1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910819963003321

Autore

Rosenow Michael K.

Titolo

Death and dying in the working class, 1865-1920 / / Michael K. Rosenow

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Urbana [Illinois] : , : University of Illinois Press, , [2015]

©2015

ISBN

0-252-08071-8

0-252-09711-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (249 p.)

Collana

The working class in American history

Disciplina

393.08624097309034

Soggetti

Death

Thanatology

Working class - Health and hygiene - History - 19th century

Working class - Health and hygiene - History - 20th century

United States

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Acknowledgments -- Introduction : in search of John Henry's body -- The marks of capital : the accident crisis and cultures of industrialization, 1865-1919 -- The power of the dead's place : Chicago's cemeteries, social conflict, and cultural construction, 1873-1913 -- Every new grave brought a thousand members : the politics of death in Illinois coal communities, 1883-1910 -- As close to hell as they hoped to get : steel, death, and community in western Pennsylvania, 1892-1919 -- Conclusion : (un)freedom of the grave.

Sommario/riassunto

Michael K. Rosenow investigates working people's beliefs, rituals of dying, and the politics of death by honing in on three overarching questions: How did workers, their families, and their communities experience death? Did various identities of class, race, gender, and religion coalesce to form distinct cultures of death for working people? And how did people's attitudes toward death reflect notions of who mattered in U.S. society? Drawing from an eclectic array of sources ranging from Andrew Carnegie to grave markers in Chicago's potter's field, Rosenow portrays the complex political, social, and cultural



relationships that fueled the United States' industrial ascent. The result is an undertaking that adds emotional depth to existing history while challenging our understanding of modes of cultural transmission.