, housing, 
employment, health care, housing, and education remains. Inequality 
increases poverty in the African American community. As the authors reflect 
on a country with an African American president, they ponder the impact of 
that monumental achievement on Pittsburgh.

Those interested in researching the City of Pittsburgh during the period 
examined in this book will find a treasure trove of source material and ideas. 
The appendix contains 25 pages of statistics and census data that illustrate 
what happened during this period. While the book is an informative 
beginning on many topics, the authors provide just enough to remind us that 
there is much more to be told. The book is also useful for teachers of African 
American studies, history, sociology, urban studies, and political science. 
Yet it is written in a manner accessible to a broad audience.

— Arthur M. Holst, City of Philadelphia Water Department




