Mean Streets

by Diamond, Andrew J.

• ISBN13: 9780520257238
• ISBN10: 0520257235
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-06-10
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

Mean Streetsfocuses on twentieth-century Chicago from the era of the race riot to cast a new light on Chicago's youth gangs and to place youths at the center of the twentieth-century American experience. Andrew J. Diamond breaks new ground by showing that teens and young men stood at the vanguard of grassroots mobilizations in work-ing-class Chicago, playing key roles in the formation of racial identities as they defended neighborhood boundaries. Drawing from a wide range of sources to capture the experiences of young Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, African Americans, Italians, Poles, and others in the multiracial city, Diamond argues that from the early 1900s through the 1960s, youths in Chicago gained a sense of themselves in opposition to others.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. vii
List of Abbreviations	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Maps	p. xv
Introduction: Bringing Youths into the Frame	p. 1
The Generation of 1919	p. 17
Between School and Work in the Interwar Years	p. 65
Hoodlums and Zoot-Suiters: Fear, Youth, and Militancy during Wartime	p. 119
Angry Young Men: Race, Class, and Masculinity in the Postwar Years	p. 152
Teenage Terrorism, Fighting Gangs, and Collective Action in the Era of Civil Rights	p. 193
Youth and Power	p. 240
Epilogue: Somewhere over the Rainbow	p. 301
Notes	p. 313
Index	p. 369
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