Main Line Wasp: The Education of Thacher Longstreth

By W. Thacher Longstreth

Book Overview

The result is more than amusing anecdote. Thacher Longstreth entered the world just as his WASP and Quaker forebears were losing their power and prestige. Much of his life has therefore been devoted... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393027805
• ISBN13: 9780393027808
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Norton & Company, Incorporated, W. W.
• Length: 310 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 1.3" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

The Man In The Orange Baseball Suit

Main Line Wasp is the autobiography of a fine Philadelphian of a recently faded era, "Mr. Republican" Councilman-At Large Thatcher Longstreth. This was a very good man. So would say anyone who knew him. He and my father were Princeton classmates. As a 14 year old I remember meeting Longstreth at one of my father's reunions. Costumes of a Princeton reuion nearly rival a Mummers Parade. The cartoonish uniform of the Class of 1941 in their earlier years was an orange baseball suit. Longstreth stood out, not only for his 6'5" height, but for his equally tall and irrepressible personality, as befits a man voted most popular amongst his classmates. Even after his classmates doffed the costume to don the more distinguished blazers of older post-25th-reunion classes, well into his 70s Longstretch kept showing up in his baseball suit. I dipped into this book to know more about Philadelphia's political personality of the last generation, before Frank Rizzo, Wilson Goode, John Street, et.al. Long a city councilman and twice an unsuccessful mayoral candidate, Longstreth as a historical figure is on the cusp of recent Philly history, harking back to a time when the city was proudly patrician. Today Philly feels more gritty, garrulous, blue-collar, boisterous. It doesn't seem anymore quite like Thatcher's time or place. Main Line Wasp is a fast and comfortable read rich in humor, experience, and family details. It relates well how Longstreth's life embodied so much of what made and makes Philadelphia great. The book feels like a warm conversation from beyond the grave. I miss him. Surely so does Philadelphia. God bless Thatcher Longstreth's memory.

a nice entertaining book . . .

about politics in Philadelphia from the 1950s to the 1970s, by one of its most colorful and beloved practitioners. Not a lot of deep substantive analysis; however, Longstreth's evaluation of Frank Rizzo is interesting and surprisingly favorable. Beach reading in the best sense of the word: entertaining and inoffensive.

With a name like Thacher Longstreth, it has to be a winner

I found this integral man's story to be a fascinating account, and source of enlightment for readers of all ages. In the book, Main Line Wasp, whether the reader finds himself laughing aloud or saddened to tears, there never seems to be a dull moment.