| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 107.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 107.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Mary Lethert Wingerd. Claiming the City: Politics, Faith, and the Power of Place in St. Paul. (Cushwa Center Studies of Catholicism in Twentieth-Century America.) Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 2001. Pp. xiii, 326. $29.95.

Urban myths die hard. Most people understand that Chicago is no longer the hog butcher to the world and that Milwaukee is no longer a brewing capital. But it is a bit unsettling to hear that Minneapolis and St. Paul never were the "Twin Cities." Although joined by proximity, kinship, and economic ties, Mary Lethert Wingerd argues that these two metropolises of Minnesota are dramatically different in many ways. Wingerd sets out to explain the uniqueness of St. Paul. The result is a challenging and well-written urban history that draws religion and even "great men" into its narrative. 1

Wingerd argues convincingly that the two communities have distinct civic identities. Minneapolis is more Protestant, Republican, wealthy and antilabor than Catholic, Democratic, working-class, labor-friendly St. Paul. The two communities engaged in a spirited rivalry in the early years of the nineteenth century and St. Paul managed to hold its own for a time, but eventually it was compelled to give way to the more sharp-elbowed, profits-oriented business acumen of Minneapolis. Class, religion, and ethnic differences compounded the deteriorating relations between the two cities. Ultimately St. Paul and Minneapolis settled for a mutually agreed on isolation from one another. So disdainful did St. Paulites become of their neighbors across the river that even the strongly militant labor solidarity of the 1930s did not rouse union sympathies during the tense 1934 Minneapolis truckers' strike. St. Paul's labor establishment simply went its own way. . . .

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