Class Unknown: Undercover Investigations of American Work and Poverty from the Progressive Era to the Present
(Part of the Culture, Labor, History Series Series)
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Book Overview
How well-meaning intellectuals helped develop our understanding of the American underclass
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.Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0814767419
ISBN13:9780814767412
Release Date:August 2012
Publisher:New York University Press
Length:288 Pages
Weight:0.90 lbs.
Dimensions:0.7" x 6.1" x 8.9"
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