Bridging the Divide : : Working-Class Culture in a Middle-Class Society / / Jack Metzgar.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Complete eBook-Package 2021
• VerfasserIn: Metzgar, Jack,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2021]; ©2021
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (240 p.) :; 1 chart

In Bridging the Divide, Jack Metzgar attempts to determine the differences between working-class and middle-class cultures in the United States. Drawing on a wide range of multidisciplinary sources, Metzgar writes as a now middle-class professional with a working-class upbringing, explaining the various ways the two cultures conflict and complement each other, illustrated by his own lived experiences.Set in a historical framework that reflects on how both class cultures developed, adapted, and survived through decades of historical circumstances, Metzgar challenges professional middle-class views of both the working-class and themselves. In the end, he argues for the creation of a cross-class coalition of what he calls "standard-issue professionals" with both hard-living and settled-living working people and outlines some policies that could help promote such a unification if the two groups had a better understanding of their differences and how to use those differences to their advantage. Bridging the Divide mixes personal stories and theoretical concepts to give us a compelling look inside the current complex position of the working-class in American culture and a view of what it could be in the future.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Achieving Mediocrity -- Part I NOSTALGIA FOR THE THIRTY-YEAR CENTURY OF THE COMMON -- 1. What Was Glorious about the Glorious Thirty? -- 2. The Rise of Professional Middle-Class Labor -- 3. Working-Class Agency in Place -- 4. “At Least We Ought to Be Able To” -- Part II FREE WAGE LABOR AND THE CULTURES OF CLASS -- 5. There Is a Genuine Working-Class Culture -- 6. Categorical Differences in Class Cultures -- Part III STRATEGIES AND ASPECTS OF WORKING-CLASS CULTURE -- 7. Ceding Control to Gain Control -- 8. Taking It and Living in the Moments -- 9. Working-Class Realism -- Epilogue: Two Good Class Cultures -- Notes -- Index