Celebrating Independent Bookstore Day!

Posted on April 22, 2026 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, we honor the independent bookstores that support Temple University Press. Please visit them on April 25 for Independent Bookstore Day!

Celia Bookshop, 102 Park Avenue in Swarthmore, PA, will host Remission Quest author Virginia Adams O’Connell on Saturday, April 25 from 4:00 to 5:00 pm as part of their Independent Bookstore Day celebration.

Harriet’s Bookshop, 258 East Girard Avenue in Philadelphia, PA, celebrates women authors, women artists, and women activists. While you’re there, grab a copy of Lynn Matluck Brooks’ Theatres of the Body.

Inkwood Books, 108 Kings Highway East in Haddonfield, NJ, a charming indie bookstore specializing in regional nonfiction, contemporary literature, and romance. Pick up Ray Didinger’s The Eagles Encyclopedia: Champions II.

booked. 8511 Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia, PA. Surround yourself with books at this cozy store that promotes the joy of reading. Treat yourself to The Battles of Germantown, by David Young.

Headhouse Books, 619 South 2nd Street, in Philadelphia, PA, was founded in 2005 on the belief that no community is complete without the inspiration and exchange of ideas that only a locally owned, independent bookstore can provide. Shop there for Jim Murphy’s Real Philly History, Real Fast.

Wooden Shoe Books, 704 South Street in Philadelphia, PA, is an all-volunteer collectively run anarchist bookstore “functioning within a system we oppose.” Support the store by purchasing a copy of Kate Eichhorns’ The Archival Turn in Feminism.

Narberth Bookstore, 221 Haverford Avenue in Narberth, PA, is designed for a community of readers, writers, and lifelong learners. Check out a copy of A Century of Music Under the Stars, by Jack McCarthy at checkout.

Uncle Bobbie’s Coffee and Books, 5445 Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia, PA, offers Cool People, Dope Books, Great Coffee. Swing by to get Amy Jane Cohen’s Black History in the Philadelphia Landscape.

Main Point Books, 116 North Wayne Avenue in Wayne, PA, because every town deserves its own indie bookstore. Stop by and buy Anndee Hochman’s Parent Trip.

Open Bookstore, 7900 High School Road in Elkins Park, PA, is your friendly neighborhood indie bookstore in the Philly burbs. Drop in and order a copy of Monument Lab: Re:Generation, edited by Paul Farber and Sue Mobley.

The Doylestown Bookshop, 16 South Main Street in Doylestown, PA, is a locally owned and operated bookstore dedicated to preserving the heritage and traditions of independent bookstore ideals. Pick up Rebecca Yamin’s Digging in the City of Brotherly Love.

Giovanni’s Room, 345 South 12 Street in Philadelphia, PA, Philadelphia’s historic queer and LGBTQ+ bookstore. Shop titles and genres of LGBTQ+ online and in-store. Browse the shelves for a copy of The City of Sisterly and Brotherly Loves, by Marc Stein.

A Novel Idea on Passyunk, 1726 East Passyunk Avenue in Philadelphia, PA, fosters a better Philadelphia community with their small bookstore. Meet the staff and request a copy of Salut!, by Lynn Miller and Therese Dolan.

Filed under: african american studies, american studies, art, cultural studies, Education, gender studies, History, Labor Studies, law & criminology, LGBT studies, literature, Mass Media and Communications, Music, Philadelphia, political science, race and ethnicity, racism, sexuality, sociology, Urban Studies, women's studies | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Looking back on organized taxpayer activity in the 1930s

Posted on April 15, 2026 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, in honor of Tax Day, we repost this entry from Linda Upham-Bornstein, author of “Mr. Taxpayer versus Mr. Tax Spender”, about what she unexpectedly discovered about the taxpayers’ associations during the Great Depression.

“Mr. Taxpayer versus Mr. Tax Spender” is, at least in part, the product of serendipity. About 25 years ago, my husband and I were reorganizing the basement of his law office in New Hampshire when I happened upon a box containing bound copies of the Coos Guardian from 1934, of which Arthur J. Bergeron, the firm’s retired senior partner, was the editor. This weekly newspaper provided contemporaneous accounts of the efforts of Arthur and the newly formed local taxpayers’ association to effectuate economic and political change in the community, region, and state. This story spurred me to investigate whether this manifestation of organized taxpayer activity was unique to northern New Hampshire or part of a broader movement during the Great Depression. In the ensuing years I identified a plethora of rich, untapped primary sources that documented the emergence of a nationwide taxpayers’ association movement in the 1930s.

A number of my findings surprised me. Among the most prominent are the magnitude of the tax revolt and the speed with which taxpayers’ groups multiplied; the attitudes of organized taxpayers toward the size and reach of government; and the distinctive form of collective tax resistance that emerged in the Reconstruction South.

The proliferation of taxpayers’ leagues in the early 1930s was remarkable. In 1928, they probably numbered fifty or so. As the domestic economy contracted, a good government professional observed in 1932, “an irresistible demand that the cost of local government be reduced” swept “across the country like a prairie fire.” By 1933 there were over four thousand taxpayers’ organizations nationwide.

The attitudes of tax resisters toward the role and reach of government in general, and toward the New Deal in particular, were also unexpected. Because much of modern tax resistance is grounded in the world view, articulated by Ronald Reagan in his first inaugural address, that “government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem,” I anticipated that Depression-era tax revolters would exhibit intense antistatism. Although some organized taxpayers sought to shrink and shackle government, most did not want smaller, more limited government but rather government that was more efficient, more effective, more progressive, and able to provide necessary services in a cost-effective manner. Nearly all taxpayers wanted the price of government to undergo the same measure of deflation as the economy, but they also wanted to maintain the government services they needed and used. What most organized taxpayers desired was less expensive state and local government so as to reduce their state and local tax burdens.

