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Review
| Unlocking City Hall: Exploring the History of Local Government and Politics, by Michael W. Homel (Edited by David E. Kyvig and Myron A. Marty). Malabar, Fla.: Krieger Publishing Company, 2001. 182 pp. $18.50, paper.
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| Michael W. Homel is uniquely qualified to write this research guide to local government and politics, being a former city councilman and mayor of Ypsilanti, Michigan (1993–1995), a longtime history professor at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, and author of Down From Equality: Black Chicago and the Public Schools, 1920–1941 (University of Illinois Press, 1984). Homel knows that local issues can be emotional, highly charged, even violent. People fight over water (Los Angeles), trash incinerator and landfill sites and their subsequent pollution (Houston), mass transit fares (Atlanta), parks for the poor (Worcester, Massachusetts), housing, crime and police-community relations. Each chapter of the book opens with probing questions, and ends with suggested reading lists that cite both classic works and current need for research (e.g. on local fire fighting history). Homel reminds his readers that it is not the big events of history that make a community what it is but the individuals, interest groups, organizations, and unions that fight for local jobs, equality, better zoning, parks, trash pickup and water that identify a community. |
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The book's three main parts—"Opening the Door," "Examining Local Government," and "Exploring Local Politics"—each of which guide researchers not only to secondary source books, magazines, and government documents, but also to photos, engravings, paintings, and maps, as well as often overlooked primary source artifacts and personal possessions, first-hand accounts (a Galveston, Texas policeman's diary of the 1900 flood), newspaper accounts, oral histories (the career of New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia archived at Columbia University), interviews, and unpublished masters theses and doctoral dissertations. |
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Part One shows how questions determine research focus: will it be a narrative of the founding of a community, a chronology of an issue( better sewage in Milwaukee; a revitalized downtown in San Francisco), the study of an era (Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, the Depression, the civil rights struggle), a compare/contrast of people and times, or an analysis of how immigrants—Poles, Italians, and Hispanics—and inner city African-Americans, for instance, gained more influence in local government. Part Two examines hard evidence: where and why did powerful local business and political interests erect commercial buildings and residential houses, lay out and pave streets; supply basic services like street cleaning, lighting, sewage disposal, and trash hauling. Who paid for it and whom did it benefit, Homel asks. Homel's thesis is that the politics of dominant groups is seen in the racial and ethnic makeup of early police and fire departments, teamsters, city workers, and city council members. The book's ample photos reveal this, though many are dark from age and difficult copying |
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Part Three traces changes in political style from the time of big city party bosses like Jim and Tom Pendergast in Kansas City, Missouri; to reform mayors in Detroit, Toledo, New York, and Cleveland; and to city managers and engineers in Dayton, Ohio, discussing how and why each delivered services and a better life to constituents. Finally, a short ending section proves further that this is a research and reference guide. Homel explains how to write clearly, concisely, using note cards, outlines, laptops, and computers. Unlocking City Hall: Exploring the History of Local Government and Politics would be invaluable to high school social studies students first learning to do research and to ask questions, as well as to teachers' libraries and reference rooms. |
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University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
Bristol Community College |
H. B. Ussach |
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