America's Working Man: Work, Home, and Politics Among Blue Collar Property Owners

· University of Chicago Press
Ebook
378
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

"An unusually deep and wide-ranging study" by a sociologist who spent years listening to and living among workers at a New Jersey chemical plant ( Journal of American Studies).

Over a period of six years during the late 1970s, at factory and warehouse, at the tavern across the road, in their homes and union meetings, on fishing trips and social outings, David Halle talked and listened to workers of an automated chemical plant in New Jersey's industrial heartland—white, male, and mostly Catholic. He has emerged with an unusually comprehensive and convincingly realistic picture of blue-collar life in America during this era.

Throughout the book, Halle illustrates his analysis with excerpts of workers' views on everything from strikes, class consciousness, politics, job security, and toxic chemicals to marriage, betting on horses, God, home-ownership, drinking, adultery, the Super Bowl, and life after death. Halle challenges the stereotypes of the blue-collar mentality and provides a detailed, in-depth portrait of one community of workers at a time when it was relatively affluent and secure.

"Absorbing reading."— Business Week

About the author

David Halle is professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and director of the summer travel program, UCLA in New York: Cities and Cultures. He is also an adjunct professor at the City University of New York's Graduate Center and School of Professional Studies and the author of America's Working Man and Inside Culture, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

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