The views of organized taxpayers toward the New Deal were a complicated and sometimes incongruous mix. The feelings of most members of taxpayers’ associations about the New Deal ranged from outright support to ambivalence. Two factors account for the overall lack of opposition to the New Deal from citizens who were protesting vigorously their state and local taxes.

First and foremost, New Deal programs were conferring direct, concrete benefits on many of these taxpayers, especially the housing, agricultural, and relief initiatives. Consequently, many members of taxpayers’ groups understandably welcomed—and some expected—the federal government’s intervention in the domestic economy. Even taxpayers with an individualistic, antistatist mindset tended to have mixed feelings about the New Deal, harboring suspicions of big government but recognizing their need for assistance from the Roosevelt administration and grudgingly accepting it.

Second, the New Deal tax regime did not produce significant tax awareness among or tax resistance from the middle classes because it eschewed taxing the income of the middle classes and instead relied mainly on taxes on the wealthy and corporations, on indirect or hidden consumer taxes, and on taxes (like social security payroll taxes) that taxpayers did not think of as taxes. By and large, taxpayers who participated in collective tax resistance at the local and state levels did not perceive New Deal spending to be adding to their tax burdens.

In my investigation of the 19th-century origins and antecedents of Depression-era taxpayers’ associations, I was struck by how different collective tax resistance in the Reconstruction South was from organized taxpayer activity elsewhere. Outside the former confederate states, the overarching goal of nearly all taxpayers’ associations in this era was to reduce taxes, though in many cases taxpayers also had a genuine interest in promoting the public’s interest in good and efficient government. In the Reconstruction South, however, tax resistance under the guise of good citizenship was merely the means to other, ulterior ends. Taxpayers in the South used collective tax resistance in an effort to weaken government authority, “redeem” state governments from Republican control, reestablish the institutions of white supremacy, and nullify in practice (if not as a matter of law) the post-Civil War amendments to the United States Constitution. Taxpayers’ groups in the South also diverged from those in the North in their methods, including extrajudicial violence, which was absent from tax protests outside the former Confederacy.

Finally, tax resistance in the South was untethered to the evolving notions of civic responsibility and good citizenship that broadly animated Northern tax resistance. Most taxpayers’ groups outside the South were interested in, and worked for, better and more efficient government. Southern taxpayers’ leagues wanted the opposite: government that was worse, small, and ineffectual. The Redeemers were highly successful in their quest for low taxes, low spending, and weak state governments after 1877. In Mississippi, for example, between 1875 and 1885, Democrats cut the state budget by more than half and slashed taxes. The connections between organized tax resistance in the South and the commitment to good citizenship, better government, and the rule of law that most Northern taxpayers’ organizations evidenced was attenuated at best and often absent altogether.

Historians strive to be objective, but they often approach the subjects of their research with certain preconceptions. My investigation of organized taxpayer activity in the 1930s reminded me of the importance of keeping an open mind, expecting to find the unexpected, and adapting one’s historical analysis accordingly.

Filed under: american studies, economics/business, ethics, History, Labor Studies, law & criminology, political science, sociology | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Play Ball!

Posted on April 8, 2026 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, we showcase our books about baseball to celebrate the start of the season.

Work, Fight, or Play Ball: How Bethlehem Steel Helped Baseball’s Stars Avoid World War I, by William Ecenbarger

In 1918, Bethlehem Steel started the world’s greatest industrial baseball league. Appealing to Major League Baseball players looking to avoid service in the Great War, teams employed “ringers” like Babe Ruth, Rogers Hornsby, and Shoeless Joe Jackson in what became scornfully known as “safe shelter” leagues. In Work, Fight, or Play Ball, William Ecenbarger fondly recounts this little-known story of how dozens of athletes faced professional conflicts and a difficult choice in light of public perceptions and war propaganda. Ecenbarger traces the 1918 Steel League’s season and compares the fates of the players who defected to industry or continued to play stateside with the travails of the Major Leaguers, such as Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb, and Grover Cleveland Alexander, who served during the war.

Dominican Baseball: New Pride, Old Prejudice by Alan Klein

Outstanding Book Award from the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport, 2015

In his incisive and engaging book, Dominican Baseball, Alan Klein examines the history of MLB’s presence and influence in the Dominican Republic, the development of the booming industry and academies, and the dependence on Dominican player developers, known as buscones. He also addresses issues of identity fraud and the use of performance-enhancing drugs as hopefuls seek to play professionally. Dominican Baseball charts the trajectory of the economic flows of this transnational exchange, and the pride Dominicans feel in their growing influence in the sport. Klein also uncovers the prejudice that prompts MLB to diminish Dominican claims on legitimacy. This sharp, smartly argued book deftly chronicles the uneasy and often contested relations of the contemporary Dominican game and industry.

Will Big League Baseball Survive?: Globalization, the End of Television, Youth Sports, and the Future of Major League Baseball by Lincoln A. Mitchell

Major League Baseball is a beloved American institution that has been a product of the economic, social, and media structures that have evolved in the United States over the last century. In his shrewd analysis, Will Big League Baseball Survive?, Lincoln Mitchell asks whether the sport will continue in its current form as a huge, lucrative global business that offers a monopoly in North America—and whether those structures are sustainable. Mitchell places baseball in the context of the larger, evolving American and global entertainment sector. He examines how both changes directly related to baseball—including youth sports and the increased globalization of the game—as well as broader societal trends such as developments in media consumption and celebrity culture will impact big league baseball over the next few decades.

