White Trash By Nancy Isenber? PDF Free Download

From the aristocracy of John Rolfe and Pocahontas to the mud-eaters of the American West and the backcountry vagabonds of reality TV, White Trash By Nancy Isenber? PDF Free Download is a remarkable account of the way that poor whites have been viewed throughout America’s history. Nancy Isenberg chronicles the disdain that the upper classes have held for the lower, and shows how this has given rise to a persistent class hierarchy in American life.

From its beginnings, the idea of a poor white class was often entangled with ideas of racial inferiority. Isenberg examines how colonial settlers compared sun-browned backcountry wanderers to the savage Indian and how after slavery, politicians worried that the American “breed” would be ruined by blacks. She also considers the influence of eugenicists who believed that the innate inferiority of certain groups could be corrected by a calculated campaign of sexual selection.

By the mid-20th century, attitudes toward poor whites began to change. A generation of progressive historians reinterpreted American history, and W.E.B. Du Bois recast the Civil War as a battle over economic power between races. But while the idea of a poor white class diminished, it never disappeared.

During this period, white trash became part of popular culture. Sitcoms like Gomer Pyle and The Beverly Hillbillies, and movies such as Deliverance and To Kill a Mockingbird, all presented a pejorative view of the inbred, ignorant, immoral southern redneck. Yet, as Isenberg reveals, even as the white poor were depicted with ridicule and contempt, scientific evidence proved that poverty was not genetic in origin.