Class unknown : undercover investigations of American work and poverty from the progressive era to the present
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Class unknown : undercover investigations of American work and poverty from the progressive era to the present
(Culture, labor, history / general editors, Daniel Bender and Kimberley L. Phillips)
New York University Press, c2012
- : pb
- : cl
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Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Since the Gilded Age, social scientists, middle-class reformers, and writers have left the comforts of their offices to "pass" as steel workers, coal miners, assembly-line laborers, waitresses, hoboes, and other working and poor people in an attempt to gain a fuller and more authentic understanding of the lives of the working class and the poor. In this first, sweeping study of undercover investigations of work and poverty in America, award-winning historian Mark Pittenger examines how
intellectuals were shaped by their experiences with the poor, and how despite their sympathy toward working-class people, they unintentionally helped to develop the contemporary concept of a degraded and "other" American underclass.
While contributing to our understanding of the history of American social
thought, Class Unknown offers a new perspective on contemporary debates over how we understand
and represent our own society and its class divisions.
Table of Contents
Part I. A World of Difference: Constructing the Underclass in Progressive America, 1890-1920 1. Writing Class in a World of Difference Part II. Between the Wars, 1920-1941 2. Vagabondage and Efficiency: The 1920s 3. Finding Facts: The Great Depression, from the Bottom Up Part III. The Declining Significance of Class, 1941-1961 4. War and Peace, Class and Culture 5. Crossing New Lines: From Gentleman's Agreement to Black Like Me Part IV. Conclusion 6. Finding the Line in Postmodern America, 1960-2010
by "Nielsen BookData"