Scenes from the American Working Class: This Hard Land(Politics, Literature, & Film)

What have depictions of the working class in popular culture added to our understanding of the professional lives of Americans? Scenes from the American Working Class: This Hard Land offers twelve unique and profound answers from some of the most impactful and timeless novels (O! Pioneers, Ann Vickers, and Native Son), films (Blue Collar, Wall Street, and Other People’s Money), television shows (The Wire and Mad Men), songs (the work of Bruce Springsteen), and poems (Natasha Tretheway’s “Drapery Factory, Gulfport, Mississippi, 1956”).
Key themes include the turn from agrarianism to industrialism and post-industrialism; the challenges particular to women, new immigrants, and workers of color; and the relationship between the demands of the workplace and the responsibilities of citizens in a democracy. Also explored is the extent to which having a productive and fulfilling working life is essential to living a life of meaning and purpose.
Although there is a significant gap between the rhetoric and the reality of the “American dream,” these portrayals all give a glimpse into the resiliency and optimism of workers and why the country continues to be a land of hope.

Steven Michels, “Introduction: How America Works”
1. Jon D. Schaff, “All the Past We Leave Behind: Willa Cather’s O! Pioneers and the Agrarian Vision”
2. Victor Bruno, “Trouble in the 10018 Zone: Incommunicability and Working-Class Frustration in King Vidor’s Street Scene”
3. Sally Parry, “Sinclair Lewis’s Ann Vickers: Seeking a Work-Life Balance”
4. Steven Michels, “Native Son and the Myth of Mobility”
5. Pedro Blas Gonzalez, “Ortega y Gasset’s Mass Man, Strife, and Work in the Thought of Elmer Kelton and Eric Hoffer”
6. Mark Wheeler, “The Working Class in Schrader’s Blue Collar”
7. Glenn A. Moots, “Financialism Versus the Working Class in Wall Street and Other People’s Money”
8. Aimee Pozorski, “‘pushing into the hum of the machines’: Textiles and Women’s Labor in Black and White”
9. Shaun Richman, “When It Ain’t Your Turn: Striving for Meaningful Work in The Wire”
10. Kevin M. Kearns, “Happiness is a Moment Before You Need More Happiness: Happiness, Mad Men, and Locke”
11. Christine Susienka, “Severed Selves and the Search for Meaning”
12. Simon Stow, “Is a Dream a Lie? Hope, Cruel Optimism, and Bruce Springsteen’s Working Class”