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Book

Gotham at war : a history of New York City from 1933 to 1945

Call Number

  • 974.71 W192 (CEN, OSH)

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Publication Information

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2025]

Physical Description

xi, 958 pages ; illustrations (some color), portraits ; 27 cm

Summary

"Gotham at War unveils the history of New York and the Second World War, from isolationism and factionalism to crucible of the American effort and the Allied Cause in a total and global war. Kaleidoscopic and immersive, Gotham at War captures the full spectrum of New York and the war from every possible aspect-social, political, economic, and military. Even before the war had started street battles between New York's homegrown fascists and the workers' movement-allied with immigrants from all over the world and their children in the barrios of Gotham-played prelude. Set in the generation after race "scientists" based in the elite warrens of the Upper East Side championed and then imposed national immigration restriction, Gotham at War sees New Yorkers struggle to shake off the city's eugenic past. Between 1933 and 1945, the city wrestled with itself, starting from the rise of Hitler through isolationism and growing interventionism; through Pearl Harbor and a full-throated war effort, when millions of American soldiers and sailors and billions of tons of material passed through New York's waterfronts to the warfronts. Along the way Mike Wallace's saga traces the transformation of New York, embracing garment workers and skyscrapers; the subway and Wall Street; gangsters and idealists; pols and reformers; nightclubs and boardrooms; Nazi infiltrators and FBI gumshoes; magazines and movies; shuls and cathedrals; every neighborhood, every industry, and all the peoples of the city swept up in a world that had caught fire." (from the publisher)

Notes

"The final volume of the Gotham series" --Half-title page.

Contents

  • Nazis and New York
  • Italians
  • The Irish
  • Asian New York
  • In uno plures
  • Study war no more
  • Fighting liberals
  • Wall Street warriors
  • Gotham girds for war
  • Under the gun
  • War port
  • Science in the city
  • Selling the war
  • Home front
  • Blacks
  • Holocaust
  • Jews and Blacks
  • On the town
  • Planning the postwar city
  • Planning the postwar nation
  • Planning the postwar world.
  • Nazis and New York ; Boycott ; Brain Drain ; Nazis in New York ; A Fifth Column? ; Kristallnacht ; Émigrés Arrive: Manhattan ; Émigrés Arrive: Williamsburg ; Aliens and Enemies
  • Italians ; Duce! Duce! ; Italian Anti-Fascists ; Hands off Ethiopia! ; Ambling Alp v. Brown Bomber ; "The Eagles of Rome Have Devoured the Lion of Judah" ; Italians and Jews: 1938-1941 ; Louis v. Schmeling
  • The Irish ; The Waning of the Green ; Catholic New York ; A Church Besieged ; War in Spain ; ¡Viva La Quince Brigada! ; Greens and Reds: The Transport Workers Union ; Catholics v. "Communists" ; The Christian Front ; Enter Spellman ; Spellman Takes Command ; The Cross and the Flag ; Polonia
  • Asian New York ; Japanese New York ; Chinese Gotham
  • In uno plures ; Pluralists ; Culture Warrior ; Building Brotherhood ; Fêteing the Folks ; Teaching Tolerance ; Americans All ; Immigrants All ; Balladeers for Brotherhood ; Common Ground
  • Study war no more ; The Renunciator ; Antiwarriors ; Against War and Fascism ; Peace Crusade ; Unpopular Fronts ; Spanish New Yorkers ; Partisan Views ; Anti-totalitarianism ; Unpopular Front ; Red Scare Lite ; Spies ; The Yanks Are Not Coming?
  • Fighting liberals ; FDR: Common Defense and General Welfare ; Moral Rearmament ; Muscular Democracy ; Playwrights and Poets ; Reality Radio ; Mars Invades New York ; Winchell Calling to All Ships at Sea ; Stern's Post, Dolly's Daily ; PM ; Brands from the Burning
  • Wall Street warriors ; Let's Make a Deal ; Change Agent ; The Veriest Roman ; Bankers Balked ; Council Counsel ; Anglophiliacs ; Intrepid ; Aid the Allies! ; Fifth Columnist ; Fighting Liberals v. Wall Street Warriors ; We Want Willkie! ; War Hawks at Work ; Martin, Barton, and Fish ; Arsenal of Democracy ; America First ; Second Platoon ; 007 and the Stork Club Detective ; Down South America Way ; You Go to War with the Capitalists You've Got
  • Gotham girds for war ; Cash and Carry ; Black Power ; Illiberal Liberals ; Battle of the Atlantic ; Civilian Defender ; La Guardia Third Term? ; Pearl Harbor
  • Under the gun ; Turkey Shoot ; Sabotage? ; The Mob and the Military ; Sabotage! ; Aliens ; Dissenters ; "As Dark as Hitler's Heart" ; Convoys ; "New York at War"
  • War port ; Anchors Aweigh ; Smaller War Plants
  • Science in the city ; R&D: Radar ; R&D: Manhattan Project ; The Anthropology of New York City
  • Selling the war ; "Any Bonds Today?" ; "What This War Is All About" ; Clashing Visions of Victory ; Writers on Demand ; War Songs ; "Smashing Thru, Captain America Came Face to Face with Hitler..."
  • Home front ; Women at Work ; Rosie and Charlie ; "Wenches with Wrenches" ; Bad Moms ; Controlling Consumption ; Controlling Rents
  • Blacks ; A White Folks' War? ; "Checkerboarding" Worksites ; Penned In and Pissed Off ; GI Jim Crow ; Satyagraha in Madison Square Garden ; Zoots ; Clampdown ; "Get the White Man! Get the White Man!" ; Passing the Torch
  • Holocaust ; Sounds of Distant Slaughter ; Homeland? ; Trouble at Home
  • Jews and Blacks ; Jews and Blacks Allied ; Fighting Prejudice ; Politics ; Housing ; Jobs ; Game Changer
  • On the town ; Sex and the City ; Nightclubs ; The Voice ; Bop ; Rumbamania ; Art of This Century ; Book Boom ; Broadway ; Toward a Fashion-Industrial Complex ; On the Town ; The Theater at the Center of the World
  • Planning the postwar city ; Presenting the Future: A Public Plan ; "Two Million Plans!" ; Housing: The Specter of Suburbanization, the Battle against Blight ; Rubber and Rails ; Sea ; Sky ; Infrastructure ; Washington or Wall Street? ; Manufacturing: Tide Going Out or Tide Coming In? ; Headquarters
  • Planning the postwar nation ; Dueling Planners ; Paging Dr. New Deal ; Dr. New Deal: Call Only When Needed ; Dr. New Deal: Wanted, Dead or Alive, Preferably Dead ; Rightist Thrust... ; ...Liberal Riposte ; The Last Subway Series ; Enter: "Red Menace" ; Cue: Cold War ; Dr. New Deal: Back in the Saddle?
  • Planning the postwar world ; New World A-Comin' ; An Empire of Free Trade ; Racism and Imperialism ; India ; China ; Puerto Rico ; Uniting the Nations.

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