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

The white underclass of England and America was considered a different breed in the 16th and 17th centuries. This thinking had racial overtones, with the color of the poor person’s skin said to be yellowish. Additionally, this class status was believed to be inherited, as evidenced by the poor treatment and sale of children as well as the later fascination with the pseudo-science of eugenics. In the early 20th century, prominent members of society, including President Teddy Roosevelt, called for better breeding and encouraged the middle and upper classes to have several children. Humans were compared to horses and other domestic creatures at that time, with the goal of creating thoroughbreds. The despised poor, in contrast, were to be sterilized if at all possible.

As slavery became entrenched in the Southern states, white people without land or with small tracts of land could not compete with the landed gentry. Such poor white people were consigned to poor economic circumstances. From the antebellum period to the era after the Civil War, Southern elites used racism to keep them in line. They labeled those poor white people who made common cause with Black people traitors. Encouraging this white underclass to direct its anger toward Black people, Southern elites sought to direct their attention away from class inequities. When the Union soldiers made their way into the South, they were shocked at the deplorable conditions and the dire poverty in which the white underclass lived. The conditions of the Northern working class were vastly superior. In this period, a regional association started to develop between the white underclass and its Southern, rural roots. The attribute of racism was attached to the white underclass as well.

In the 20th century, Southern politicians used racist tactics to win support from the white underclass. Journalists first wrote about—and later showed on television—members of the white poor class behaving abominably. Members of this class exhibited ignorant, mean-spirited behavior and were the face of opposition to de-segregation in the South. Yet, as Isenberg notes, patricians such as Teddy Roosevelt hated race-baiting politics but harbored racist and classist attitudes. He considered Black and poor people to be inferior. In the 1960s, wealthy Southerners opposed desegregation as well, and they had the means and political influence to shield their own children from it. However, that side of the story was not reported, and the focus was kept on the racism of poor white people.

Progressive politicians from the South such as LBJ, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton shunned racism but could not completely shake the stereotype of the white underclass. Southerners with rural roots—especially those from poverty—were associated with stereotypical traits. Clinton had some success in getting mainstream America to embrace his “Bubba” traits and image. However, these leaders were never quite accepted into the Washington elite. The white underclass is defined in relation to race and is still thought to be a breed apart.