White trash : the 400-year untold history of class in America
(Book)
Author
Published
New York, New York : Viking, [2016].
Physical Desc
xvii, 460 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Status
San Luis Obispo Library - Adult Nonfiction
305.50973
1 available
305.50973
1 available
Arroyo Grande Library - Adult Nonfiction
305.50973
1 available
305.50973
1 available
Cambria Library - Adult Nonfiction
305.50973
1 available
305.50973
1 available
Copies
Location | Call Number | Status | Due Date |
---|---|---|---|
San Luis Obispo Library - Adult Nonfiction | 305.50973 | On Shelf | |
Arroyo Grande Library - Adult Nonfiction | 305.50973 | On Shelf | |
Cambria Library - Adult Nonfiction | 305.50973 | On Shelf | |
Los Osos Library - Adult Nonfiction | 305.50973 | On Shelf | |
Morro Bay Library - Adult Nonfiction | 305.50973 | On Shelf |
Description
Loading Description...
Also in this Series
Checking series information...
More Details
Published
New York, New York : Viking, [2016].
Format
Book
Language
English
Notes
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 323-446) and index.
Description
The wretched and landless poor have existed from the time of the earliest British colonial settlement. They were alternately known as "waste people," "offals," "rubbish," "lazy lubbers," and "crackers." By the 1850s, the downtrodden included so-called "clay eaters" and "sandhillers," known for prematurely-aged children distinguished by their yellowish skin, ragged clothing, and listless minds. Surveying political rhetoric and policy, popular literature and scientific theories over four hundred years, history professor Nancy Isenberg upends assumptions about America's supposedly class-free society ; where liberty and hard work were meant to ensure real social mobility. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early nineteenth century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted poor white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics -- a widely popular movement embraced by Theodore Roosevelt that targeted poor whites for sterilization. These poor were at the heart of New Deal reforms and LBJ's Great Society and they now haunt us in reality TV shows like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty. Marginalized as a class, white trash have always been at or near the center of major political debates over the character of the American identity.
Staff View
Loading Staff View.