Author : Sean C. Safford
Release : 2004
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Kind : eBook
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Book Synopsis Why the Garden Club Couldn't Save Youngstown by : Sean C. Safford

Download or read book Why the Garden Club Couldn't Save Youngstown written by Sean C. Safford. This book was released on 2004. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Cont.) interlocks (c.f., Galaskiewicz 1985; Romo and Schwartz 1995) to show how the specific structure of social networks within communities constrains and enables social action in the face of externally generated crises. Thus, it takes up the challenge to use network analysis to "pinpoint [the] causal mechanisms whose combinations produce the actual histories we observe" (Tilly 1992; Emirbayer and Goodwin 1994). Despite sharing remarkably similar economic histories, the social structures of Allentown and Youngstown developed along two very different trajectories. In Youngstown, a dense core of elites emerged in the 19th century which kept tight control over local industry which was centered on steel production. In Allentown, two groups of elites emerged early on that were associated with two separate industrial groups (also centered on steel). These groups competed with each other throughout the first century of the region's economic growth. The difference had important consequences early in the 20th century as industrialization gave way to Eastern European immigration and industrial union organizing activity in the 1930s. In Youngstown, social divisions within the community were essentially class-oriented leading to violent clashes as the core elite "circled the wagons" in the face of ethnic and later labor conflict. In Allentown, the most salient divides were based on communities within the region and their associated industrial blocks. Social conflict was less contentious as actors drew on cross-class social networks to find common ground. These differences were vitally important in the 1950s when the cities started ...