Thomas Welsh: 7 books

Founded in the Mahoning Valley during 1837, a tiny settlement of secular German immigrants grew into one of the most influential centers of Jewish life in the Midwest. Home to nationally renowned rabbis and Zionist firebrands alike, the community produced an astonishing array of leaders in an impressive...

More than two decades have passed since Youngstown lost its beloved Strouss' Department Store. But Youngstowners can still taste those incomparable chocolate malts, see the dramatic view from the store's mezzanine and feel the excitement of the annual Thanksgiving Day parade. The story of Strouss' kept...

Celebrate Youngstown's proud tradition of dining out, a commitment to hospitality that has endured through the tightening of the Rust Belt. Take a tour of restaurants like the MVR and the Boulevard, which continue to reflect Youngstown's ethnic diversity and tenacious entrepreneurial spirit, as well...

Anna is a student surviving the city, and she lives by a simple credo, “Never play their game; their game is always rigged.” For every man she has ever known, it’s a saying that has served her well. Especially when Anna becomes lost to the dark heart of the city. She finds herself hunted...

Closing Chapters attempts to explain the disintegration of urban parochial schools in Youngstown, Ohio, a onetime industrial center that lost all but one of its eighteen Catholic parochial elementary schools between 1960 and 2006. Through this examination of Youngstown, Welsh sheds light on a significant national phenomenon: the fragmentation of American Catholic identity.

Food and Everyday Life provides a qualitative, interpretive, and interdisciplinary examination of food and food practices and their meanings in the modern world. Edited by Thomas M. Conroy, the book offers a number of complementary approaches and topics around the parameters of the “ordinary, everyday”...

Whether chronicling an athlete's rise, fall, and redemption or following a team's improbable triumph on the field, sports have been a favorite theme of filmmakers almost since movies were first produced. And whether focusing on soccer (Bend It Like Beckham), boxing (Rocky and its sequels), hockey...