White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America

Describe the association between types of land and people. Why is this relationship significant?

How do American founders, such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, display contradictions in their principles and beliefs? Do later American politicians harbor similar contradictions?

How does Isenberg support her argument about the inheritability of class status? How does this status, as she describes it, compare to race?

Historically, how have wealthy Southern politicians used race to maintain a class hierarchy? Is there any parallel with those efforts and the democracy of manners that Isenberg attributes to Andrew Jackson and Donald Trump? Explain.

How did the white underclass come to have a regional association with the South? Does that regional association still exist?

What do the negative labels of the white underclass have in common? What is the cumulative effect of such labeling of people?

Why have progressive Southern politicians been unable to shake the stereotypes associated with the white underclass? Why is that inability significant? What does it say about the class structure in the US?

In the 21st century, how have members of the white underclass sought to embrace and redefine their identity? How successful have such efforts to define this class more positively been?