Biz Mackey, a Giant behind the Plate: The Story of the Negro League Star and Hall of Fame Catcher, by Rich Westcott

National Baseball Hall of Fame catcher James Raleigh “Biz” Mackey’s professional career spanned nearly three decades in the Negro Leagues and elsewhere. He distinguished himself as a defensive catcher who also had an impressive batting average and later worked as a manager of the Newark Eagles and the Baltimore Elite Giants. Using archival materials and interviews with former Negro League players, baseball historian Rich Westcott chronicles the catcher’s life and remarkable career in Biz Mackey as well as providing an in-depth look at Philadelphia Negro League history. Mackey also mentored famed catcher Roy Campanella and had an unlikely role in the story of baseball’s development in Japan.

Suicide Squeeze: Taylor Hooton, Rob Garibaldi, and the Fight against Teenage Steroid Abuse, by William C. Kashatus

In his urgent book Suicide Squeeze, William Kashatus chronicles the experiences of Taylor Hooton and Rob Garibaldi, two promising high school baseball players who abused anabolic steroids (APEDs) in the hopes of attracting professional scouts and Division I recruiters. However, as a result of their steroid abuse, they ended up taking their own lives. In Suicide Squeeze—named for the high-risk play in baseball to steal home—Kashatus identifies the symptoms and dangers of steroid use among teens. Using archival research and interviews with the Hooton and Garibaldi families, he explores the lives and deaths of these two troubled young men, the impact of their suicides on Major League Baseball, and the ongoing fight against adolescent APED use that their parents have been waging. A passionate appeal to prevent additional senseless deaths by athletes, Suicide Squeeze makes an important contribution to debates on youth and sports and on public policy.

Rookies of the Year by Bob Bloss

Baseball players only have one opportunity to be named “Rookie of the Year” by the Baseball Writers Association of America. Although some recipients of this prestigious award such as Orlando Cepeda have become league MVPs, or Hall of Fame honorees, others, like Joe Charboneau, failed to live up to their initial promise. Rookies of the Year profiles 116 winners-from Jackie Robinson (the first Rookie of the Year in 1947), to Rod Carew, Derek Jeter, and the 2004 honorees. Each player’s initial major league season and subsequent career achievements are included. Featuring interviews with dozens of baseball stars, this is the most comprehensive book ever written on Rookies of the Year. It provides indispensable information on some of baseball’s greatest athletes.

The Whiz Kids and the 1950 Pennant, by Robin Roberts and C. Paul Rogers

The 1950 Phillies unexpectedly captured the hearts and imaginations of Philadelphians. A young upstart team—in fact, the youngest major league baseball team ever fielded—they capped a Cinderella season by winning the pennant from the heavily favored Brooklyn Dodgers in Ebbets Field on the last day of the season. It was the first National League pennant for the team since 1915. With that dramatic victory the 1950 Phillies went into the history books, known forever as the Whiz Kids. This inspiring era in Phillies history comes alive with the personal reflections of Robin Roberts, a Hall of Famer and arguably the best right-handed pitcher in Phillies history.  Rich with anecdotes never before published from players like Hall-of-Famer Richie Ashburn, Bubba Church, Andy Seminick, Curt Simmons, Del Ennis, Dick Sisler, Russ Meyer, and many others, this book relives the success of the Whiz Kids in all their glory.

Bill Giles and Baseball, by John B. Lord

Bill Giles oversaw one of the greatest eras of winning that the Philadelphia Phillies ever enjoyed and helped guide major league baseball through the most turbulent era in its history. In Bill Giles and Baseball, John Lord deftly chronicles Giles’ remarkable career—which includes 44 years with the Phillies—to provide an insider’s view of the business of the sport. He addresses the often controversial, sometimes ill-advised, moves by baseball’s hierarchy that have nonetheless propelled the game to unimagined economic growth.

The Phillies Reader Edited by Richard Orodenker

The Phillies Reader features essays on the athletic achievements of such legendary players as Chuck Klein, Richie Ashburn, Dick Allen, and Mike Schmidt; the political turmoil surrounding the “ok” from manager Ben Chapman to “ride” Jackie Robinson about the color of his skin; the bizarre shooting of Eddie Waitkus; the heroics of the Whiz Kids; the heartbreak of ’64; and the occasional triumphs and frequent travails of controversial managers Gene Mauch, Frank Lucchesi, and Danny Ozark. It asks why fans boo great players such as Del Ennis, but forgave Pat Burrell for his horrendous 2003 slump. Featuring essays by Red Smith, Pete Dexter, Roger Angell, and James Michener, among others, The Phillies Reader presents a compendium of Phillies literature that reveals what it is that makes legends.

Filed under: african american studies, american studies, cultural studies, economics/business, History, immigration, Labor Studies, Latin American studies, latinos, Philadelphia, race and ethnicity, racism, sociology, sports | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Books for understanding Iran and the Middle East

Posted on March 18, 2026 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, we showcase our books that offer context for the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran and responses throughout the region. All of our Middle East Studies titles are available here.

Disabling Relations: Wounded Bodyminds and Transnational Praxis, by Sona Kazemi, bears witness to disabled survivors of violence in Iran from war, incarceration, acid attacks, and torture.

How do we learn to defetishize disability in our everyday lives? In Disabling Relations, Sona Kazemi probes this and other questions that consider how processes and relations of patriarchy, imperialism, and religious fundamentalism, as well as class and ideology, rework the dialectics of disability in transnational contexts.

Read Sona Kazemi’s blog entry, Encountering Wounded Bodyminds

Proper Women: Feminism and the Politics of Respectability in Iran, by Fae Chubin provides an intersectional analysis of Iran’s feminist activism through an ethnographic study of an NGO-led women’s empowerment program.

