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

Derived from the Spanish for American Indian chieftain (44), caciques were to be the hereditary nobility of the original Carolina colony, per John Locke. Isenberg highlights the attempt to impose order on the colony and replicate the class structure of England (45).

Carpetbaggers were those Northerners who traveled to the South in the aftermath of the Civil War to take advantage of its weakened condition. Southern elites encouraged hatred of Yankee invaders (182) in an effort to retain the class hierarchy.

Clay eaters was one of many derogatory terms used to label the white underclass. They were said to eat dirt and were physically defective, with extended bellies and yellowish skin. The wealthier classes blamed such habits not on poverty and its accompanying malnutrition but on the victims of it. The practice of eating dirt or clay was common in many cultures as a means of sustenance.

Cracker was another derogatory term for the southern rural poor. The term was used to describe landless white people, who were accused of being indolent, immoral, and aggressive. It connoted that someone was crack-brained or foolish.

Popular in the early 20th century, the pseudo-science of eugenics compared human and animal breeding. It sought to encourage breeding of the wealthier classes and sterilize those deemed unfit to breed. Isenberg explains that poor white people were considered a different breed that had to be culled and limited (195).

Hillbillies was the name for the white underclass from mountainous regions, mainly in the South. It was a derogatory term that implied ignorance, aggressiveness, and inbreeding. Isenberg cites the negative depiction of the characters on Beverly Hillbillies as an example of this slur.

In the colonial era, many immigrants came to the Americas as indentured servants. They were obligated to work for masters for four to nine years and could be sold as chattel during that time. Isenberg argues that many of these servants later became the white underclass.

Derived from the German word for prince, landgraves were to be the hereditary nobility of the original Carolina colony, per John Locke. Isenberg highlights the attempt to impose order on the colony and replicate the class structure of England (45).

In Locke’s recommended constitution for Carolina, leet-men were to be a “unique servant class, ranked above slaves but below freemen” (45). They and their children were bound to serve their master. Isenberg notes the significance of the master’s ownership of progeny.

Lubbers was yet another derogatory label for the white underclass. They were said to be lazy people with dull minds who lived in filth. Isenberg demonstrates that a range of derogatory labels boiled down to the same stereotypical description of the white poor.

Morons were said to be more intelligent than idiots and, therefore, more dangerous, according to the advocates of eugenics in the early 20th century. Such females had to be stopped from breeding and sterilized. Poor white women were targeted in this campaign.

Mudsill was the derogatory name that Southern elites used to describe the white working class of the North. They were said to be a “foul collection of urban roughs, prairie dirt farmers, greasy mechanics, [and] unwashed immigrants” (157). However, Northern leaders embraced the label and celebrated mudsill democracy over Southern slavery.

Primogeniture refers to the legal system in which land must pass in its entirety to the oldest male heir. Jefferson lobbied to end this system in Virginia, but farmers then sold their lands to large planters. Its eradication did not have the intended effect of creating more landed farmers.

Rednecks was once a derogatory term for poor Southern white people, emphasizing their ignorance and racism. Isenberg notes that the term received something of a makeover in the late-20th and early-21st centuries, but it still has negative connotations among the wealthier classes. The term originated in the Boer War when British soldiers developed sunburned necks; later, white Southerners working in the fields would also have red necks.

A scalawag was a white Southerner who associated with the Republican party in the aftermath of the Civil War. The Southern elite hurled this demeaning term at these people and considered them traitors. As Isenberg explains, the last thing Southern elites wanted was an alliance between Black and white poor people.

Squatters were landless migrants who settled on land that they did not own. “They lived off the grid, rarely attended school or joined a church, and remained a potent symbol of poverty” (107). Such poor kept being driven farther from civilization, and their lack of land ownership marked them as a permanent underclass.

Waste people was one of the earliest terms used to describe the poor or underclass. They were considered expendable; the wealthy in England sought to expel this poor class to the wastelands of the Americas, where they were literally worked to death.