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

A revered figure in American history, Jefferson is commonly associated with his authorship of the Declaration of Independence, which asserted natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all men. He is also credited with the founding of the University of Virginia and expanded the size of the US with the Louisiana Purchase. Isenberg exposes the class biases of Jefferson. Given his progressive beliefs in natural rights, equality, and education, Jefferson’s disdain for the underclass speaks to the pervasiveness of class bias.

Jefferson believed in the idea of a natural aristocracy of talent and hoped to have such figures in leadership. For that reason, he recommended public schooling and advocated for the most talented among the poor to be given a university education. However, very few of them would qualify, and the rest were deemed rubbish. Isenberg argues that Jefferson drew analogies between the layers of soil and class hierarchy. Those not among this elite were condemned to a life of toil. Although, Isenberg notes, Jefferson presented the US as a classless society when abroad, in his home state of Virginia, those without land could not vote or hold office. Perhaps Jefferson did not consider these individuals the same as the middle and upper classes viewing them as a breed apart. Part of his motivation for the Louisiana Purchase was to avoid the creation of a large class of urban poor people, as existed in England. A nation of small farmers, led by gentlemen planters, was his ideal. Those without land were invisible to him and other elites.

This first president from the West, Jackson embodied many of the stereotypical traits associated with the white underclass. He had a reputation for violence, not simply as a successful general but in executions of his own troops. Additionally, he was crass, vengeful, racist, and was accused of sexual deviance. Because his wife was not technically divorced when he married her, Jackson was said to be an adulterer. The negative treatment of his wife, who died before he moved into the White House, enraged Jackson and caused him to hold much of the Washington elite in contempt. He enjoyed behaving in ways that bucked custom and outraged the elite. For these reasons, the white underclass loved Jackson. However, Jackson did not advance the interests of the poor. He did not fight for universal suffrage, for example. Isenberg uses Jackson to identify a pattern in American politics. Americans demand only a democracy of manners, not substantive economic change. Therefore, they want their leaders to act as they do, but they pay little attention to policies. In the preface, Isenberg identifies Donald Trump as a modern example of another leader who benefitted from this type of politics.

Isenberg additionally highlights the significance of Jackson’s western origins. England sent its poor to the American colonies to be rid of them. Similarly, the original colonies began to send their unwanted and poor westward. This class continued to be associated with uncultivated land and distance from civilization. Although Jackson was not poor, he would never escape his roots in the West. That pattern would also repeat itself later for presidents from rural origins, especially Southern ones after the Civil War.

The political leader of the Confederacy, Davis called the Northern working class mudsills and claimed that the white poor people in the South did not have to do demeaning work because the South had slaves to do that work. However, the white underclass in the South lived in dire poverty, and it was a difficult sell for the Confederacy to enlist them to fight. As a result, many of them deserted. Through Davis, Isenberg introduces the pattern of Southern politics for the following century. For the Southern elite, the Civil War was fought to preserve a racial and class hierarchy. Whenever poor white people tried to link across a common cause with Black people or Northerners, they were called out as traitors and attacked. Race became the means to keep the white underclass in line. Instead of blaming the wealthy class for their conditions, leaders redirected that anger toward Black people. Isenberg cites examples later in history, such as those of James Vardaman, an ardent racist, and Governor Orval Faubus who literally stood in the doorway against school desegregation. Partly because Northern leaders embraced the mudsill slur and celebrated the working class, the white underclass came to be associated with the rural South and racism.

A patrician, Teddy Roosevelt disdained redneck politics and the race-baiting associated with it. However, he, too, harbored racist and classist biases and was an “unabashed eugenicist” (192) who believed that as was true with animals, humans had to pay attention to breeding. Roosevelt called upon middle- and upper-class women to have many children and hoped to prevent “degenerates” (193) from breeding. In the early 20th century, this thinking was common and led to the forced sterilization of poor people. Isenberg also uses Roosevelt’s beliefs to demonstrate the staying power of thinking of class in heritable terms. The poor continued to be thought of as a different breed.

Openly embracing a “black musical style” (231) and flashy outfits, Elvis achieved the label of “cool” (231). This country boy or hillbilly offered a serious challenge to the toxic depiction of poor white people. From rural poor roots, Elvis achieved fame and wealth in the 1950s. Yet, as Isenberg highlights, he “retained a social identity that was close to the story line of The Beverly Hillbillies” (237). He purchased a pink Cadillac for his mother and installed a chicken coop in Graceland, his mansion. He also challenged sexual mores with his dancing. Many in the upper classes were uncomfortable with his popularity and wealth. Isenberg cites Elvis as someone who both begins to soften the negative stereotype of the white poor and is defined by that stereotype.

LBJ was a new type of Southern leader. He sought to tackle poverty via his Great Society programs and advocated for and signed civil rights legislation. Becoming president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, LBJ was nonetheless judged via an upper-class standard. LBJ had been Majority Leader in the Senate and was known for his persuasive style that could involve “verbal cudgeling, and physical contact” (261). Unlike Jackson and other leaders who exploited the stereotype of poor white people, LBJ passed programs designed to help the economic interests of that class. However, he was never fully accepted among the elite because of his class origins. Isenberg emphasizes the heritable nature of class lines in the US via this example.

Like LBJ, Bill Clinton was a reasonably progressive southern politician. Isenberg argues that his election to the Presidency “did what earlier nonelite southern presidents could not, turning crackers and rednecks into something that mainstream America could embrace” (298). Clinton was from an impoverished background in Arkansas, and his stepfather was abusive to his mother. Clinton retained a poor diet and claimed the Bubba label. He played an Elvis song on the saxophone on a popular television program, and the public loved it. In other ways, he defied the stereotype: He was a Rhodes Scholar with a Yale law degree and was not racist. However, he was not fully accepted by the elite because he was dogged by his roots. Conservatives leapt at the opportunity of the Monica Lewinsky affair to demonstrate Clinton’s sexual deviance. Others, without evidence, accused him of murder and other sordid deeds. In other words, he did not escape the persistent stereotype.