[Review of] Stow Persons. Ethnic Studies at Chicago, 1905-1945

The University of Chicago rose out of the marshes on the southside of Chicago in the 1890s to win recognition as one of the world\u27s leading research institutes. The multiethnic city of Chicago, teeming with immigrants and displaced rural blacks, offered its sociologists an immediate challenge. These scholars were to directly influence the study of racial and ethnic groups and the field of sociology for many decades. However influential the work of the Chicago School was, their hold on American sociology was broken in the post World War II period as activists and intellectuals dealt with America\u27s unfulfilled promise for ethnic minorities. Stow Persons\u27 book chronicles this important group of social thinkers from their peak to their decline

[Review of] Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum. Liberazione della Donna. Feminism in Italy

A book on feminism in Italy might draw a bewildered look from the average American. The image of Italian women, cultivated by the popular media, is of either a sultry sex pot or a black garbed mamma stirring a spaghetti pot. In both examples these women are seen as subservient to the Italian male. It is unfortunate that these images are so pervasive, and that accurate information on Italian women in our society is limited, since their experiences can be instructive

[Review of] Paul Wrobel. Our Way: Family, Parish and Neighborhood in a Polish-American Community

Paul Wrobel’s study of a Polish-American community provides valuable insight into one of America’s largest white ethnic groups. Recent studies of Polish-Americans, such as Neil Sandberg’s Ethnic Identity and Assimilation: the Polish American Community in Los Angeles (New York: Praeger, 1974), have been few and often lacking in insight, even if providing some information. Wrobel provides a window for outsiders to look at St. Thaddeus parish on the northeast side of Detroit, a neighborhood reflecting “the cultural attitudes and values of its residents, especially their need for order and cleanliness.” (p. 46.) He takes care to emphasize that his study is only a start, describing and analyzing one particular community to provide the basis for future comparisons. Wrobel, a third generation Polish-American, with the assistance of his wife Kathleen, used participant-observer techniques for the study during the three years they and their children lived and worked in the neighborhood. This was supplemented with semi-formal interviews, census materials, parish records and city directories to gain an overview of the area

[Review of] Charles C. Moskos, Jr., Greek Americans, Struggle and Success

Charles Moskos is a Greek American sociologist involved in teaching one of the few courses dealing with the subject of his book, Greek Americans. His book is a broad overview of this ethnic group, with both an historical and sociological perspective. The topic is interesting, for the Greeks are one of the few ”New Immigrant” groups to achieve rapid upward mobility without vanishing into the melting pot. Since the success of most southern and eastern European groups has been marked by a slow and uneven upward climb, the Greeks offer an instructive contrast