The Bronx in the Innocent Years: 1890-1925

For the past 20 years, The Bronx County Historical Society has been at work on a history of life in the borough series. In 1979, the first book, The Beautiful Bronx: 1920-1950 was published, and this was followed in 1985 by The Bronx In The Innocent Years: 1890-1925, and then in 1992 by The Bronx It Was Only Yesterday: 1935 - 1965. In 2000, The Birth of The Bronx 1609-1900 becomes the fourth in the series. Splendid works of social history, "The Life in The Bronx" series provides an engaging portrait of the mainland section of New York City at various turning points in the development of America's growing urban society. Perhaps no period in the history of our country has seen so many and such far-ranging changes as the early years of the twentieth century. Immigration transformed society; electricity revolutionized both business and daily life; and America confronted its destiny and left its innocence behind in the shattering experience of the First World War. The Bronx in the Innocent Years offers the moving and eloquent testimony of a community that experienced this era firsthand, living through its joys and its disruptions, its daily miracles that never failed to remind that a way of life was disappearing.

The Bronx in the Innocent Years, 1890-1925 is the result sponsored by The Bronx County Historical Society. For the past several years the Society had seen at work on an informal history of the borough. In 1979 the first part of the series, The Beautiful Bronx, 1920-1950, was published with great success. With this new volume, the focus to a period that saw the transformation of The Bronx from a group of small rural villages to an urban center as vital as its neighboring boroughs. A splendid work of social history, The Bronx in the Innocent Years is an engaging portrait not only of New York City but also of America at a turning point in its passage from innocence to the events that brought it to the forefront of the nations of the world.