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9780826222688

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While historical in nature, this book is very timely. At a time when cities are crumbling and facing similar social justice and economic issues, this book will help a new generation of activists and leaders to figure out the best strategies to effect change. --Jas Sullivan, Louisiana State University, co-author of Dimensions of Blackness: Racial Identity and Political Beliefs

"""It will also be useful to anyone seeking detailed historical analysis of ground-level organizing to inform their own efforts to improve their communities as they grapple with many of the same issues confronted by activists years before."" - The Journal of American History ""Historians of social movements, urban history, and the Midwest will find much to appreciate here.""--Kansas History "". . . The anthology complicates the familiar declension narrative about St. Louis that emphasizes population loss, deindustrialization, failed urban renewal schemes, and lackluster leadership from a politically and culturally conservative white elite. Instead, the essays offer what Ian Darnell profitably calls 'an important countercurrent' in which the challenges of the era propelled activist campaigns as well as created new spaces for marginalized residents to assert their citizenship (p. 89)."" --Missouri Historical Review ""An important corrective to common assumptions about the undisturbed conservatism of St. Louis, according to which the Ferguson uprising 'came out of nowhere, ' and also an excellent, more general roadmap of progressive politics in the United States in the mid-twentieth century. Izzo and Looker's collection will richly repay the attentive reader; its conceptual reach far exceeds the progressive politics of this one midwestern city.""--Matthew Frye Jacobson, Yale University, author of Dancing Down the Barricades: Sammy Davis, Jr. and the Long Civil Rights Era ""In addition to offering more than a dozen great stories of life in the Gateway City, Left in the Midwest presents two lessons useful to historians and activists from any city, anywhere: first, a savvy untangling of the intertwined networks of people who worked to promote social, political, racial, and gender equality in postwar America; second, a model for putting left and liberal activism 'in its place'--in this case, the streets and neighborhoods in which citizens worked, played, and worshipped as they struggled to build a better world.""--Eric Sandweiss, Indiana University, author of St. Louis: The Evolution of an American Urban Landscape ""While historical in nature, this book is very timely. At a time when cities are crumbling and facing similar social justice and economic issues, this book will help a new generation of activists and leaders to figure out the best strategies to effect change.""--Jas Sullivan, Louisiana State University, co-author of Dimensions of Blackness: Racial Identity and Political Beliefs"

"""An important corrective to common assumptions about the undisturbed conservatism of St. Louis, according to which the Ferguson uprising 'came out of nowhere, ' and also an excellent, more general roadmap of progressive politics in the United States in the mid-twentieth century. Izzo and Looker's collection will richly repay the attentive reader; its conceptual reach far exceeds the progressive politics of this one midwestern city.""--Matthew Frye Jacobson, Yale University, author of Dancing Down the Barricades: Sammy Davis, Jr. and the Long Civil Rights Era ""In addition to offering more than a dozen great stories of life in the Gateway City, Left in the Midwest presents two lessons useful to historians and activists from any city, anywhere: first, a savvy untangling of the intertwined networks of people who worked to promote social, political, racial, and gender equality in postwar America; second, a model for putting left and liberal activism 'in its place'--in this case, the streets and neighborhoods in which citizens worked, played, and worshipped as they struggled to build a better world.""--Eric Sandweiss, Indiana University, author of St. Louis: The Evolution of an American Urban Landscape ""While historical in nature, this book is very timely. At a time when cities are crumbling and facing similar social justice and economic issues, this book will help a new generation of activists and leaders to figure out the best strategies to effect change.""--Jas Sullivan, Louisiana State University, co-author of Dimensions of Blackness: Racial Identity and Political Beliefs"

Author Information

Amanda L. Izzo is an associate professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Saint Louis University. A scholar of US women's history, she received her PhD from the American Studies program of Yale University. She is the author of Liberal Christianity and Women's Global Activism: The YWCA of the USA and the Maryknoll Sisters. Benjamin Looker is an associate professor of American Studies at Saint Louis University, with a PhD in American Studies from Yale University. His most recent book, A Nation of Neighborhoods: Imagining Cities, Communities, and Democracy in Postwar America, was a recipient of ""best-book"" awards from organizations including the American Studies Association and the Urban History Association.

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