Life Before Google: Community Activists in Chicago

Back when Barack Obama was still in middle school, community activists in Chicago were already at work trying to rev up the troops for housing reform. After a bit of modest local success, they decided to go national.

It wasn't long before West Side Coalition interns headed out to O'Hare International Airport, the one [place where they could find phone books for every big city in the country. They would look for listings that sounded like they could be for community organizations, and back at they office they called those groups, asking them to come to a big conference ...

Such was life before Google. That's Alyssa Katz in Our Lot, a history of thre modern mortgage revolution (a splendid book about which I intend to say more once I've finished it).

Update: Well, yes, I should have specified. The date appears to be 1975.