Working Class Race the Correlation

Working Class Race

The correlation between Eastern European late coming immigrants of the late 19th and early 20th century and that of newly freed blacks during reconstruction is frequently made by social scientists and others. Many conclude that the treatment of newly freed blacks and especially Irish immigrants was similar, as they were both seen as unending sources of low wage labor to fuel the industrial revolution in the new United States. It is for this reason that a comparison and contrast is appropriate for historical proposes between books that discuss each of the two cultures, as they were subjugated and disenfranchised from social and official rights and opportunities. In the work How the Irish Became White, Ignatiev discusses the issue of the grey areas of the social and political definition of "white" as it applied to new immigrants, and in particular the Irish while in the Wages of Whiteness Roediger dissects the same issues as they applied to blacks in the U.S. As well as others who were considered, not "white" in the culture.

Roediger analyzes personal as well as socio/political occurrences that altered the manner in which a person self-identified through his lifestyle or actions as white or "other." Ignatiev on the other hand looks more specifically at the issue as it applies to the Irish and specifically how it applies to the Irish participation in struggles to unify culture, at least in part by becoming activists for their own causes as well as many participating in abolitionist movements and other civil rights works. Each work clearly defines the character of the context of the period, but through differing resources and styles. Roediger begins his work with a personal "autobiographical" introduction that sets the tone of the work, and begins to define the context of culture and why one individual, namely the author would wish not to assimilate the "white" title but would rather embrace his own historical culture. Roediger on the other hand begins his work describing the introduction of Irish-Americans to causes that revolved around the abolition of slavery. He does this by describing the influence of an Irish political and social hero, who was an ardent abolitionist and how he and his followers attempted to persuade Irish-American's to come out against slavery and support causes that would abolish it.

One manner in which these two works can be compared is through analyzing the thesis of each. Though there are clearly more messages in these full length works each author set about trying to discuss main ideas revolving around the definition of "whiteness." As the title suggests the Wages of Whiteness seeks to look at race, in part within the context of labor,

This book will argue that working class formation and the systematic development of a sense of whiteness went hand in hand for the U.S. white working class. Nonetheless, the privileging of class over race is not always productive or meaningful. To set race within social formations is absolutely necessary, but to reduce race to class is damaging. (Roediger 1999, 8)

The power of this assessment is that the book can then be said to attempt to create a demonstrative contextual analysis of the manner in which the "other" was pressured by white society, politics and economic need to identify as "white." Roediger stresses that those who were the first to do so, contrary to their earlier leanings as ardent abolitionists did so under pressure to be accepted as part of the "white" working class. According to Roediger and Ignatiev the conflict between Lincoln and Douglas, in presidential campaigning brought the issue to bear for many Irish-American's (and their fellow Eastern European immigrants) as many were squarely aligned with the Democratic Party. The Democratic party being the party that was most insistent on the idea of "white" male as the dominant player in all things American in the U.S. At this time.

In some areas of the country, the Irish actually held a great deal of influence and power in the Democratic party, and though the Democratic candidate at the time was Douglas, a southern man, his nomination was rife with "all white" sentiment and his desire was to broaden the definition of white to include many of those who had been considered less than white prior to this era, excluding wholeheartedly the blacks before abolition. Lincoln on the other hand was a Republican, in a relatively new party that had greater aspirations for abolition and at least limited Black inclusion than the Democratic party. In a sense the early Irish (and general white working class) involvement in the Democratic party, as their representative party aligned them with a party that had no desire to assimilate blacks but wished wholeheartedly to extend "white" influence to their class. This issue was doggedly against Irish beliefs regarding the abolition of black slavery that had been a part of their base culture, as is pointed out, well by Ignatiev in his work. His work exhibits this most in his early discussion regarding the Irish born movement to realign the Irish-American's with an abolition stance, despite their strong Democratic ties, but follows with many later discussions about this dividing issue as well. (1995, 7)

Establishing a broader sense of "white" to include the Irish was essential to Democratic alignment, even after the presidential election was over and even after the secession movement was overturned by the bloody civil war. According to many the only way the nation would survive, before and after the civil war was by an expansion of "white" identity, to include newer immigrants and though many were staunch abolitionists the idea of the black race being held apart was still a strong one. It is safe to say that the antebellum reconstruction era was even more troubled by the question of exclusion of the black race, but that the "white" race had been expanded to include the Irish and other latecomers, for the purpose of economic re-growth after the war. The Irish were broadly categorized as, "not slaves" and began a fight to be included in the growth and development of the nation. (Roediger 1999) (Ignatiev 1995)

Comparatively, both works discuss the same issues, regarding expansion of "white" identity while Roediger seems to be most effective thought not as approachable on the subject of resistance to an identification of "white" in favor of retaining revolutionary ideals, which included a more egalitarian sense of the polity. Roediger does this by opening his work with an autobiographical introduction that aligns the writer as a member of the resistant group, seeking by example dissolution of the extreme racial divide that had so dominated American during his formative years. He also does this by associating the Irish with resistance to dominant labeling through economics and faith in later portions of his very readable work. (Roediger 1999) Roediger offers a more academic voice, which demonstrates the manner in which even revolutionary ideals, such as the socialist Marxist leaning toward inclusion of the proletariat in all aspects of civil life dominated the development of what it meant to be "white" in America. (Roediger 1999, 6)

Ignatiev and Roediger in fact agree in many ways, but Ignatiev tends to offer a more narrative account that makes the work more approachable. Utilizing sources that are demonstrative of individual ideals and broader social ideals, that weave together a narrative assessment of the transformation and broadening of white identity. Even his table of contents expresses the overview as one that will include many aspects of personal as well as communal issues, including, personal sentiment, work situations and even faith-based resistance to a mutually exclusive definition of the working class as the "white" working class. Ignatiev give a clear sense of the internal struggle that an Irish-American might have felt with regard to alignment with a party, a faith or even a workplace that was dominated by the expansion of "white" to include all but those who were most physically different than the European descendants. Roediger uses a broader set of evidence, that includes all those source bodies that Ignatiev uses but with the expansion of more secondary literature that explores the issue in retrospect. He pays particular attention to "Marxist" literature written in the U.S. that he states "oversimplifies" race and stresses the alignment of the working class as "white." (Roediger 1999, 6) Looking at the issue from this perspective is fruitful, in that the expansion of Marxist ideals into America, required an oversimplification of race, as for many the definition of "white" became a necessity that was difficult to talk about and therefore became lost in literature. There is also a clear sense of this message in Ignatiev's work, and especially the chapter entitled "They Swung Their Picks," which is a narrative expression of the Marxist ideal as it was translated into the racially heated American narrative. (1995, 92-123)