White Man’s Work

“Jewell’s concise and accessible prose style achieves a rare feat – making
potentially complex themes comprehensible without sacrificing any academic rigour . . . . A cautionary study on the way in which dominant cultures posses the power of narrative-creation in ways that can exclude minority groups from social and economic mobility. Jewell’s book also vividly demonstrates how such attitudes and approaches end up creating boundaries that restrict social change, and reinforce the dominance of one group at the expense of others – a pattern that can have consequences generations into the future.”—Ethnic & Racial Studies

“Jewell examines well how race and class interacted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in three American cities . . . . illustrates how larger ideas about race were illustrated in the newspaper coverage of specific incidents and appointments. The concepts are well analyzed, put into historical context, and discussed in terms of the larger historiographical record.” —CHOICE

“An important book about White racial anxieties and perceptions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. . . . [that] provides key insights about the intersections of race, place, and class. . . . [S]cholars interested in race, class, and the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries will find much value in this book.”—North Carolina Historical Review

“Joseph O. Jewell tackles a topic that one would not be faulted for considering taboo to discuss in public—namely, the ramifications of economic inequality in a society still grappling with deep and pervasive racial divisions . . . [and] exposes this dynamic in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates both history and sociology.”—Journal of Southern History

“The question at the heart Joseph O. Jewell’s White Man’s Work [is] how new patterns of social mobility affected the positioning of racial boundaries. Namely, how persistent were middle-class whites in erecting boundaries to social mobility for non-white peoples?”—The Register

“People need this book; at a time when as a nation there is more blending and blurring, people are holding on to white supremacy for many reasons. Jewell engagingly demonstrates how white middle-class people made efforts to sharpen racial lines, especially targeting men of color and mixed-race men during the late nineteenth century.”—Elizabeth Higginbotham, University of Delaware

“Jewell weaves together theory and historical narrative, using stories and scandals to illustrate the connection between the brightening and blurring of racial boundaries and the category of the 'middle class' in the late nineteenth century. Each chapter is well written and argued, full of narrative color and detail. This lively and readable text makes a significant contribution to important discussions in sociology and American history.” —Brian Donovan, University of Kansas