Millhunks and Renegades: A Portrait of a Pittsburgh Neighborhood puts the story back in history. Through interviews with folks aged 12 to 96, Anita Kulina has pieced together what could easily be the story of many urban neighborhoods across the nation. Travel from the “old country” with Irish, Italian and Slovak immigrants to Greenfield, a small town now part of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Share their dreams and hopes as, over generations, they fight Indian raids and corporate tyranny. Join them as they ride the Schenley Park carousel and spend their hard-earned leisure time at prize fights and sulky races. Walk with these strong, proud individuals as they build schools, homes, and lives as citizens of their adopted country, the United States of America.

from Chapter 4 Simon Girty and his younger brother John Turner went to the newly named Fort Dunmore and signed up along with 200 other local soldiers. Simon was given command of a troop sent to patrol the rivers and roads, confiscating any trade goods that were being traded by Pennsylvanians in what they claimed was the colony of Virginia. In short, they were employed as pirates. from Chapter 11 “They were Polish and Hungarian that worked in the mills, all that type of people. We used to call them millhunkies but you can’t say that anymore.” from Chapter 15 Harry Greb was the son of an Irish mom and a German dad. His dad had been trying to train him to follow in his footsteps as a tinner. He didn’t want his son to fight, but there was no stopping Harry. He was born to fight, and that’s all there was to it. Why, Harry didn’t even train—before a fight, he would spend the night in a bordello after his favorite dinner of hot dogs washed down with root beer. The guy just fought so much he was always in shape. from Chapter 16 Not everybody complained about the Prohibition law, because bootlegging was a lucrative endeavor. Greenfield Jimmy Smith, a pro ballplayer with a .219 lifetime batting average, was smuggling liquor for his team when he realized that bootlegging was his true profession. from Chapter 19 “We played a team from Squirrel Hill one day and a fight broke out. They won the game but we won the fight, and we figured that was a good day.”

Anita Kulina is one of the 100+ kids who grew up on Haldane Street in the Greenfield section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the 1950s and 1960s. She lives in Pittsburgh with her husband, writer Scott Bradley Smith, and is currently writing a mystery novel set in her home town.