The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (Haymarket Series) [Paperback]

David R. Roediger (Author), Mike Davis (Series Editor), Michael Sprinker (Series Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 17, 1999 | ISBN-10: 1859842402 | ISBN-13: 978-1859842409 | Edition: Revised

Combining classical Marxism, psychoanalysis, and the new labor history pioneered by E. P. Thompson and Herbert Gutman, David Roediger’s widely acclaimed book provides an original study of the formative years of working-class racism in the United States. This, he argues, cannot be explained simply with reference to economic advantage; rather, white working-class racism is underpinned by a complex series of psychological and ideological mechanisms that reinforce racial stereotypes, and thus help to forge the identities of white workers in opposition to Blacks.

In an afterword to this new edition, Roediger discusses recent studies of whiteness and the changing face of labor itself. He surveys criticism of his work, accepting many objections whilst challenging others, especially the view that the study of working class racism implies a rejection of Marxism and radical politics.

Editorial Reviews

Review

At last an American labor historian realizes that white workers have a racial identity that matters as race matters to workers who are not white. (Nell Irwin Painter, Princeton University )

A timely and important intervention in the current debates over 'race' and ethnicity. (Catherine Hall - New Left Review )

Roediger's exciting new book makes us understand what it means to see oneself as white in a new way. An extremely important and insightful book. (Lawrence Glickman - The Nation )

The Celestine Prophecy of whiteness studies. (SPLN )

About the Author

David Roediger is Kendrick Babcock Chair of History at the University of Illinois. Among his books are Our Own Time: A History of American Labor and the Working Day (with Philip S. Foner), How Race Survived US History: From Settlement and Slavery to the Obama Phenomenon, and The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class. He is the editor of Fellow Worker: The Life of Fred Thompson, The North and Slavery and Black on White: Black Writers on What It Means to Be White as well as a new edition of Covington Hall’s Labor Struggles in the Deep South. His articles have appeared in New Left Review, Against the Current, Radical History Review, History Workshop Journal, The Progressive and Tennis.

Mike Davis is the author of several books including City of Quartz, Ecology of Fear, Late Victorian Holocausts, and Magical Urbanism. He was recently awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. He lives in Papa'aloa, Hawaii.

Michael Sprinker was Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His Imaginary Relations: Aesthetics and Ideology in the History of Historical Materialism and History and Ideology in Proust are also published by Verso. Together with Mike Davis, he founded Verso's Haymarket Series and guided it until his death in 1999.

Product Details

• Paperback: 197 pages
• Publisher: Verso; Revised edition (January 17, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1859842402
• ISBN-13: 978-1859842409
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #822,539 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

98 of 110 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Working Definition of Race, June 28, 2000

By 

Brad Peters (Riverside, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (Haymarket Series) (Paperback)

David Roediger examines the growth and social construction of racism as it was related to the working classes of the ninteenth century. His scholarship earned him the Organization of American Historians Merle Curti Prize for US Social History in 1991. This work is brief, but dense in analysis, argument and scholarly interpretations.

The book basically explores how white workers (with an emphasis on Irish Americans) sought after a "wage" for their color, by placing on Black Americans the mantle of "other", objectifying and stratifying blacks into an object of prejudice and discrimination.

After a lengthy discussion of the historiography of labor and race issues, Roediger writes eloquently of the cultural formation of words such as slave, servant, hired hand, freeman, white slave, master and boss. All of which, he argues, were used to diferentiate between blacks and white laborers. He is careful to point out that it was the workers themselves who created the terms as a means to divide the races and elevate whites on the hierarchy of social status. It is a convincing arguement. The text concludes with an enlightening discussion of "black face" and the social struggles of the Irish, whom many felt in the majority viewed as "white negroes."

This book is scholarly and a read that demands one's attention.

70 of 80 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent study of the social concept of race., March 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (The Haymarket Series) (Paperback)

This book tackles the difficult subject of race relations among the working class of America. The time frame for this book is generally fom 1800 through the Civil war, as America was turning from an agricultural society to an industrial society. Slavery was drawing to a close, immigration had increased, and the urban populations of American cities were growing. All of these elements combined to create an urban working class complete with racial tension. Within this context, David R. Roediger defines the attitudes of race and race relation in a manner that is unique to most histories of urban studies. He not only records the developments of a racial identity, but he also examines the reasons why the white community defined itself as well as how the white community defined other groups. This book will probably stir a lot of controversy, but it will also answer many questions. Any historian or urban studies major can benefit form this book, but beyond college level readers, anyone interested in racial identities and racial differences can also appriciate this book.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Necessary Read for all American Historians, December 26, 2008

By 

rusty - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (New Edition) (Haymarket Series) (Paperback)

Let it be said from the outset that Roediger is an American Labor Historian, and although this is a book about race, it is also a book about the way class and race are so intertwined. I think it is somewhat amusing that so many people find Roediger racist against whites, I don't think he is: he is more interested in the way race and class became nearly unified concepts in the formation of the American Working Class during the nineteenth century. As Roediger points out, Working class became in many ways, white working class: which is no suprise considering that most works of labor history before the 1960s (and even most afterwards) concerned themselves only with white men. This of course leads to a minor fault in his work: gender is not fully considered (but at 180 pages, this is understandable). Dana Frank's "Purchasing Power" would be a good work to get a small glimpse of that peice of the puzzle.

Overall, a great work of historical scholarship that should be read by every serious historian.