Proper Women tells the unprecedented story of an NGO-led “women’s empowerment” program in Tehran that was created to serve young, impoverished Iranians and Afghan refugees. Fae Chubin recounts the well-intentioned efforts of cosmopolitan NGO administrators whose loyalty to liberal feminist principles of individualism, sexual autonomy, and anti-traditionalism complicated their objective of empowering marginalized women.

Read Fae Chubin’s blog entry, Complicating Female Empowerment in Iran

Contours of Israeli Politics: Jewish Ethnicity, Religious Nationalism, and Democracy, by Hannah M. Ridge, examines the effect of ethnic diversity and privilege within the Jewish Israeli population on public opinion and attitudes about identity and democracy.

There is no single Jewish ethnicity, and no single Jewish ethnic group constitutes a clear majority of Jewish Israelis. These intra-Jewish differences permit a social hierarchy within the “in-group” – Jewish Israelis – that privileges the Ashkenazi Jews of European descent over Mizrahi/Sephardi Jews of Middle Eastern backgrounds. The timely Contours of Israeli Politics focuses on the socio-political ramifications of this hierarchy within the upper stratum of Israeli society. 

Read Hannah Ridge’s blog entry, Examining Diversity and Privilege with the Jewish Israeli Population

Jewish Self-Determination beyond Zionism: Lessons from Hannah Arendt and Other Pariahs, by Jonathan Graubart, is a compelling diagnosis of the long-reigning pathologies and practices of Zionism and a prescription for reforming Jewish self-determination

Jewish Self-Determination beyond Zionism examines the liberal Zionist and Jewish anti-Zionist perspectives that developed in the decades following Israeli statehood. In his timely book, Jonathan Graubart, advances a non-statist vision of Jewish self-determination to be realized in a binational political arrangement that rejects Apartheid practices and features a just and collaborative coexistence of Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. The book’s vision advances a distinct Jewish self-determination committed to cultural enrichment and emancipation, internationalism, and the fostering of new political, social, and economic channels for attaining genuine reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.

Read Jonathan Graubart’s blog entry, Discovering a Liberating Vision of Jewish Self-Determination in an Age of Entrenched Apartheid and an interview with the author.

The Palestinian Idea: Film, Media, and the Radical Imagination, by Greg Burris, provides a window into the Palestinian freedom struggle, drawing on an analysis of Palestinian film and media.

Is there a link between the colonization of Palestinian lands and the enclosing of Palestinian minds? The Palestinian Idea argues that it is precisely through film and media that hope can occasionally emerge amidst hopelessness, emancipation amidst oppression, freedom amidst apartheid. Greg Burris employs the work of Edward W. Said, Jacques Rancière, and Cedric J. Robinson in order to locate Palestinian utopia in the heart of the Zionist present.

Read Greg Burris’ blog entry, Applying Black Radical Thought in Palestinian Film and Media.

Disruptive Situations: Fractal Orientalism and Queer Strategies in Beirut, by Ghassan Moussawi, provides the first comprehensive study to employ the lens of queer lives in the Arab World to understand everyday life disruptions, conflicts, and violence.

Disruptive Situations challenges representations of contemporary Beirut as an exceptional space for LGBTQ people by highlighting everyday life in a city where violence is the norm. Ghassan Moussawi, a Beirut native, seeks to uncover the underlying processes of what he calls “fractal orientalism,” a relational understanding of modernity and cosmopolitanism that illustrates how transnational discourses of national and sexual exceptionalism operate on multiple scales in the Arab world.

Read Ghassan Moussawi’s blog entry, Living Amidst Constant Disruptions that Keep Taking on New Forms.

Israel’s Dead Soul, by Steven Salaita, explains how Zionism became an exceptional ideology in the eyes of the West.

Israel’s Dead Soul explores the failures of Zionism as a political and ethical discourse. Steven Salaita argues that endowing nation-states with souls is a dangerous phenomenon because it privileges institutions and corporations rather than human beings.

Read Steven Salaita’s blog entry, The Unmaking of Israel’s Soul and the Making of Israel’s Dead Soul.

Filed under: american studies, cultural studies, Disability Studies, ethics, gender studies, health, History, immigration, Jewish, Labor Studies, LGBT studies, literature, Mass Media and Communications, philosophy, political science, race and ethnicity, racism, Religion, sexuality, sociology, transnational politics, Urban Studies, women's studies | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Inside the UAW’s Uphill Battle to Organize Southern Auto Plants

Posted on February 19, 2026 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, Abe Walker, author of Reassembling the UAW, writes about the Volkswagen workers’ vote on tenative contract agreement.

After over 500 days of tense negotiations, workers at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga Assembly Plant are voting this week on a proposed contract agreement. Results are expected by tonight. If ratified, the deal would be the United Auto Workers’ first contract at a major foreign-owned automotive plant. My new book, Reassembling the UAW: Insurgency, Contention, and the Struggle for Unionism in the American South, chronicles the decade-long, hard-fought organizing campaign that led to this moment and offers a tentative prognosis for the future. 

For as long as most autoworkers can remember, the story of the UAW has been one of managed decline. As deindustrialization and economic restructuring eroded its Midwestern base, it struggled to make inroads at the new crop of European and Japanese “transplants” that dotted the I-75 corridor south of Ohio. Politicians were eager to sell the South as a low-wage haven for foreign investment and fought back savagely against anyone who dared to challenge their business model, pushing the lie that Southern culture is uniquely hostile to unions. They portrayed the UAW as a job killer that would drive away industry and turn Southern boomtowns into post-industrial wastelands. Meanwhile, the union settled into a pattern of concessionary contracts that did little to attract prospective members.

But in April 2024, the UAW broke its losing streak when workers at a VW plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee voted overwhelmingly to authorize the UAW as their exclusive bargaining agent. As my book explains, the pivotal factor was the resurgence of rank-and-file militancy. Following a corruption scandal that engulfed the union’s top leadership and led to the imprisonment of two former presidents, workers ousted the old guard and installed a slate of reformers. The new leaders struck a combative tone and committed to reversing decades of givebacks. As importantly, the reform caucus resolved to maintain its independence to keep its new leaders honest.  Within months, the newly emboldened organization had gone on strike against Detroit’s Big Three auto companies. The resulting contract included historic gains that demonstrated the power of collective action, injected the membership with new energy, and rebuilt the union’s image on a national stage.

Another contributing factor was the transition to electric vehicles. In previous decades, the threat of capital flight was the ultimate weapon in employers’ arsenal.  Politicians could credibly argue that companies would move production if the union won. By 2024, this threat had been neutralized, as VW had already invested billions in retrofitting the Chattanooga plant to produce the ID.4 SUV. Together with the Biden administration’s incentive programs, this massive investment in fixed capital effectively anchored the company in place.

Building on momentum from the Big Three strike and buffeted by external market forces, VW workers entered contract negotiations in 2024 with high expectations. If the union’s boldest proclamations were to be believed, after bringing VW to parity with the Big Three, it would parlay its victory across other transplants and take wages out of competition. 

But even as the union set its sights on bigger prizes, the tide had already begun to shift. Within weeks of the win at VW, the union was dealt a stinging loss at a Mercedes plant in Alabama. The rank-and-file caucus that helped elect the UAW’s reform slate collapsed amidst infighting, and the Trump administration turned aggressively against electric vehicles.

Back in Chattanooga, VW dug in its heels, and negotiations stalled out. History shows that winning an election is only half the battle; employers often use the negotiation phase to delay, demoralize, and eventually decertify the union. In the intervening years, not only did the UAW fail to organize additional transplants, but it couldn’t even plant its flag at Ford’s own BlueOval. 

My book went to production at the end of 2024, and it reflects a certain optimism that has since dissipated. As I note in the Conclusion, the VW victory was highly contingent and dependent on an unlikely confluence of factors. Powerful interests are deeply invested in maintaining the regional wage differential that has long characterized the American auto industry. As the Mercedes defeat and the ongoing contract fight at VW demonstrate, the forces of capital—and the political machinery of the South—remain formidable adversaries. Their entire economic development model is built on the promise of cheap labor. Dismantling that system will be a long fight, and nobody had any illusions that it would disintegrate after a single victory. 

The proposed contract is a mixed bag. It doesn’t achieve full wage parity, contains loose language on plant closure, and lacks strong healthcare provisions. Perhaps the greatest disappointment is that the UAW was unable to align the expiration date with the Big Three, whose contracts are set to expire on May 1, 2028.  Grouping VW with the other manufacturers would have had both practical value and symbolic meaning.

For now, the UAW’s future in the South remains indeterminate. It has successfully established a beachhead, but the win at VW looks increasingly like a one-off fluke. It remains to be seen whether the UAW can revive the energy and enthusiasm it enjoyed two years ago, or if it will revert to bureaucratic stasis.  

No matter what the future holds, the UAW has already demonstrated that Southern workers’ supposed aversion to organized labor has nothing to do with culture and everything to do with a lack of exposure to a fighting union.  Any serious student of history will reach the same conclusion. Textile workers in the Carolina Piedmont pioneered the flying pickets that the UAW would later make famous.  Indeed, as recently as 1950, Chattanooga had a unionization rate that rivaled Boston’s. Unions are as native to East Tennessee as moonshine. But ultimately, “reassembling the UAW” is not about dredging up the past or restoring a forgotten mid-century form, but creating a new entity capable of navigating the complexities of the 21st-century global economy. If there is a lesson to be gleaned from history, it is that the UAW can only achieve what was previously deemed impossible by reinventing itself on the fly

Filed under: american studies, economics/business, History, Labor Studies, sociology, Urban Studies | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Listen Up! Temple University Press Podcast, Episode 16: The Fast Track with Jane McManus

Posted on February 4, 2026 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, we debut a new podcast featuring Jane McManus, author of The Fast Track: Inside the Surging Business of Women’s Sports.

The Fast Track: Inside the Surging Business of Women’s Sports, by Jane McManus

Listen to this podcast HERE

In her book, The Fast Track, which recently was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title, Jane McManus examines the forces that have held women’s sports back since the early 1970s, and highlights the upward trend illustrated by the fervor for Caitlin Clark during the 2024 NCAA Women’s Basketball championship. McManus also chronicles how pioneering sponsorships, broadcast opportunities, and surges in ratings contradict the myths about disinterest in women’s sports, countering the resistance toward women’s leagues. The Fast Track also reveals how women are covered in the media and addresses racial inclusivity, transgender athletes, women’s health issues, and equal pay, among many other topics.

Filed under: american studies, economics/business, gender studies, History, Labor Studies, LGBT studies, Mass Media and Communications, sociology, sports | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Announcing Temple University Press’ Spring/Summer 2026 Catalog

Posted on January 21, 2026 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, we present our exciting list of titles from our Spring/Summer 2026 Catalog

To read the full catalog online, please click here.

