Smoketown : the untold story of the other great Black Renaissance

Resource Information

The work Smoketown : the untold story of the other great Black Renaissance represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Manchester City Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Smoketown : the untold story of the other great Black Renaissance

Title remainder

the untold story of the other great Black Renaissance

Statement of responsibility

Mark Whitaker

Title variation

• Untold story of the other great Black Renaissance
• Smoke town

Creator

• Whitaker, Mark

Author

• Whitaker, Mark

Subject

• African Americans -- Intellectual life -- 20th century
• African Americans -- Pennsylvania | Pittsburgh -- History
• African Americans -- Pennsylvania | Pittsburgh -- Intellectual life
• African Americans -- Pennsylvania | Pittsburgh -- Social conditions -- 20th century
• 1900-1999
• Jazz musicians -- Pennsylvania | Pittsburgh
• Pittsburgh (Pa.) -- Civilization
• Pittsburgh (Pa.) -- Intellectual life -- 20th century
• History
• African American athletes -- Pennsylvania | Pittsburgh

Genre

• History

Language

eng

Summary

"The other great Renaissance of black culture, influence, and glamour burst forth joyfully in what may seem an unlikely place--Pittsburgh, PA--from the 1920s through the 1950s. Today black Pittsburgh is known as the setting for August Wilson's famed plays about noble but doomed working-class strivers. But this community once had an impact on American history that rivaled the far larger black worlds of Harlem and Chicago. It published the most widely read black newspaper in the country, urging black voters to switch from the Republican to the Democratic Party and then rallying black support for World War II. It fielded two of the greatest baseball teams of the Negro Leagues and introduced Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers. Pittsburgh was the childhood home of jazz pioneers Billy Strayhorn, Billy Eckstine, Earl Hines, Mary Lou Williams, and Erroll Garner; Hall of Fame slugger Josh Gibson--and August Wilson himself. Some of the most glittering figures of the era were changed forever by the time they spent in the city, from Joe Louis and Satchel Paige to Duke Ellington and Lena Horne. Mark Whitaker's Smoketown is a captivating portrait of this unsung community and a vital addition to the story of black America. It depicts how ambitious Southern migrants were drawn to a steel-making city on a strategic river junction; how they were shaped by its schools and a spirit of commerce with roots in the Gilded Age; and how their world was eventually destroyed by industrial decline and urban renewal. Whitaker takes readers on a rousing, revelatory journey--and offers a timely reminder that Black History is not all bleak." -- Amazon.com

Biography type

contains biographical information

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

305.896/073074886

Illustrations

• illustrations
• maps
• plates

Index

index present

LC call number

F159.P69

LC item number

N487 2018

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography