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Acknowledgments
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Acknowledgments In completing this work, I have incurred more than the usual share of debts, none greater than to the many current and former residents of Camden who generously gave me their time and interest. In acknowledging in the text but a small portion of those I have talked to, I have not intended to slight anyone. Whether I have acknowledged their contributions directly in the text or not, I have benefitted immeasurably from the assistance I received from many different interested parties. Equally important has been the support I received from George Washington University, where a sabbatical leave helped me launch this effort during the – academic year. A research grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, added to a semester’s leave from Rutgers-Camden, was crucial in helping me complete the work. In Camden, I received early and considerable encouragement as well as information from Randy Primas, Tom Knoche, Peter O’Connor, Yolanda Auguilar DeNeeley, William Jenkins, Carmen Marinez, Ruth Bogutz, Jamie Reynolds, Judge Joseph Rodriguez, and Kevin Riordan, whose coverage of Camden for the Courier-Post during the s was a major foundation for my understanding of the contemporary city. Over time many others assisted , most notably Tom Corcoran, Frank Fulbrook, Kelly Francis, Kevin Walsh, Olga Pomar, Roy Jones, Sue Brennan, Jeremy Nowak, Msgr. Robert McDermott, and the always quotable and passionate Msgr. Michael Doyle. Dwight Ott’s continued coverage of Camden for the Philadelphia Inquirer into the new century proved another foundation for my own analysis. I am grateful as well to Eric Schneider, fellow urbanist and friend, at the University of Pennsylvania, for reading an early draft of this manuscript and for providing insight and advice on earlier papers on the subject. Ed Fox, Tom Knoche, and Olga Pomar read complete drafts of the manuscript and provided many helpful suggestions. Ruth Bogutz, Paul Schopp, Kevin Walsh, and Camilo Jose Vergara also read and commented on parts of the draft. Steven Conn and especially an anonymous reader for the University of Pennsylvania Press provided thorough and compelling criticisms. Bob Acknowledgments Lockhart remained encouraging and patient throughout the two years this manuscript was before him at the University of Pennsylvania Press. Lauren Osborne’s wonderful editing suggestions helped bring the manuscript to completion. A number of people I met in the course of this work have died in recent years. I especially regret the losses of Carmela Argenteiri, who not only informed but fed me on a number of occasions, and Donza Harmon, who dared to share her dreams as well as the formidable challenges facing her life. Missed too will be Joseph Carroll, Jim Harris, and especially Poppy Sharp, whose dedication to civic well-being motivated them to the end of their lives. Though I knew them less well, I share with many others the sense of great loss, of Sister Peg Hynes, Gloria Lyons, and Odessa PolkJones , all of whom have left powerful legacies to their Camden communities . I am especially grateful as well to Skip Hidlay, former executive editor of the Courier-Post, both for bringing my research interest to the attention of his readers and for granting me access to news clips in the paper’s back files. Pat Straub was a wonderful guide to those materials and a cheerful companion during long hours of research. Thanks too to the paper’s current executive editor, Derek Osenenko, for the use of photographs from the Courier’s files, without which much of this could not be animated. I have had the pleasure of working closely with photographer Camilo José Vergara, on the next Camden project, and I am grateful both for the photograph that graces the front page of this book and for the assistance of the Ford Foundation for underwriting his continued work in Camden. Thanks too to Bernice Gouch for sharing her extensive collection of Camden photographs . From the start, staff members at the Camden County Historical Society have been tremendously helpful and supportive, including Joanne Seitter and Jean Crensczi and former directors Paul Schoop and John Seitter. Professor Robert Beauregard of the New School, generously shared notes and clippings he had gathered some years earlier for a study of Camden. My former colleague Robert Fishman, now at the University of Michigan, wrote letters endorsing this project well before the National Endowment provided support. Tom Sugrue must have made the difference, for with his added support, the National Endowment responded with assistance. I have greatly valued Tom’s insights, not...