White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America
To America's founding fathers they were were called "manure" or "offscourings" a term for human faeces. They're as American as apple pie.
Louisiana State University professor Nancy Isenberg's new book, "White Trash, the 400 year untold history of class in America."
Crawford Kilian's review in today's (link is external)Tyee (link is external).
16th century England saw North America not as a source of wealth like Mexico and Peru, but as a dump. Colonization advocates like Richard Hakluyt (link is external) proposed exporting petty criminals, prostitutes and those who were simply poor, just to get them out of the way.
Hakluyt and his colleagues saw them as "manure," better exploited overseas than costing money in British jails. Their function would be to clear land and push the Aboriginals back. The survivors would breed new generations that could be impressed into the army and navy as cannon fodder.
...They were "squatters" and "crackers" (derived from the expression "crack a fart"). They were human waste, trash -- at best, compost to support worthier people.
Poor whites had formed a kind of slave class in the early years of the colonies, before Africans largely displaced them. They weren't even considered much use. Their children were malnourished and sick. Today we would call them stunted, kept from full physical and intellectual growth by lack of food.
The idea of being "equal" to such people was unthinkable to middle class and landowning colonists. In an economy based on farming, they thought of poor whites (and blacks) as livestock.
"Breeding" applied to the ruling class as well. A "gentleman of breeding" was innately superior to most people, and such gentlemen sought wives from "good families" to ensure the continued superiority of future generations. Women of all classes and races were considered breeders, whose duty was to produce as many children as possible. Black women would breed more slaves. Poor whites would breed more pioneers, to drive Aboriginal people further west and clear the land for the real masters and their numerous superior children.
The Founding Fathers believed in class and race divisions as sincerely as anyone. Equally sincerely, they believed their own class had been bred to rule; "democracy" was a dirty word. Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the American colonies' Declaration of Independence, supported a vague ideal of "yeomen" farmers, free whites who would support their families on their own land, fight the wars of the ruling class, but never challenge their rulers.
The reality, of course, was a handful of great landowners employing a landless class of poor whites, and not a yeoman in sight. (The great 18th century criticism of slavery was that it undercut poor whites' willingness to do the same work done by slaves.)
The concept of inbred superiority and inferiority persisted through the 19th century, through waves of immigration, a civil war, expansion to the Pacific and rapid technological change.
Democracy only seemed to prove the concept: when landless white males finally got the vote in the first decades of the 19th century, they elected one of their own -- Andrew Jackson, a violent man with little respect for the laws and institutions the Founding Fathers had established.
Southern slave owners faced their own "white trash" problem when they seceded from the Union to protect their "peculiar institution." Landless whites saw little reason to fight for the rich when they had nothing. The Confederate government even offered a tax break for first-time slave purchasers, to give poor whites a stake in the struggle.
Unsurprisingly, many American whites were early adopters of Darwinian evolution, which they saw as survival of the fittest. They also liked the idea of the Anglo-Saxons as the fittest of them all, destined to rule over everyone else.
Educated whites therefore welcomed the idea of eugenics, the idea of breeding the best and brightest. Even the U.S. Supreme Court liked the idea, and eugenics laws remained on the books in the U.S. and Canada until well into the second half of the 20th century.
As Lyndon B. Johnson once observed (link is external), "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
To America's founding fathers they were were called "manure" or "offscourings" a term for human faeces. They're as American as apple pie.
Louisiana State University professor Nancy Isenberg's new book, "White Trash, the 400 year untold history of class in America."
Crawford Kilian's review in today's (link is external)Tyee (link is external).
16th century England saw North America not as a source of wealth like Mexico and Peru, but as a dump. Colonization advocates like Richard Hakluyt (link is external) proposed exporting petty criminals, prostitutes and those who were simply poor, just to get them out of the way.
Hakluyt and his colleagues saw them as "manure," better exploited overseas than costing money in British jails. Their function would be to clear land and push the Aboriginals back. The survivors would breed new generations that could be impressed into the army and navy as cannon fodder.
...They were "squatters" and "crackers" (derived from the expression "crack a fart"). They were human waste, trash -- at best, compost to support worthier people.
Poor whites had formed a kind of slave class in the early years of the colonies, before Africans largely displaced them. They weren't even considered much use. Their children were malnourished and sick. Today we would call them stunted, kept from full physical and intellectual growth by lack of food.
The idea of being "equal" to such people was unthinkable to middle class and landowning colonists. In an economy based on farming, they thought of poor whites (and blacks) as livestock.
"Breeding" applied to the ruling class as well. A "gentleman of breeding" was innately superior to most people, and such gentlemen sought wives from "good families" to ensure the continued superiority of future generations. Women of all classes and races were considered breeders, whose duty was to produce as many children as possible. Black women would breed more slaves. Poor whites would breed more pioneers, to drive Aboriginal people further west and clear the land for the real masters and their numerous superior children.
The Founding Fathers believed in class and race divisions as sincerely as anyone. Equally sincerely, they believed their own class had been bred to rule; "democracy" was a dirty word. Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the American colonies' Declaration of Independence, supported a vague ideal of "yeomen" farmers, free whites who would support their families on their own land, fight the wars of the ruling class, but never challenge their rulers.
The reality, of course, was a handful of great landowners employing a landless class of poor whites, and not a yeoman in sight. (The great 18th century criticism of slavery was that it undercut poor whites' willingness to do the same work done by slaves.)
The concept of inbred superiority and inferiority persisted through the 19th century, through waves of immigration, a civil war, expansion to the Pacific and rapid technological change.
Democracy only seemed to prove the concept: when landless white males finally got the vote in the first decades of the 19th century, they elected one of their own -- Andrew Jackson, a violent man with little respect for the laws and institutions the Founding Fathers had established.
Southern slave owners faced their own "white trash" problem when they seceded from the Union to protect their "peculiar institution." Landless whites saw little reason to fight for the rich when they had nothing. The Confederate government even offered a tax break for first-time slave purchasers, to give poor whites a stake in the struggle.
Unsurprisingly, many American whites were early adopters of Darwinian evolution, which they saw as survival of the fittest. They also liked the idea of the Anglo-Saxons as the fittest of them all, destined to rule over everyone else.
Educated whites therefore welcomed the idea of eugenics, the idea of breeding the best and brightest. Even the U.S. Supreme Court liked the idea, and eugenics laws remained on the books in the U.S. and Canada until well into the second half of the 20th century.
As Lyndon B. Johnson once observed (link is external), "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
