Working Toward Whiteness

David R. Roediger

At the vanguard of the study of race and labour in American history David R. Roediger is the author of the now-classic The Wages of Whiteness a study of racism in the development of a white working class in nineteenth-century America. In Working Toward Whiteness he continues that history into the twentieth century. He recounts how American ethnic groups considered white today-including Jewish- Italian- and Polish-Americans-once occupied a confused racial status in their new country. They eventually became part of white America thanks to the nascent labour movement New Deal reforms and a rise in home-buying. From ethnic slurs to racially restrictive covenants- the racist real estate agreements that ensured all-white neighbourhoods- Roediger explores the murky realities of race in twentieth-century America. A masterful history by an award-winning writer Working Toward Whiteness charts the strange transformation of these new immigrants into the "white ethnics" of America today.>