[1] Biographer Michael Shnayerson reports that the collection was "overwhelmingly" acclaimed by critics when it first appeared confirming Shaw's reputation as an outstanding American writer.

[2] New York Herald Tribune reviewer H. N. Doughty praised the "warmth of feeling, the heart, the humanity" that characterized the stories in the volume.

[3] Though acknowledging Shaw's "rich understanding and superb technique," Time magazine cautioned that he "lays it on too thick or too pat…Tricks of overemphasis, which get by on stage, look as uneasy in print as theatrical makeup does in a living room.

"[5] The stories in Shaw's first two collections of fiction focus on the working class who suffered in the aftermath of the panic of 1929 and the devastating effects of the Great Depression.

[6] Shaw's themes in Welcome to the City are largely those of the political Left in the United States at this time—identifying capitalism as a system destructive and degrading to the masses, and sympathetic to socialism.