The Lehigh Valley shares a history with Johnstown, Cambria County.

Each was a major location for Bethlehem Steel Corp. mills.

It is a lesser known fact that both regions have a colorful history of illegal activities and organized crime.

Russell Shorto tells about Johnstown’s gambling and political corruption in his book “Smalltime: A Story of My Family and the Mob” (W.W. Norton, 2021, 272 pp., $26.75. available digitally).

As the title indicates, it gives a story of non-violent crime on the community level, mostly focused on gambling and related payoffs, although a mystery surrounding a murder is the undercurrent of the book.

Shorto has the same first name as his grandfather, who was centrally involved in Johnstown’s rackets. He worked with his own father Tony researching the elder Russell, and talked with many surviving people who remember the old days.

The book describes how Shorto discovered things about his grandfather, his father and other family members:

“I didn’t know how personal it would be. I came to have sympathy for them. They did what they could, considering the paths open to them.”

As Italian immigrants, the older generation faced poverty and prejudice. Those who worked for Bethlehem Steel were typically given the worst jobs.

When the younger Russell was growing up, his father Tony told him that he rejected criminal involvement. Even so, Shorto says, “My father Tony wanted to be part of that action.”

His Johnstown family had mixed feelings about those times.

“There are things they did not want to talk about. It was not so much about the shame of gambling. It was mostly because of my grandfather’s behavior,” Shorto says in a phone interview from his home in Cumberland, Md.

The elder Russell, who was married, had decades-long affairs with women.

“Everyone of a certain age knew my grandfather. What they were doing was out in the open. The pool hall where they operated was two doors away from City Hall,” says Shorto.

According to Shorto, a lot of money went the short distance to the town’s politicians.

He says his grandfather and his associates were “woven into the structure of things” as a part of everyday life. Shorto says the structure was “both ad hoc and organized.” There were ties to the mob in bigger cities, but local members of the mob were mostly involved in collecting bets. “Johnstown was a branch office,” says Shorto.

Violence was bad for business. “Big cities could absorb murders,” he says, but in Johnstown that would scare away the customers.

Organized crime faded away in Johnstown, as it did in most small towns.

“In the 1960s, Robert Kennedy led an effort to reform and clean up organized crime. It is only in big cities where the mob remains,” says Shorto.

The peak population of Johnstown was 67,000 in the 1920s. An analysis by 24/7 Wall Street in 2020 called it the poorest town in Pennsylvania that had a population less than 20,000.

Shorto writes narrative history. He’s the author of four other books: “Revolution Song,” about the American Revolution; “Amsterdam,” a history of the Netherlands city; “Descartes’ Bones,” a story centered around the French philosopher, and “The Island at the Center of the World,” about the founding of Manhattan.

“Smalltime” is his first memoir. It made him a proponent for discovering family history. His website, www.tellyourfamilystory.com, offers a course about how to research family history.

“Start talking to the oldest people in your family. Find the stories that most interest you. When you are speaking with those who have memories of their own grandparents, you can find out things that go back a long way,” he says.

Shorto is a senior scholar at the New Netherland Institute and a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine.

Shorto is a graduate of George Washington University. He is married with three children and three stepchildren.

Information: www.russellshorto.com

“Literary Scene” is a column about authors, books and publishing. To request coverage, email: Paul Willistein, Focus editor, pwillistein@tnonline.com