This dissertation asks: what has happened to the children and grandchildren of former industrial workers, those who came of age in the shadow of industrial ruination in the Rust Belt? It draws on 105 interviews with working-class descendants who grew up in or near the Mon Valley in Pennsylvania, to explore how those descendants engage with industrial ruins. For most, the ruins recalled the breakdown of the employer-employee social contract, a sense of betrayed tradition, and the current (abysmal) state of affairs for the working class. Most advocate for the destruction of the ruins, as the loss and failure embodied by industrial ruination acts as a trap, imprisoning them in the past. Their attempts to build a new working-class identity require letting go of industrial work and the memories of the lost past. For a wider range of perspectives, two other groups of descendants were interviewed—fifteen arsonists and four cultural producers (novelists). The arsonists, who set fire to abandoned buildings, draw on regional fire symbolism and maintain their inherited association between work and identity as they struggle to resurrect industry. The novelists, who have all published in the vein of American Gothic literature, are seeking to reinterpret the past to serve the needs of the present, using supernatural figures alongside ruins in their novels in order to allow the main characters to identify, recover, and reinterpret a hidden past, which allows for mourning and the formulation of a new class identity. Each of these groups of descendants is cobbling together different versions of working-class identity, but all show that navigation of economic restructuring is a process of continual transformation. Descendants’ imaginative constructions are emblems not of solidity or permanence, but rather revision and reinvention.

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This study attempted to address the relative merits of the Weberian and Structural Marxist perspectives for explaining changes in the distribution of wage labor. The findings of the study suggested that many of the common assumptions held by Weberians and Structural Marxists concerning the effects of technological growth, increasing bureaucratization of production, increasing concentration of capital, and growth in the ranks of white-collar workers are not supported with data on manufacturing industries in the post-war era. Moreover, this study introduced collective action as an important determinant for explaining changes in the labor process and in the distribution of wage labor. The findings indicate that workers collective action enhances our understanding of labor process development and changes in wage labor. And, the findings suggest that the struggle between workers and capitalists is vital to understanding the process of capitalist development since World War II, contrary to the popularly held beliefs of many post-industrial theorists. / Ph. D.

Doctorat en sciences sociales, politiques et économiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

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published_or_final_version / Comparative Asian Studies / Master / Master of Arts

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the educational aspirations and future expectations of working class youth in an all-female Catholic high school. The ethnographic methods of primarily interviews and participant observation were used to discover the plans and the decision processes of approximately 21% of the senior class. Sixty girls were interviewed four weeks before graduation, as well as 20 teachers and administrators. Almost 100% of the sample (59) planned to attend college the following fall. While most institutions were competitive, only one planned to attend a most competitive, most selective institution, although several met the admissions requirements to do so. One-fourth of the sample planned to attend community colleges. The institution helped to facilitate the process of college entrance. However, many of the girls' decisions were determined before high school, and most were influenced by family members, most of whom had never attended a finished college. It was observed and reported by the girls that the all-female environment enhanced their educational experiences.

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1986 H43 / Master of Science / Family Economics