Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction: "Built as It Is on Shifting Sand"

Part 1. Gary, the Magic City: Creation Myths
1. "An Industrial Utopia": The Search for Industrial Order
2. "Making a City to Order": U.S. Steel and the Building of an Industrial Center

Part 2. A City Built on Sand: Paradox and Meaning
3. "The Youngest City in the World": The Early Years of an Industrial Frontier
4. "The Gibraltar of the Steel Corporation": Narrative Meaning in a Steel Strike
5. "You're a Damned Liar—It's Utopia": Imagining Industrialism between the Wars

Part 3. The Very Model of Modern Urban Decay: Decline and Fall
6. "Gary Is a Steel City, Young, Lusty, Brawling": Declension Narratives about Gary
7. "Epitaph for a Model City": Race, Deindustrialization, and Dystopia

Conclusion: "In Search of America"

Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

Promotional Information

A century of change in an American industrial utopia

About the Author

S. Paul O'Hara is Assistant Professor of History at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Reviews

"This book is a very good and delightful rendition of how Gary has been/is perceived by the media and those outside of its region." Stephen G. McShane, co-author of Steel Giants (IUP 2009)