Closing Chapters
Urban Change, Religious Reform, and the Decline of Youngstown's Catholic Elementary Schools, 1960-2006
By (author) Thomas G. Welsh
Not available to order
Publication date:
16 December 2011Length of book:
340 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksISBN-13: 9780739165966
Closing Chapters attempts to explain the disintegration of urban parochial schools in Youngstown, Ohio, a onetime industrial center that lost all but one of its eighteen Catholic parochial elementary schools between 1960 and 2006. Through this examination of Youngstown, Welsh sheds light on a significant national phenomenon: the fragmentation of American Catholic identity.
Closing Chapters is far more than a history of Youngstown and its parish grade schools. This is a well-researched study of the complex forces behind urban change in the decades after 1960—the impact of deindustrialization, surbanization, changing attitudes about education, the divisions among American Catholics, the tensions in society between white and black residents, among classes and ethnic groups. Thoughtful, well-written, and often moving, this book makes a significant contribution.—JoEllen Vinyard, Eastern Michigan University