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This is a Bancroft Prize-winning historical classic and a model for social mobility research. One of its contributions is that no one has before used such records to study the development of cities and their causes in this way. Newspapers and other familiar sources record the lives of only 5% of the population. And beyond these records, there are thousands more whose births, lives, and deaths went unnoticed by the chroniclers of their times. Sainstrom looked at surviving records of these people, as well as raw, uninterpreted data from old city directories, as well as disappearing marriage license applications and abandoned local tax records. He collected and analyzed this overlooked evidence to provide one of the most thorough series of observations ever made on patterns of immigration and social mobility in changing American communities. Sainstrom's research, especially "Other Bostonians," provides new material and perspectives for discussing society, politics, and union organizing, investigating Americans' upward mobility, and examining the diverse experiences of particular groups (Irish, Italians, English, Jews, native Americans, and blacks).