Declaration House, edited by Anna Arabindan-Kesson, Paul M. Farber, and Yolanda Wisher
Expanding our ideas and notions about who is counted among our American founders

Native Americans and Pennsylvania: Revised and Expanded Edition, by Daniel K. Richter
An up-to-date survey of regional Indigenous history from earliest times to the present

The Mighty WMMR: An Oral History of Philadelphia’s Rock Radio Revolution, by Erin Riley
An insider’s behind-the-scenes look at how WMMR grew to rule Philadelphia’s rock radio world in the 1970s and 1980s

Elected American: From Red China to Blue Maryland, by Lily Qi
An immigrant’s journey from Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution to the Maryland State House

Torn from the Root: A Memoir of a Black Transracial Adoptee, Rhonda M. Roorda
A powerful journey of identity and belonging

Brooklyn Odyssey: My Journey out of Hasidism, by Zalman Newfield
An affecting memoir about moving away from a tight-knit Orthodox Jewish community

Your Own Will Leave You: My Mother’s Dementia, by Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee
An intense—and intensely moving—account of the impact of his mother’s dementia on the author’s life

Stories of Raising Boys: Masculinity, Disability, Gender Expansiveness, and Anxiety, by Julie-Ann Scott-Pollock
Exploring the complexity and cultural intersections of parenting and masculinity

Not Going Back: Public Opinion on Abortion in Post-Dobbs America, by Laurel Elder, Steven Greene, and Mary-Kate Lizotte
How American opinion on abortion has undergone a profound shift following the Dobbs decision

The Power We Need Right Now: Black Sororities and Black Radical Movements of the 1970s, by Aisha A. Upton Azzam
Examines diverging Black sorority responses to activism in the post-civil rights era

Searching for Democracy: Women, Domestic Work, and Social Reproduction in Latin America, by Leda M. Pérez
How fully enfranchising women in the lowest tiers of employment can help close the equality gap in Latin America

How Women Win Presidential Elections in Latin America, by Catherine Reyes-Housholder
Explaining the paths women must take—and the barriers they face—to become President

Diseases Have No Eyes: Valley Fever and Environmental Health Justice, by Sarah M. Rios
Explores how marginalized communities organized to combat a public health crisis

Tautua: Service and Disability Activism in Sāmoa, by Juliann Anesi
A feminist ethnography that explores how women established two schools for students living with disabilities in 1970s Oceania

Asian Ameritopias: Asian American Speculative Fictions, by Stephen Hong Sohn
Analyzing themes of social justice for Asian Americans in a literary supergenre

The Heartland of U.S. Empire: Race, Region, and the Queer Filipinx Midwest, by Thomas Xavier Sarmiento
Queers the conventional understandings of region, nation, diaspora, and empire by analyzing literary and visual cultural representations of Filipinxs in the Midwest

Activism, Majority Rule, and Local Democracy: Rethinking Public Influence, Brian E. Adams
Is more local activism a solution to our political ills?

Women and Regulation: Challenging the Status Quo, edited by Sara R. Rinfret and Michelle C. Pautz
What is it like to be a woman in a regulatory environment?

Between Belonging and Exclusion: The Intersections of Integration and Anti-Discrimination Politics, by Lara-Zuzan Golesorkhi
Highlights the lived experiences of refugee women in the German labor market

Governing Genealogies of International Film Education, edited by Hadi Gharabaghi and Terri Ginsberg
A multifaceted forat into the complexities and contradictions of educational cinema and cinema education

Action = Vie: A History of AIDS Activism and Gay Politics in France, by Christophe Broqua with a Foreword by David M. Halperin
Chronicling the history and accomplishments of Act Up-Paris

Filed under: african american studies, american studies, Anthropology, art, asian american studies, Asian Studies, civil rights, cultural studies, Disability Studies, drama, economics/business, Education, environment, ethics, gender studies, health, History, immigration, Jewish, Labor Studies, Latin American studies, latinos, law & criminology, LGBT studies, literature, Mass Media and Communications, Music, Philadelphia, philosophy, photography, political science, race and ethnicity, racism, Religion, sexuality, sociology, transnational politics, Urban Studies, women's studies | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

400 Years of Salem, MA History

Posted on January 14, 2026 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Note, Donna Seger and Brad Austin, coeditors of Salem’s Centuries, write about the history of a city that should be known for much more than just witches.

If one looks only at the vast number of academic studies of its history, Salem is surely one of the most scrutinized of all American cities, especially among those in the “small city” categories.  Over the last century, scholars have published hundreds of books on Salem’s history, and the number of journal articles dwarfs the monograph total.  If one prefers metrics related to tourism (Salem’s attractions and museums host more than 1,000,000 visitors a year) then it is easy to conclude that the last thing the world needs is another examination of the city’s past. What else is there to be said and shown, right?

Quite a lot, as it turns out.  Those truly impressive numbers of publications and visitors conceal as much as they reveal. The overwhelming majority of the publications focus on Salem’s role as the host of the 1692 Essex County Witch Trials or the maritime history of the city’s “Golden Age of Sail.” Most of those million visitors come to see sites associated (sometimes very loosely) with the accused witches or that feature some Halloween connection.

Our experience working as historians in Salem convinced us that there was a need for a close look at Salem’s history outside the 18 months of the witch trials and the couple of decades of Salem’s maritime dominance.  The fact that Salem’s quadricentennial was looming in 2026 inspired us to  fill that void.

Salem’s Centuries: New Perspectives on the History of an Old American City builds on the much smaller, but still substantial, scholarship on Salem’s history outside of the usual foci, and  elevates  the fascinating ways that Salem has both shaped and reflected the contours of American history for four centuries. While the book includes discussions of the accused witches, it considers the witch trials from a variety of new perspectives. The relevant chapters focus not on the trials themselves but on scholars’ recent confirmation of the long-lost execution site and on oral histories passed down through descendants’ families.  A separate chapter explores why so many tourists participate in Salem’s “ghost tours,” taking their interest and engagement seriously. 

