In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

80 Historians think of themselves as objective observers of the past, but like all human beings our points of view are largely shaped by our experiences. We began our journey as students of the past at a very young age as we took in our circumstances and understood our environment. These influences cannot help but impact our worldview. This is especially true for those of us who grew up in tight ethnic communities and then went on to write about the history of those communities. Ethnic families and neighborhoods shaped many of the immigrant, ethnic, and working-class historians who came to adulthood in the s. This insider knowledge hopefully gave us a deeper insight into the historical experience . Certainly it shaped my approach to immigrant/ethnic and urban history. My career as a historian began as I observed life in the legendary Chicago neighborhood, the Back of the Yards. Located to the south and west of Chicago’s Union Stock Yards, a sense of history filled the neighborhood. Its streets literally told the story of American immigration, while the stockyards spoke volumes on industrialization, labor history, and social class. Twelve Catholic churches could be reached within a fairly easy walk from my house. Irish, German, Polish, Lithuanian , Czech, Slovak, Ukrainian, French, and Mexican Catholic churches rang their bells three times a day for the Angelus prayers. Ethnic businesses filled the main thoroughfares and Polish, Lithuanian, and Russian Jewish merchants dealt their wares all along Forty-seventh Street and down Ashland Avenue. The Goldblatt Brothers and Meyer Brothers department stores dominated Ashland Avenue and marked the early boundaries of my life. Bakeries abounded on the main and side streets, selling their German, Czech, Polish, Lithuanian, and Mexican cookies, cakes, kolaczki (cookie-like filled pastries ), pączki (jelly-filled doughnuts), and excellent rye bread. Delicatessens and meat markets offered their products to fit nearly every ethnic taste. The 6 From Back of the Yards to the College Classroom DOMINIC A. PACYGA FROM BACK OF THE YARDS TO THE COLLEGE CLASSROOM 81 Vitak-Elsnic music store was a great depository of East European music, although I went there to listen to the latest rock and roll records. Jasinski’s music store sold hard-to-find East European instruments and sheet music as well. Neighborhood churches were always paired with a local funeral parlor. Sacred Heart parish had the Wolniak Funeral Parlor, located across the street, but many of the Polish highlanders, or gorale, preferred the Bafia Funeral Parlor on Forty-seventh Street, as the family that owned it was active in the Polish Highlanders Alliance. The Lithuanians at Holy Cross parish took their deceased to the Eudeikis Funeral Home. Every family wanted its dead cared for by one of their own, someone who understood the long-established ways of sending their relatives and friends properly to their own God. Adding to this diversity were the everyday crowds of African Americans who rode streetcars and later buses through the neighborhood to reach their jobs in the packinghouses and other local industries that made up the core of our neighborhood. My family history had paralleled a large part of the American experience of the twentieth century. Immigration, labor strikes, the Great Depression, and World Wars I and II made up much of the talk around Babka’s (Grandmother’s) kitchen table. My father had served in World War II and was a highly decorated veteran of the European Theater. My uncles had all been in the service and the youngest, Chester, whom everyone called Lefty, went to Korea. Uncle Lefty had been seriously wounded early in the Korean War, and when he came home he continued his struggle to become a working-class intellectual. He read voraciously and did his best to get me interested in a mix of Marx, Nietzsche, Aristotle , Plato, and Buddhism. One of the two high school graduates in the family, Lefty faced the problems associated with the self-educated thinker. He wandered from one philosophy to another, never finding a home, but encouraging me to read and try to understand great books. Talking with him was fascinating, and his quest to learn inspired me. Lefty introduced me to geography and classical music, especially Tchaikovsky. His was a particularly Slavic gloom, inspired by his traumatic experience in the Korean War and the frustration born of his inability to find an intellectual home. He once told me that my grandfather, himself an avid reader of Henryk Sienkiewicz, Adam Mickiewicz, and other...

Share