The WPA History of the Negro in Pittsburgh
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
The story of Pittsburgh's African Americans is deeply entwined with that of other ethnic groups, yet in many ways it is unique. Before the Civil War, Pittsburgh's rivers and proximity to the Mason-Dixon line made it a critical junction on the Underground Railroad and offered runaway slaves an important measure of freedom. Following the war, Pittsburgh offered increasing opportunities for white wage laborers, but not until World War I cut off the supply of European labor did the city's mines, mills, and factories open to black workers. This touched off a massive black migration from the South in search of economic opportunities and a better life. The discrimination that African Americans continued to face in Pittsburgh, as elsewhere in the nation, made their history a turbulent struggle for equality.
In the 1930s, the WPA's Federal Writers' Project provided work to thousands unemployed writers, editors, and researchers of all races. The monumental American Guide Series featured books on states, cities, rivers, and ethnic groups, opening an unprecedented view into the lives of the American people. University of Pittsburgh English professor J. Ernest Wright was selected to compile and edit "The Negro in Pittsburgh." He assembled an impressive, racially mixed team of writers and other professionals-including newspaper editors, teachers, preachers, and social workers-but when a hostile Congress abruptly terminated funding for the program in 1939, the nearly completed project languished, almost forgotten, in the depths of the Pennsylvania State Library. Never before published, The WPA History of the Negro in Pittsburgh combines the original texts with an insightful introduction and explanatory notes by historian Laurence Glasco.
The essays in this pioneering history of African Americans in Pittsburgh were written before World War II and the economic recovery that followed the Great Depression; before the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and desegregation; before the destruction of a black cultural locus in the lower Hill District. The book, therefore, not only tells the history of African Americans in Pittsburgh from colonial times to the 1930s, but also exquisitely captures the perspective of the period in which was created.
Presented thematically, chapters cover such topics as the abolitionist and civil rights movements; the significance of the wage worker in an industrial city; the development of the church, of education, and the press; and the influential arts and folkways of the Pittsburgh community. The book closes with a stirring collection of personal interviews in which citizens speak frankly about their own experiences. These narratives express intense frustration, but also hope, pride, and a deep conviction to bring about change. In the words of one woman from the Hill District, "Opportunity should be free just as the air; it's free; it's free to breathe for all of us. . . . The remedy is to tell people the truth. . . . Tell us the truth about everything. Tell us the whole truth."
From the Back Cover
"Provides a wealth of information."-Dennis C. Dickerson, Vanderbilt University
"A fascinating and in many ways unique perspective on the history of an African American community in the urban North. The chapters on black folkways and cultural/artistic activities are particularly interesting, and Laurence Glasco's introduction does an excellent job of explaining the origins and significance of this valuable primary source."-Kenneth Kusmer, Temple University
"Offers the most comprehensive single study of the city's black population to date. Glasco not only smooths out inconsistencies and corrects glaring errors, but adds an illuminating introduction [that] pinpoints the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript, offers brilliant biographical notes on its principal contributors, and places the work within the broader historical context of the New Deal."-Joe W. Trotter, Carnegie Mellon University
The WPA History of the Negro in Pittsburgh
The WPA History of the Negro in Pittsburgh,Laurence A. Glasco,University of Pittsburgh Press,0822942321,African Americans,Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - General,Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - Histor,History,History: American,Interviews,Pennsylvania,Pittsburgh,Social conditions,Sociology,United States - State & Local - General,United States - State & Local - Middle Atlantic,Black studies,History of specific racial & ethnic groups
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