Most of the book, though, explores fascinating topics unrelated to maritime or macabre history.  Readers will find explanations of the complicated and exploitative processes colonists used to secure land deeds from Native American nations, Salem’s extensive and troubling relationship with slavery, the role of a Salem preacher in the killing of an English king, and the city’s centrality to the American Revolution and the Civil War. Other chapters introduce Salem as the antebellum home of significant Black entrepreneurs as well as mobs looking to attack abolitionists.

Readers will learn about how Salem has experienced a host of economic and demographic changes. They’ll see how the “new immigrants” of the late  nineteenth and early  twentieth centuries led to the establishment of more than a dozen Catholic parishes in a former Puritan stronghold andhow Salem’s national leadership of the colonial revival movement was, in part, a reaction to those new Salemites.  Chapters explore how Salem survived World War II and the turmoil of the 1960s and document  labor strife and the contributions of more recent migrants from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.  

As colleagues who share an enthusiasm for connecting local history to national and global narratives, we have found studying history in Salem to be endlessly fascinating. We fervently hope that Salem’s Centuries helps readers understand why we remain captivated by this city’s compelling history four hundred years after its founding.

Filed under: african american studies, american studies, civil rights, cultural studies, economics/business, Education, History, immigration, Labor Studies, Latin American studies, Mass Media and Communications, political science, race and ethnicity, racism, Religion, sociology, Urban Studies | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Temple University Press’ Annual Holiday Give and Get

Posted on December 17, 2025 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, the staff at Temple University Press close out 2025 by suggesting the Temple University Press books they would give along with some non-Temple University Press titles they hope to receive and read this holiday season. 

Mary Rose Muccie, Director

Give: John Shjarback’s Chasing Change in Camden: Police Reform in One of America’s Most Violent Cities to my friend Stephanie, who recently retired after decades working in the Camden County Police Department. She was instrumental in managing Camden’s transition from city to county policing. 

Get: I’d love to receive two books that appeared on several “Best of 2025” lists: What We Can Know, by Ian McEwan, and A Marriage at Sea, by Sophie Elmhirst. The first intrigues me—a scholar in a post-apocalyptic future searching for a lost poem from what he sees as the halcyon days of the mid 2010s—and the second sounds like exactly the kind of narrative nonfiction that sucks me in.

Karen Baker, Associate Director, Financial Manager

Give: Brandon Graham’s BG’s ABCs: Tackling Football and Life. I have 2 grandsons under the age of 4 who would love this book.

Get: Gordon Ramsay Quick and Delicious. I need new recipe ideas that won’t take forever to make.

Aaron Javsicas, Editor-in-Chief

Give: One thing many people like to do in December is dream of their favorite warm weather activities. For Philadelphians, outdoor music has to be near the top of the list. Jack McCarthy’s A Century of Music Under the Stars: A History of the Mann Center for the Performing Arts and Robin Hood Dell is a beautifully produced and illustrated, highly giftable book, ideal for everyone on your list who loves music, the outdoors, and our great city.

Get: How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World, by Deb Chachra. Does infrastructure actually still work? I hope so. As the book’s marketing copy notes, many of these engineering marvels “would have been unimaginable a century ago.” Now, however, it seems we take infrastructure for granted to such an extent that we often don’t bother to think about it at all. 

Ryan Mulligan, Senior Editor

Give: Jane McManus’ The Fast Track: Inside the Surging Business of Women’s Sports. This book takes readers inside the leagues and broadcasters to show how women’s sports is finally getting a chance to find its huge audiences and, more tellingly, what’s been holding it back to this point.

Get: Dennard Dale’s How to Dodge a Cannonball, A satirical historical novel about the American dream sounds up my alley.

Shaun Vigil, Editor

Give: This season, I’ll certainly find myself wrapping copies of Averill Earls’s Love in the Lav: A Social Biography of Same-Sex Desire in Ireland, 1922–1972. In it, Dr. Earls blends thoughtful research with social biography to tell a compelling, narratively rich series of stories that truly bridges the gap between rigorous scholarship and an engaging, accessible style representative of the absolute best in public history.

Get: As has been chronicled in this very blog, I’m a lifelong metalhead and avid reader of musician memoirs. Given this year’s passing of the Prince of Darkness himself, Ozzy Osbourne, I’m hoping to receive his final volume, Last Rites.

Stephen Bassett Gluckman, Editorial Assistant and Rights and Contracts Coordinator

Give: Worlds at the End: Los Angeles, Infrastructure, and the Apocalyptic Imagination, by Pacharee Sudhinaraset, is a fascinating, if unsettling, book that revises how we see infrastructure’s hand in underpinning colonial life. Reading apocalypse and “end times” through Indigenous, Black, Asian American, and Latinx literatures, Sudhinaraset challenges the reader’s understanding of both cities and catastrophe and the role of material foundations in the shaping and maintenance of power.

Get: As I am on a post-dissertation John Le Carré kick, I would like to receive Willem Frederik Hermans’s The Darkroom of Damocles, which he may or may not have ripped off when he wrote The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.

Steven Fino, Graduate Editorial Assistant 

Give: In my continued effort to get all of my friends and family to care about my dissertation, I would give “Beyond the Law”: The Politics of Ending the Death Penalty for Sodomy in Britain, by Charles Upchurch. The book is about the law well before the period in which I am primarily working, but it provides an important context to the issues of criminality that I am talking about.

Get: I hope to receive Open, Heaven, by Seán Hewitt, which touches on a number of the themes I am constantly returning to in literature, and is influenced by one of my favorites, Maurice by EM Forster. 

