Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Robber Barons and Wretched Refuse: Ethnic and Class Dynamics During the Era of American Industrialization

Robber Barons and Wretched Refuse: Ethnic and Class Dynamics During the Era of American Industrialization

Zeidel, Robert F.

Hardcover

19th Century United States HistoryPoverty & Social WorkSocial Movements

ISBN10: 1501748319
ISBN13: 9781501748318
Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press
Published: Apr 15 2020
Pages: 306
Weight: 1.33
Height: 0.81 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

Robber Barons and Wretched Refuse explores the connection between the so-called robber barons who led American big businesses during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era and the immigrants who composed many of their workforces. As Robert F. Zeidel argues, attribution of industrial-era class conflict to an alien presence supplements nativism--a sociocultural negativity toward foreign-born residents--as a reason for Americans' dislike and distrust of immigrants. And in the era of American industrialization, employers both relied on immigrants to meet their growing labor needs and blamed them for the frequently violent workplace contentions of the time.

Through a sweeping narrative, Zeidel uncovers the connection of immigrants to radical isms that gave rise to widespread notions of alien subversives whose presence threatened America's domestic tranquility and the well-being of its residents. Employers, rather than looking at their own practices for causes of workplace conflict, wontedly attributed strikes and other unrest to aliens who either spread pernicious foreign doctrines or fell victim to their siren messages. These characterizations transcended nationality or ethnic group, applying at different times to all foreign-born workers.

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