Although much has been written about elite Philadelphians, only in
recent decades have historians paid attention to the Jews and
working-class blacks, the immigrant Irish, Italians, and Poles who
settled in the city and gave such sections as Moyamensing, Southwark,
South Philadelphia, and Kensington their vitality. In this classic of
social and ethnic history, the authors draw on census schedules, court
records, city directories, and tax records as well as newspaper files
and other sources to give a picture of the ways in which these
less-privileged groups of Philadelphians lived. What emerges is a
picture of Philadelphia radically different from the conventional
portrait of a staid old city.