The conception of British West Indian societies as structured into a hierarchy based on skin color is firmly embedded in the scholarly literature and the popular mind, as is the assumption that the free colored became the "brown middle class." Using a wide variety of archival documents, as well as a series of family histories, this study argues that these assumptions both misinterpret the relation between class and skin color, and obscure the changing nature and membership of each class. It traces the emergence of two middle classes in Antigua, the first of which developed after emancipation in 1834 and lasted until the mid-1890s, and the second of which developed in the late nineteenth century and lasted until the arrival of the U.S. armed forces to build a base in 1940. Part 1, "Sugar and Empire," discusses the political economy of sugar and the planter class that controlled it as both developed from colonization until the late 1890s. It outlines the problems of sugar production and labor control, which culminated in a major economic, political, and social crisis in the mid-1890s, and describes the negotiations that led to the arrival of outside capital to take control of the sugar industry. Part 2, "The Class Called Coloured, 1834-1900," begins with a discussion of the free colored in Antigua and then uses a sample of families to trace the emergence and decline of the "first" middle class, which had its roots in the free colored population. Part 3, "Arrivance, 1900-1940," turns to an analysis of the "second" middle class, tracing a sample of families from their roots in the nineteenth century to their ascent into the middle class in the beginning of the twentieth. It describes their education, their economic and occupational roles, their politics, and their social life. It ends with a discussion of the demise of this class, by-passed by the working-class-led trade unions and disoriented by the social upheaval caused by the arrival of the American armed forces.

The history of Harlem as an epicenter of Black Culture can be traced to the late 1800s, with initial African American migrants to Harlem who were solidly middle and upper class. These migrants made the neighborhood their home, establishing businesses and investing in the community, but after the economic downturn of the 1970s and the rise in social problems, many fled. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, cities across the United States, including New York, experienced a resurgence. This resurgence in New York City did not exclude Harlem. Using multiple techniques: observation; informal, semi-structured, individual, and group interviews; spot observations; autoethnography; and archival research. This eleven-year study documents the lives of the Black Elite Who Chose to Stay in Harlem, reviewing the rationale behind their staying. Some factors included a sense of belonging, fleeing microaggressions, leveraging class status to confront macroaggressions, and maximizing the economic opportunity of moving to a prime undervalued asset. Engaging anthropology, Women’s studies, Black studies, and American studies, this study defines elites through the use of case studies and responses from the participants.

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What kinds of sensory adjustments allowed human beings to industrialize? If we accept Lewis Mumford's proposition that the era of coal, iron and carbon fuel production was accompanied by a broad scale "starvation of the senses" (Mumford 1963 [1934], 180), then what is the material evidence of this sensory suppression or deferral? What is the material culture of feeling -- or unfeeling -- that accompanied the arrival of the Anthropocene? One of the implications of this question is that the aesthetic and anaesthetic imperatives that escorted Americans into industrial life have simply continued in different forms, but without the belief in industrial 'progress' to give context or meaning. Social forms of industrialism endure within a void of purpose; this gives the imperative of anaesthetization renewed fuel as a buffer for the difficulties that accompany the ongoing environmental catastrophe. Historical and archaeological evidence collected during my recent investigations into the natural cement company town of Whiteport, New York, suggest that the aesthetic and anaesthetic origins of industrial society share a common source and destination in the world of dream, whereas the aesthetic impulse emerges from imagination and reverie and anaesthetic deferral is one of renunciation and self-preservation.