Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum [Paperback]

William Foote Whyte (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0226895459 | ISBN-13: 978-0226895451 | Publication Date: June 1, 1993 | Edition: 1

Street Corner Society is one of a handful of works that can justifiably be called classics of sociological research. William Foote Whyte's account of the Italian American slum he called "Cornerville"—Boston's North End—has been the model for urban ethnography for fifty years.

By mapping the intricate social worlds of street gangs and "corner boys," Whyte was among the first to demonstrate that a poor community need not be socially disorganized. His writing set a standard for vivid portrayals of real people in real situations. And his frank discussion of his methodology—participant observation—has served as an essential casebook in field research for generations of students and scholars.

This fiftieth anniversary edition includes a new preface and revisions to the methodological appendix. In a new section on the book's legacy, Whyte responds to recent challenges to the validity, interpretation, and uses of his data. "The Whyte Impact on the Underdog," the moving statement by a gang leader who became the author's first research assistant, is preserved.

"Street Corner Society broke new ground and set a standard for field research in American cities that remains a source of intellectual challenge."—Robert Washington, Reviews in Anthropology

Product Details

• Paperback: 418 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (June 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226895459
• ISBN-13: 978-0226895451
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #44,128 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars ground breaking work, December 12, 2003

By 

Charles M. Brotton (Fort Smith, Arkansas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum (Paperback)

I read this book eight years ago on rainy Saturday--I was a student at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, and I decided to pass the afternoon in the Center's library. I picked this volume off the shelves because the title sounded interesting. At the time, I did not realize that this book is a classic in the field of social science.

When it was published in the 1940s, it was one of the very first attempts to apply the techniques of modern social research to an American subculture--in this case, to the inhabitants of a poor Italian neighborhood in a large, unspecified northeastern city (Boston). Up to that time, social scientists generally studied the U.S. society as a whole--while it was considered standard practice for Margaret Meade to journey to an island in the South Pacific to study the sexual mores of neolithic villagers, the prospect of Mr. Whyte going across town to concentrate his study on the social, educational, and vocational development of the sons and daughters of immigrants was revolutionary in the early 1940s. Whyte buried himself in the work, to the extent of moving in to an apartment in the neighborhood and learning to speak fluent Italian.

This book is a blueprint for how social research on a subculture should be done. If it, at times, seems plodding and stilted to twenty first century readers, that is because it represents a prototype for a sort of study that has been replicated and perfected through these past sixty years.

The book represents a look at a segment of American society, as it existed at a specific point in history (the tail end of the depression)--much of the society Whyte studied had already changed by the time the book saw print (by 1943, one must assume that most of the young men profiled in the study were in uniform), however that is true to some extent of all social research.