Waubonsee Community College

White trash, the 400-year untold history of class in America, Nancy Isenberg

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 323-446) and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

White trash

bibliography

925398080

Nancy Isenberg

the 400-year untold history of class in America

"A history of the class system in America from the colonial era to the present illuminates the crucial legacy of the underprivileged white demographic, citing the pivotal contributions of lower-class white workers in wartime, social policy, and the rise of the Republican Party,"--NoveList"The wretched and landless poor have been a part of American culture from the time of the earliest British colonial settlement. In her groundbreaking history of the class system in America, Nancy Isenberg explodes our comforting myths about equality in the land of opportunity, uncovering the crucial legacy of the ever-present poor white trash. Surveying political rhetoric and policy, popular literature and scientific theories over four hundred years, Isenburg upends assumptions about America's supposedly class-free society -- where liberty and hard work were meant to ensure real social mobility...Marginalized as a class, white trash have always been near the center of major debates over the character of the American identity. The contemporary focus on the 'one percent' has animated public discussion about power dynamics, but without context. We have been taught to overlook the fact that privilege runs deep in our history. Without pause, America has been ignoring, if not hating, its underclass since the seventeenth century. Today we acknowledge racial injustice as an ugly stain on our nation's history. With Isenberg's landmark book, we will have to face the truth about the enduring nature of class as well" -- Book jacket

List of illustrations -- Introduction: fables we forget by -- Part I. To begin the world anew. Taking out the trash : waste people in the New World ; John Locke's Lubberland : the settlements of Carolina and Georgia ; Benjamin Franklin's American breed : the demographics of mediocrity ; Thomas Jefferson's rubbish : a curious topography of class ; Andrew Jackson's cracker country : the squatter as common man -- Part II. Degeneration of the American Breed. Pedigree and poor white trash : bad blood, half-breeds and clay-eaters ; Cowards, Poltroons, and mudsills : civil war as class warfare ; Thoroughbreds and scalawags : bloodlines and bastard stock in the age of eugenics ; Forgotten men and poor folk : downward mobility and the Great Depression ; The cult of the country boy : Elvis Presley, Andy Griffith, and LBJ's Great Society -- Part III. The white trash makeover. Redneck roots : Deliverance, Billy Beer, and Tammy Faye ; Outing Rednecks : slumming, Slick Willie, and Sarah Palin -- Epilogue. America's strange breed : the long legacy of white trash -- Notes -- Index