TY - BOOK AU - Metzgar,J. TI - Bridging the divide: Working-class culture in a middle-class society SN - 9781501760334 U1 - 305.5620973 21 PY - 2021/// CY - Ithaca [New York] PB - Cornell University Press KW - Working class KW - Social aspects KW - United States KW - Class consciousness KW - Social conditions KW - Middle class KW - Occupations KW - Professions N1 - Includes bibliographical references and index; Introduction: achieving mediocrity -- What was glorious about the glorious 30? -- The rise of professional middle-class labor -- Working-class agency in place -- "At least we ought to be able to" -- There is a genuine working-class culture -- Categorical differences in class cultures -- Ceding control to gain control -- Taking it and living in the moments -- Working-class realism -- Epilogue: two good class cultures N2 - Abstract This book attempts to determine the differences between working-class and middle-class cultures in the United States. The book's author writes as a now middle-class professional with a working-class upbringing, explaining the various ways the two cultures conflict and complement each other, illustrated by his own lived experiences. Set in a historical framework that reflects on how both class cultures developed, adapted, and survived through decades of historical circumstances, the book challenges professional middle-class views of both the working-class and themselves. In the end, the author argues for the creation of a cross-class coalition of what he calls “standard-issue professionals” with both hard-living and settled-living working people and outlines some policies that could help promote such a unification if the two groups had a better understanding of their differences and how to use those differences to their advantage. The book mixes personal stories and theoretical concepts to give us a compelling look inside the current complex position of the working-class in American culture and a view of what it could be in the future UR - https://academic.oup.com/book/42248 ER -