Nancy Isenberg White Trash Summary

White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America serves as an uncompromising and expansive attack on mythmaking in American culture. The author, Nancy Isenberg, a professor of history at Louisiana State University, retraces a story that serves as a bracing reminder of the persistent contempt for the white underclass. Isenberg (2016) states that, “if slavery is America’s original sin, maybe class is it’s hidden one.” This book is a historical look at the white poor, which have been with America in various pretenses over the last 400 years.

Her book begins in colonial America—where excess poor people were sent by the British to form what Richard Hakluyt envisioned as “one giant workhouse” (MacGillis, 2016). In the all the original

colonies, the upper class extended the British system of class hierarchy with the introduction of chattel slavery. From the beginning, the text argues that a permanent underclass of whites was essential to the new ruling class. It was common for colonies to have laws that required one white servant for every six slaves purchased (MacGillis, 2016). This white servant class was adopted as a racial and class barrier between the slaves and landed elites.
According to Isenberg’s research the term white trash made its first appearance in print as early as 1821.

Quoting directly from texts of founding fathers and prominent political figures, their writings show that “upper class” citizens often claimed that poor whites in the South had sunk to such a miserable level that “bad blood and vulgar breeding” had turned them into an irredeemable “notorious race.” Moving forward, Isenberg talks about how the southern plantocracy’s approach to poor whites differed from those of the northern elites. The Southern ruling class chose to intentionally keep the lower class of whites “utterly ignorant” (Isenberg, 2016). She also exhibits how the lives of poor whites brought them into opposition with the Confederacy. This often occurred through army desertion, conspiracies with slaves in isolated communities, and even the establishment of the Free State of Jones in Mississippi (MacGillis,

2016).
In addition to discussing class and socioeconomic status from a cultural perspective, she also ties “white trash,” with politics and famous political figures.

The book chronicles how at various moments, politicians (such as Davy Crockett and Andrew Jackson) turned humble roots into a mark of “backwoodsman” authenticity in an attempt to sympathize with the common man. As Isenberg’s account moves into the middle of the 20th century, she offers an interesting account of something as simple as the concept of trailer parks. These structures were built to provide housing for war-industry workers; however, these communities also gave rise to a completely new and disparaging stereotype: trailer trash. She also captures the continued and unconscious judgmental depictions of poor southern whites during the civil-rights era. In addition, she shows how, starting in the 1970s, there began to be a new fixation on ethnic heritage, which instilled a semi-ironic pride in “redneck” identity (Isenberg, 2016). By the time her book reaches the late 20th century, though, the social and economic texture begins to fade way. Instead, Isenberg opens a discussion on representations of poor whites in pop culture and celebrity politics and offers some trite commentary on the current political

scene.
While this book covers a wide range of history spanning 400 years, I would have liked Isenberg to make more regional distinctions within the white lower class. At the beginning of the book she does a good job of focusing on states as they were established in the Union, however as history continues to unfold, her focus becomes increasingly focused on the Southern states. In an effort to fully discuss the dynamic between poor whites and enslaved African Americans it’s understandable on why Isenberg zeroed in on the white underclass in and near slaveholding states. I just wish she had explained her decision and included a discussion of what implications might arise from telling history from that specific lens.
Additionally, I believe there was room for a more in depth discussion on the differences between poor whites in the Deep South and those living elsewhere. At points, she mentions “hillbilly” whites (aka “mountaineers”) as a subset of her white underclass. However, in other parts of the book she makes it sound as if all poor whites lived with blacks in their midst and, when the Civil War came, went off with varying degrees of enthusiasm to fight to maintain their superiority over those blacks. Isenberg also makes it clear to the reader that she does not buy the idea, of a separate cohort of “Scots-Irish” — hard-drinking, scrapping brawlers from the “borderlands” of Scotland, northern Ireland, and northern England that settled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. At times it became a little hard to follow exactly what geographical location Isenberg was talking about.
I would be interested to see research continued where this book left off. There was a lot of discussion about poor white Americans during this election cycle, much of what was said about them in 2016 has been echoed across America for the past 400 years. Additionally, since I’ve lived in Appalachia since 2012, I found Isenberg’s discussion of them interesting and somewhat informative. I think it also offered some historical background to the actions that we’re seeing today, especially in the political context. In Appalachia, homogeneity, along with the region’s democratic tradition, helps explain why white voters there took so much longer to flip from Democrat to Republican than in the Deep South. This does not mean that racism is absent in these areas, but it suggests that the racism is fueled as much by suspicion of the “other” as it is from firsthand experience of blacks and competition with them. It would also suggest that political sentiment on issues such as welfare and crime isn’t as racially motivated as many liberal analysts assume.
The main reason I picked this book up was because as a first-generation college student, I have always been fascinated by the role of socioeconomic status, as well as the role it plays within higher education. While this book doesn’t offer a direct line to colleges and working with students from differing economic backgrounds, it provides an important framework of facts about how classism was established in America. I believe that as a para-professional it is important to take time to read about ideas and topics that interest you, both inside and beyond student affairs. Fortunately, this book allowed me to mix pleasure reading with my professional interests by providing loose connections to common themes.
Once I enter the professional world I hope to continue to make time for reading books, articles, and other publications. Reading has always been a passion of mine and I enjoy connecting common themes in the many books that I read. There is a movement on Appalachian’s campus titled the “First Generation Faculty and Staff Project,” and I want to connect with them to talk about research or books that they would recommend. Moving forward this book has inspired me to find more titles directly relating socioeconomic status to different theories and research in higher education.