William foote whyte biography

1943 book by William Whyte

Street Corner Society (originally titled Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum) is an ethnography written by William Foote Whyte and published in 1943.

It was Whyte's first book. It received little attention when it was first published, but upon being reissued in 1955 it became a bestseller as well as a standard college text, and established Whyte's reputation as a pioneer in participant observation.

Background

In the late 1930s, on a fellowship from Harvard University,^[1] Whyte lived in the North End of Boston, which was mostly inhabited by first- and second-generation immigrants from Italy.

Whyte, who came from a well-to-do family, considered the neighborhood a slum, and wanted to learn more about its "lower class" society.^[2] Whyte lived in that district for three and a half years, including 18 months he spent with an Italian family.

Through this work, Whyte became a pio