Synopses & Reviews
A sweeping social history of almost four hundred years of competition, cooperation, and exclusion.
In a New World built on a foundation of tobacco, rice, timber, and peas, human labor was the key to wealth, and colonists knew that most labor was "naturally" unfree. Red, white, and black men, women, and children could all expect "hard usage" by masters, husbands, and fathers. As the wilderness was cultivated and economies stabilized, however, life would get better -- for some.
American Work is the epic, tragic story of how blacks were excluded from significant social transformations in American history -- from bound to free labor, from farm work to factory work, from a blue-collar to a white-collar economy. Meanwhile whites have characterized blacks simultaneously as lazy and as ruthless competitors for their jobs.
Based on an astounding breadth and depth of research, full of human drama and detail, American Work is a major contribution to the history of race and labor in the United States.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 489-528) and index.