Synopses & Reviews
andldquo;I realize that I am a soldier of production whose duties are as important in this war as those of the man behind the gun.andrdquo; So began the pledge that many home front men took at the outset of World War II when they went to work in the factories, fields, and mines while their compatriots fought in the battlefields of Europe and on the bloody beaches of the Pacific. The male experience of working and living in wartime America is rarely examined, but the story of men like these provides a crucial counter-narrative to the national story of Rosie the Riveter and GI Joe that dominates scholarly and popular discussions of World War II.
In Meet Joe Copper, Matthew L. Basso describes the formation of a powerful, white, working-class masculine ideology in the decades prior to the war, and shows how it thrivedandmdash;on the job, in the community, and through union politics. Basso recalls for us the practices and beliefs of the first- and second-generation immigrant copper workers of Montana while advancing the historical conversation on gender, class, and the formation of a white ethnic racial identity. Meet Joe Copper provides a context for our ideas of postwar masculinity and whiteness and finally returns the men of the home front to our reckoning of the Greatest Generation and the New Deal era.
Review
andldquo;Matthew L. Bassoandrsquo;s evidence and interpretations regarding the significance of masculinity to the values, actions, and concerns of working class civilian men in Montanaandrsquo;s copper industry substantially revise our understandings of the middle decades of the twentieth century.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Rosie the Riveter, move over! Here comes Joe Copper in a theoretically sophisticated, widely researched, and ever-engaging history that uncovers the making of gender and race. In this powerful labor and community history of the mines and smelters, Italian, Croatian, and Irish men struggled with management over the hiring of nonmales and nonwhites as much as over their workload and pay. After Matthew L. Basso, andlsquo;the greatest generationandrsquo; must include home front menandmdash;their representations as well as actions, their subjectivities along with their prejudices. World War II will never look the same again.andrdquo;
Review
and#8220;The best book of the history of U.S. labor, and one of the best on masculinity, to appear in years.and#8221;
Review
"This well-written book centers on the historical experiences of workers, women, and people of color in a regional home-front context during WW II. As such, it meets the need for more scholarship on the home front during the war. Recent trends in US social history regarding the relationship between identity formation and relations of power greatly influence the book. Basso describes the formation of a powerful, white, working-class masculine ideology in the decades prior to WWII, and shows how it thrived on the job, in the community, and through union politics. Basso recalls the practices and beliefs of the first- and second-generation immigrant copper workers of Montana while advancing the historical conversation on gender, class, and the formation of a white ethnic racial identity."
Review
and#8220;A sophisticated, ambitious, well-written book.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Meet Joe Copper provides a rich glimpse into the formation of masculinity in a time and place where white male prerogative came under challenge at local, state, and national levels. Bassoand#8217;s analysis of the mining communities of Montana displays the interaction of race and gender and charts competing elements that formed a mutating masculinity.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Meet Joe Copper makes an important contribution to our understanding of the home front experience in the United States during World War II by showing that the received national narrative was more complex than commonly believed, at least in some places and some industries.and#8221;
Review
andldquo;Meet Joe Copper is an impressively detailed labor history that engages with recent theory about whiteness and masculinity. Its importance to American mining history is clear; although women on the home front have gained much attention in popular narratives about WWII, seldom has anyone analyzed male production workers like Montanaandrsquo;s andlsquo;copper commandos.andrsquo; . . . Basso manages to craft a story that is both careful in its attention to detail and sweeping in its implications.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Basso successfully traces a narrative of World War II gender and race politics that runs contrary to the national narrative and demonstrates that wartime and postwar power relations were rooted in decades-old gender and racial-ethnic hierarchies.andrdquo;
About the Author
Matthew L. Basso is assistant professor of history and gender studies at the University of Utah. He is editor of Men at Work: Rediscovering Depression-Era Stories from the Federal Writers' Project and coeditor of Across the Great Divide: Cultures of Manhood in the American West.
Table of Contents
List of IllustrationsAcknowledgments
INTRODUCTION / GI Joe and Rosie the Riveter, Meet Joe Copper!
PART I: WHITE LABOR, 1882and#8211;1940
ONE / Butte: and#8220;Only White Men and Dagoesand#8221;
TWO / Black Eagle: Immigrantsand#8217; Bond
THREE / Anaconda: and#8220;Husky Smeltermenand#8221; and and#8220;Company Boysand#8221;
PART II: COPPER MEN AND THE CHALLENGES OF THE EARLY WAR HOME FRONT
FOUR / Redrafting Masculinity: Breadwinners, Shirkers, or and#8220;Soldiers of Productionand#8221;
FIVE / The Emerging Labor Shortage: Independent Masculinity, Patriotic Demands, and the Threat of New Workers
PART III: MAKING THE HOME FRONT SOCIAL ORDER
SIX / Butte, 1942: White Men, Black Soldier-Miners, and the Limits of Popular Front Interracialism
SEVEN / Black Eagle, 1943: Home Front Servicemen, Women Workers, and the Maintenance of Immigrant Masculinity
EIGHT / Anaconda, 1944: White Women, Men of Color, and Cross-Class White Male Solidarity
CONCLUSION / The Man in the Blue-Collar Shirt: The Working Class and Postwar Masculinity
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Index