Class and Community

Book excerpt: In this twenty-fifth anniversary edition of his prize-winning book, Dawley reflects once more on labor and class issues, poverty and progress, and the contours of urban history in the city of Lynn, Massachusetts, during the rise of industrialism in the early nineteenth century. He not only revisits this urban conglomeration, but also seeks out previously unheard groups such as women and blacks. The result is a more rounded portrait of a small eastern city on the verge of becoming modern.