Ashley Petrucci, Senior Production Editor
Give: Even though I’ve given some of the Eagles fans in my life The Eagles Encyclopedia: Champions Edition, I think I’ll have to supplement that with the new Champions II edition that just came out this year! There’s so much new information in this edition, such as many new profiles, stories, photos, and the chapter on the most recent Super Bowl, that it could be its own standalone book, so I don’t think they’ll mind an “Eagles round two,” so to speak!

Get: This year I’m pivoting and going more visual—I have the Fullmetal Alchemist manga boxset on my Christmas wishlist. I don’t think it’s going to happen for me, but a girl can dream!

Faith Ryan, Production Assistant

Give: I would give Amy Jane Cohen’s Black History in the Philadelphia Landscape:Deep Roots, Continuing Legacy. I read it earlier this year and I really appreciated how Cohen gave just as much space to the stories of lesser-known Philadelphians as to those who went on to become nationally famous figures. There’s so much to learn here, even if you’ve lived in Philadelphia for years. By the time I finished the book, I ended up with a long list of people I’d like to read more about!

Get: I would love to get Women Changing Cities: Global Stories of Urban Transformationby Melissa and Chris Bruntlett. I love reading books about city planning, especially when they focus on the ways we can improve our cities for everyone, and I’m intrigued by how this book is bringing women’s efforts to the forefront as it explores cities all over the world.

Irene Imperio, Senior Manager, Advertising and Promotions

Give: Forgotten Philadelphia: Lost Architecture of the Quaker City, by Thomas H. Keels. As we celebrate the country’s 250th anniversary, what a great reminder of our city’s beginnings! 

Get: The next installment of Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series: The Impossible Fortune.

Gary Kramer, Assistant Director, Sales and Publicity

Give: As a cinephile, I will be gifting Reel Freedom: Black Film Culture in Early Twentieth-Century New York City, by Alyssa Lopez. Not only does this book spotlight the fascinating, underknown history of African American film culture in early 20th century New York, it also won a Choice Outstanding Academic Title this year. (So proud of Alyssa!)

Get: The Silver Book: A Novel, by Olivia Laing. After an author asked me to secure an endorsement for his book from Laing (who graciously declined) I found out why: she is busy promoting her new book, a queer romantic thriller that unfolds against the backdrop of Cinecittà. I can’t wait to read it. However, I might have to. I become quite obsessed with the series Heated Rivalry. Having already read four of the books in the series a few years back, I can see I will spend my holiday reading the two volumes I missed: Heated Rivalry and Game Changer.

Filed under: african american studies, american studies, civil rights, cultural studies, Education, environment, ethics, gender studies, health, History, Jewish, Labor Studies, law & criminology, LGBT studies, literature, Mass Media and Communications, Music, Philadelphia, political science, race and ethnicity, racism, sexuality, sociology, sports, Urban Studies, women's studies | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Where democracy and capitalism coexist

Posted on December 3, 2025 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, Peter Burns, coauthor of Disneyland Politics, writes about what the theme park means to him.

April 1977
My parents, my sister, and I were on the monorail to the Contemporary Resort hotel at Walt Disney World. We turned the corner and there it was: Space Mountain.
I started to shake, then jump.
Space Mountain! Space Mountain! Space Mountain!
I turned to my mother: “Can we go on Space Mountain now? PLLLLEEEEAAASE.”
Mom: “It’s closed.* It’ll be open tomorrow.”
*It wasn’t closed.
The bad news is that it was open the next day and when I rode it, I thought I was going to die. My father, positioned behind me, couldn’t stop laughing. I have a distinct memory of seeing the two of us in a mirror before the ride took off – someone was having the time of his life and someone wasn’t.
Despite Space Mountain — or perhaps because of it — I was hooked on Disney parks after those few precious days at Walt Disney World.
The music, the rides, the food, the Welch’s grape juice, the birthday parties for Donald Duck, and meeting the characters all produced a special feeling in me. It’s a feeling that I experience every time I step into a Disney park.


Fast forward to 2015, when I saw an opening for a job at Soka University of America in Aliso Viejo, California. “How far is that from Disneyland? Twenty-one miles? Sign me up.”
I went to Disneyland five to seven days a week when I first got to Soka. Twenty miles is far in Southern California, but it was worth it.
Every time I walk into Disneyland, I have the feeling I did when I was seven. That’s probably why I go.
I got on every Disney fan board I could and in the spring of 2016, I saw that, despite the skyway having been closed in late 1994, Disney fans were unhappy that the Skyway Station in Fantasyland was about to be demolished.
The fans knew about the demolition because Disney needed the city’s approval to knock down the building.
Ah!
Disney needs the city.
Disneyland politics.
What else does Disney need?
How does the city treat Disney? Does the corporate giant get whatever it wants?
A book was born.
Throughout the pages of this book, you will see how many of the everyday features of Disneyland are testaments to politics and political struggles waged over more than 70 years.
It allows readers to see many things inside and outside of Disneyland and understand the political stories behind them. Examples of Disneyland politics include the following:

• The Mickey and Friends parking structure
• The McDonald’s and Denny’s on S. Harbor Boulevard in Anaheim
• The bus stops on S. Harbor Boulevard
• The Westin and J.W. Marriott hotels
• The Convention Center
• S. Haster Street and Katella Avenue
• The Big A, aka Anaheim Stadium
• The ARTIC – Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center
• The area immediately around Disneyland
• The views from the parks
• The Villas at Disneyland hotel
• The entrance to the Disneyland Resort area off S. Harbor
• The Toy Story parking lot
• The Adventureland sign… and many more

Enjoy these stories, which tell a tale of how democracy and capitalism co-exist in what’s known as the Happiest Place on Earth.

Filed under: american studies, cultural studies, economics/business, environment, ethics, History, Labor Studies, Mass Media and Communications, political science, sociology, Urban Studies | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

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