Class in 20th and 21st Century America
Class has been a very significant topic or theme of study for historians in the United States for many years. The subject of class touches on different American history elements, including changes in the education sector, since greater education achievement has resulted in the expansion of household incomes for other social groups (Roediger, 2014). The general level of prosperity has grown tremendously in the United States through the 20th and 21st centuries. The prosperity has been facilitated by several changes, such as the ever-growing advances in technology in the United States. Some American inventions, including the portable electric cleaner and the phonograph, shaped how the 20th and 21st-century prosperity has been. However, class differences have been the norm in the 20th and 21st centuries because of the increase in income inequality, unlike back then in the 17th century when classes were categorized as almost the same.
For most of American history, barriers to social classes were primarily rigid. Most private and public institutions enforced rules and regulations based on race or other forms of classifications based on prejudices such as Hispanophobia and antisemitism. However, these classifications changed significantly after the Second World War. After World War II, there was a rise in broad-based prosperity, and there were more efforts to expand constitutional civil rights under the law to different minority groups, including Asian Americans, African Americans, and Hispanic Americans. Nevertheless, issues concerning social class have been sensitive and critical topics in United States politics, with the Great American Recession causing extensive damage to working- and middle-class citizens across the country.
The history of social classes and structures often revolves around the southern colonies, whose main themes have been the south’s class system’s plantation. The southern colonies included the plantation masters, their families, and slaves. The owners of the plantations were the elite classes of the region. The region had fewer urban centers, excluding Charleston, whereby the elite maintained close relations with the immediate plantation society. The workers at most of these plantations were African American slaves, who were considered the lowest class. Most of the plantations contained tobacco and cotton. Slave labor was key to the success of different textile industries in the United States (“The Decline of the Northern Kingdom and the Rise of the Cotton Kingdom,” 2020). However, as time passed, several movements arose that pushed for the end of slavery and advocate for freedom and equality for African Americans (“Digital history,” n.d.). As more slaves were freed, and equality was almost being achieved, the class differences between the whites and African Americans declined significantly.
Asian Americans are also part of the groups that defined classes in American history. Asian Americans lived in small communities in New York before the 20th century. However, a large number of them arrived in the United States during the railroad booms and the Gold Rush of the late 19th century. As time passed, the Chinese who were in the United States were violently driven out of the railroads and mining camps and forced into Chinatowns in large cities. Consequently, laws were established to exclude the Chinese from different institutions in the country. This can be seen in the case of the mother who protested the segregation of her child from a local school because she was Chinese (“Digital history,” n.d.). However, in the late 20th century, the laws were lessened, and Asian Americans were allowed more freedom and almost the same income, thus minimizing the class difference that existed before.
All in all, class differences have been a topic and issue that has been recurring in the United States for many decades. Back then, classes were defined by the wealth that one possessed. Most of the wealthy people had plantations where the lower social classes worked in. African Americans were lowly classified individuals. Consequently, Asian Americans came to the United States and were also classified as a lower social class because they worked in mines and railroads. The Chinese were segregated and discriminated against because of their race. However, the 20th and 21st centuries have shaped class differences, although this is a prevalent issue.
References
8.3: The decline of the northern kingdom and the rise of the cotton kingdom. (2020, June 15). Humanities LibreTexts. https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/History/National_History/Book%3A_U.S._History_(American_YAWP)/08%3A_The_Market_Revolution/8.03%3A_The_Decline_of_the_Northern_Kingdom_and_the_Rise_of_the_Cotton_Kingdom
- Democracy in America | The American yawp. (n.d.). The American Yawp. https://www.americanyawp.com/text/09-democracy-in-america/
Digital history. (n.d.). UH – Digital History. https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=3&psid=30
Roediger, D. R. (2014). Whiteness and race. Oxford Handbooks Online. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordh
ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE
We’ll write everything from scratch
Question 
Class in 20th and 21st Century America
Read all of the secondary sources and one primary source. Write an essay in which you develop an argument about what your analysis of the primary source allows you to understand about class in the 20th and 21st centuries in America and how class has changed since the 17th century. As part of your argument, explain how your analysis of the primary source adds to or challenges the information and ideas about class in the secondary sources. Cite all your sources (primary and secondary) using APA style at the end of the essay.