The Middling Sorts Explorations in the History of the American Middle Class

According to our national myth, all Americans are "middle class," but rarely has such a widely-used term been so poorly defined. Do we identify the middle class by a house in the suburbs, a white collar job, or a political outlook that is right-of-center? Or is the middle class in fact more complex?

In an effort to bring greater clarity to our understanding of what it means to be middle class, the scholars assembled in "The Middling Sorts" approach the concept as a group of culturally contested ideas, practices, and things. Whether they focus on the antebellum middle class, male corporate culture, or the subtle resistance of Cold War housewives, the contributors - who are among the hottest social and cultural historians of the United States at work today - provide much-needed context to the subject of class in America.

According to their national myth, all Americans are "middle class," but rarely has such a widely-used term been so poorly defined. These fascinating essays provide much-needed context to the subject of class in America.

Introduction, Burton Bledstein. MIDDLING SORTS. The Social Consequences of American Revolutionary Ideals in the Early Republic, Joyce Appleby. Master Mechanics and the Market Revolution in the Antebellum North, Bruce Laurie. MORAL MARKETS. Charitable Calculations: Fancywork, Charity and the Culture of the Sentimental Market,Elizabeth White. Bringing Up Yankees: The CIvil War and the Moral Education of Middle Class Children, James Marten. RELIGIOUS LIFE. Henry Ward Beecher and the Persuasive Power of the Middle Class, Debby Applegate. Scientific Church Music and the Making of the American Middle Class, John Kilsdonk. How the Therapeutic Ethos Played in Peoria, Andrew Reiser. MATERIAL CULTURE. Cartes de Visite Portrait Photographs and the Culture of Class Formation, Andrea Volpe. Public Exposure: MIddle-Class Material Culture at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, Marina Moscowitz. The RIse of the Realtor: Professionalism, Gender and Middle CLass Identity, Jeffrey Hornstein. BUSINESS CAREERS. Obstacles to History? Modernization and the Lower-Middle Class in Chicago, 1900-1940, Andrew Cohen. The Corporate Reconstruction of American Manhood, Clark Davis. RACE AND COMMUNITY. The Rising Tide of Youth: Chicago's Wonder Books and the New Black Middle Class, Adam Green. Middle Class Politics in the Postwar Era, Sylvie Murray. WHY CLASS CONTINUES TO COUNT. Propertied of a Different Kind: Bourgeoisie and Lower Middle Class in the Nineteenth-Century United States, Robert Johnston.

Robert Johnston is Assistant Professor of History at Yale. Burton Bledstein is Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and the author of The Culture of Professionalism.