Louis Wirth was born August 28, 1897, in Gümenden in the Rhineland district of Germany. Wirth's family was a relatively prosperous family of the Jewish community in their small village. The Wirths were cattle merchants and farmers as were most Jews in the rural areas of Rhineland and Westphalia. Gümenden was a small rural community of only about nine hundred people. Wirth immigrated to United States in 1911, when his mother's brother visited the Wirth family in rural Germany. Wirth's uncle offered to take Wirth and an older sister back to America. Wirth's mother had high educational aspirations for her children, and she welcomed the opportunity to send Wirth and his sister to America to pursue educational opportunities. In America, Wirth lived first in Omaha, Nebraska. Wirth left Omaha after winning a regional scholarship to study at the University of Chicago. His intellectual pursuits were deeply influenced...