Exit Zero: Family and Class in Postindustrial Chicago

I found this study of life among the steel workers of Chicago's Southeast side or great interest. Ms. Wally takes a multifaceted look at varying opinions within the groups which she studies and does not omit some bits of data because they might not fit a prior theory or a romanticized view of the steel mill community. There are few studies that bridge the gap, as Exit Zero does, between biography, auto-biography, and sociology with focus upon what happens after the TV cameras turn away from a region that has been affected by massive mills closures. The question of what constitutes dignity in a diminished economic environment is--or should be--of interest to sociologists everywhere. Quoting the poet William Blake, And did the Countenance DivineShine forth upon our clouded hills?And was Jerusalem builded hereAmong these dark Satanic Mills?Bring me my bow of burning gold!Bring me my arrows of desire!Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!Bring me my charriot of fire!Walley has her Chariot and we await more scholarship in this needed area from her.

The author has provided a voice to the working class that suffered through de-industrialization. Lifetimes shattered in one day.

It explained a few things to me on the demise of the steel mills in Southeast Chicago, but was a bit too academic to be interesting. I believe it was a doctorial theses or something.

Walley has combined thick ethnography, family history, and insightful anthropology in this auto-ethnography of the deindustrialization of the steel mill area of SE Chicago. She's told this through the lens of her family, her father and mother, her relatives and neighbors, her own life. Well written, well thought. Very hard to not just read right through to the end

Needed it for a class, great self ethnography. There were some things that seemed a bit deflecting like but good overall book.

Having known one person From same area and roughly author's age, She was very fortunate and the story very real!

Absolutely wonderful macro view of Southeast Chicagoland’s once very vibrant & close communities/neighborhoods.

Great read