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The Gilded Age and Progressive Era

White Man's Work

Ep. 79

The intersections of race and class or work and power has tantalizing effects on our understanding of history. It can reshape our appreciation of socio-cultural norms and the way we define the Gilded Age. Joseph Jewell's latest book White Man's Work: Race and Middle-Class Mobility into the Progressive Era takes the reader through the changing social structures caused by industrialization and Reconstruction, and the attendant anxieties these changes wrought among White communities.


Essential Reading:


Joseph O. Jewell, White Man's Work: Race and Middle-Class Mobility into the Progressive Era (2024).


Recommended Reading:


Arnoldo De León, The Tejano Community, 1836-1900 (1982).


Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Unequal Freedom: How Race and Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor (2004).


Erika Lee, At America's Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943 (2003).


Raúl A. Ramos, Beyond the Alamo: Forging Mexican Ethnicity in San Antonio, 1821-1861 (2008).


Philip F. Rubio, There's Always Work at the Post Office: African American Postal Workers and the Fight for Jobs, Justice, and Equality (2010).


Eric S. Yellin, Racism in the Nation's Service: Government Workers and the Color Line in Woodrow Wilson's America (2013).


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