Children of the City: At Work and at Play - Paperback

by David Nasaw (Author)

The turn of the twentieth century was a time of explosive growth for American cities, a time of nascent hopes and apparently limitless possibilities. In Children of the City, David Nasaw re-creates this period in our social history from the vantage point of the children who grew up then. Drawing on hundreds of memoirs, autobiographies, oral histories and unpublished--and until now unexamined--primary source materials from cities across the country, he provides us with a warm and eloquent portrait of these children, their families, their daily lives, their fears, and their dreams.

Illustrated with 68 photographs from the period, many never before published, Children of the City offers a vibrant portrait of a time when our cities and our grandparents were young.

Author Biography

David Nasaw is a historian, two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, and bestselling author of The Last Million, named a best book of the year by NPR, Kirkus, and History Today; The Patriarch, a New York Times "Five Best Non-Fiction Books of the Year"; Andrew Carnegie, a New York Times "Notable Book of the Year" and the winner of the American History Book Prize; The Chief, winner of the Bancroft Prize. He was the Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Professor of History at the CUNY Graduate Center and the president of the Society of American Historians. In 2023, he was honored by the New York Public Library as a "Library Lion." David's father served in the Army Medical Corps in Eritrea during the Second World War. Nasaw's newest book, The Wounded Generation, will be published by Penguin Press in October 2025.