David Roediger The Wages Of Whiteness Summary

David Roediger’s The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class, provides the answer to the question of why members of the White working class racially distinguished themselves from their Black counterparts in Antebellum America through their “whiteness”. Through new labor history and analysis of the “prehistory” of the White worker, after the American Revolution, continuing to the end of the American Civil War, Roediger argues that this disassociation and racist mindset evolved due to several factors. (21) Throughout his book, Roediger argues that themes of republicanism, socio-economic status, political power, and even ethnicity play large roles in the creation of the working class. These factors are the basis

of his thesis which explains that this racism developed as a reflection of the white working-class’ battle to not become slaves themselves.
Beginning with the “prehistory” of the worker after the American Revolution, Roediger argues that the American Revolution created a sense of pride among the working class which did not exist prior.

These workers “connected their freedom and their work” which created a gap in status over slaves and even freed slaves as they were considered the “antithesis of republican citizens” because of their inability to defend themselves. (33&36) Roediger quotes Franklin and Jefferson in their written articles which debate this thinking from an artisan point of view, but it was not fully accepted en masse. This mindset expediated the formation of white working-class racism who would continue to separate themselves from Blacks through use of

language.
Roediger argues that the language the working class used to describe themselves was often to separate themselves from Black slaves. The term ‘hireling’ is used in Francis Scott Key’s ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ is an example of such language. ‘Hireling’ was of negative connotation at the time and other terms such as ‘white worker’ or ‘free laborer’ would soon replace it. It is important to note that Key included that word as a descriptor before the term was replaced. Eventually ‘master’ would be replaced by ‘boss’ as to further distance Whites from Black slavery. Even racial language changed during this time as the White working-class advanced, the Blacks were forced to stay behind. This caused the re-defining of race descriptors such as ‘coon’ which were originally “typically white” rural workers, to be a term used for Blacks. (98) A term which was even used by famous author Herman Melville who would ambiguously describe characters as ‘coon’ in works such as Moby Dick which helped it spread.
A major form of separation was entertainment and the use of entertainment to mock Blacks.

A popular form, in the-mid 19th century, was Minstrel theater. Through Minstrel theater, White working-class actors produced shows and variety acts in blackface which allowed to “displace white anxieties within the white population onto Blacks.” (100) During these acts, the focus was on Blacks, but White ethnicities such as the Irish and the Germans were slandered as well. Roediger establishes that the Irish “were not considered white” and had to establish themselves as White. (133) In order to do so, the Irish became anti-Black, which dumbfounded abolitionist Frederick Douglass because the Irish are “so relentlessly persecuted and oppressed on account of race and religion.” (137) Although counter-intuitive, the need to be integrated with ‘Whiteness’ took precedent, as it had with other members of the working-class and the only possible route to that was to be

anti-Black.
Roediger’s contribution to the historiography of new labor history is answering why the White working-class developed racism, not that it was inherited as many of his fellow new labor historians would argue. Roediger effectively conveys his argument through extremely detailed and well supported claims using American culture and language from sources such as newspapers, folk songs, magazines, articles and more. As a Marxist, his arguments seem to be skewed towards that mindset and he leaves out some important aspects such as other White European ethnicities, such as Slavs, Jews, Russians etc. and how they had to endure racism from the Anglo-Saxon nativists.