Production of Difference

Race and the Management of Labor in U.S. History
1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-0-19-973975-2
Verlag: OUP US

Buch, Englisch, 296 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 668 g

In 1907, pioneering labor historian and economist John Commons argued that US management had shown just one "symptom of originality," namely "playing one race against the other."

In this eye-opening book, David Roediger and Elizabeth Esch offer a radically new way of understanding the history of management in the United States, placing race, migration, and empire at the center of what has sometimes been narrowly seen as a search for efficiency and economy. Ranging from the antebellum period to the coming of the Great Depression, the book examines the extensive literature slave masters produced on how to manage and "develop" slaves; explores what was perhaps the
greatest managerial feat in U.S. history, the building of the transcontinental railroad, which pitted Chinese and Irish work gangs against each other; and concludes by looking at how these strategies survive today in the management of hard, low-paying, dangerous jobs in agriculture, military support, and
meatpacking. Roediger and Esch let us see afresh what slaves, immigrants, and all working people were up against as the objects of managerial control. Managers explicitly ranked racial groups, both in terms of which labor they were best suited for and their relative value compared to others. The authors show how whites relied on such alleged racial knowledge to manage and believed that the "lesser races" could only benefit from their tutelage. These views wove together managerial strategies and
white supremacy not only ideologically but practically, every day at workplaces. Even in factories governed by scientific management, the impulse to play races against each other, and to slot workers into jobs categorized by race, constituted powerful management tools used to enforce discipline,
lower wages, keep workers on dangerous jobs, and undermine solidarity.
Painstakingly researched and brilliantly argued, The Production of Difference will revolutionize the history of labor and race in the United States.

Zielgruppe

Those interested in the history of race, labor, management, and transnational history

Autoren/Hrsg.

Roediger, David R.

Esch, Elizabeth D.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Minderheiten, Interkulturelle & Multikulturelle Fragen
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Soziologie von Migranten und Minderheiten
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein Arbeitsmarkt

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments
Introduction Race in the History of U.S. Management: An Introduction
Part I Facing South
Ch 1 Settling on Slavery: The Antebellum South and the Origins of U.S. Race Management
Ch 2 Managing Contradictions and Managing a Race: The Slave as Asset and Animal
Part II Facing West
Ch 3 Infrastructure, Internal Expansion, and Race Management
Ch 4 The Worlds of U.S. Race Management
Part III Changing the Whole Story
Ch 5 Scientific Management, Racial Science, and the Studied Unstudiedness of Race Management
Ch 6 The Crisis and Concentration of Race Management: Immigrant Rebellion, Immigrant Restruction, and Turns to Black and Mexican Labor
Notes
Index

Über Autor(innen)

David R. Roediger is Babcock Professor of History, University of Illinois, Champagne-Urbana, and the author of How Race Survived U.S. History and The Wages of Whiteness, among other titles.
Elizabeth D. Esch is Assistant Professor of History at Barnard College.