Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

The Working Poor: Invisible in America (Vintage)

The Working Poor: Invisible in America (Vintage)

by David K. Shipler

“Nobody who works hard should be poor in America,” writes Pulitzer Prize winner David Shipler. Clear-headed, rigorous, and compassionate, he journeys deeply into the lives of individual store clerks and factory workers, farm laborers and sweat-shop seamstresses, illegal immigrants in menial jobs and Americans saddled with immense student loans and paltry wages. They are known as the working poor. They perform... (more)

The Widow's War: A Novel

by Sally Gunning

Married for twenty years to Edward Berry, Lyddie is used to the trials of being a whaler's wife in the Cape Cod village of Satucket, Massachusetts—running their house herself during her husband's long absences at sea, living with the daily uncertainty that Edward will simply not return. And when her worst fear is realized, she finds herself doubly cursed. She is overwhelmed by grief, and her property and rights... (more)

To the Finland Station (New York Review Books Classics)

To the Finland Station (New York Review Books Classics)

by Edmund Wilson

To the Finald Station is one of the greatest works by 20th-century America’s heralded man of letters. This magisterial study of the revolutionary dream reaches from the French Revolution through the Paris Commune to Russia in 1917, and features brilliant portraits of such figures as Jules Michelet, the great historian of the French people; the utopians Robert Owen and Charles Fourier; the anarchist Mikhail... (more)

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: The American Classic, in Words and Photographs, of Three Tenant Families in the Deep South

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: The American Classic, in Words and Photographs, of Three Tenant Families in the Deep South

by James Agee, Walker Evans

A passionate literary innovator, eloquent in language and uncompromising in his social observation and his pursuit of emotional truth, James Agee (1909- 1955) excelled as novelist, critic, journalist, and screenwriter. In his brief, often turbulent life, he left enduring evidence of his unwavering intensity, observant eye, and sometimes savage wit. This volume collects his fiction along with his... (more)

The Straight Mind

by Monique Wittig

These political, philosophical, and literary essays mark the first collection of theoretical writing from the acclaimed novelist and French feminist writer Monique Wittig.

How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York

How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York

by Jacob A. Riis, David Leviatin

"How the Other Half Lives" is a chronicle of the conditions of abject poverty that the residents of the slums of New York at the end of the 19th century had to endure. Riis, who as an immigrant himself lived in these tenements on the lower east side of Manhattan, exposed the horrible conditions while working as a reporter for the New York Tribune. This book when first published in 1890 shed a much-needed light on... (more)

Chicago Death Trap: The Iroquois Theatre Fire of 1903

Chicago Death Trap: The Iroquois Theatre Fire of 1903

by Nat Brandt

On the afternoon of December 30, 1903, during a sold-out matinee performance, a fire broke out in Chicago’s Iroquois Theatre. In the short span of twenty minutes, more than six hundred people, two thirds of whom were women and children, were asphyxiated, burned, or trampled to death in a panicked mob’s failed attempt to escape. A century after the fire—the deadliest in American history—Nat Brandt provides the only... (more)

Out of Poverty: And into Something More Comfortable

Out of Poverty: And into Something More Comfortable

by John Stackhouse

The Ladies' Paradise (Oxford World's Classics (Paperback))

The Ladies' Paradise (Oxford World's Classics (Paperback))

by Emile Zola

The Ladies Paradise (Au Bonheur des Dames) recounts the rise of the modern department store in late nineteenth-century Paris. The store is a symbol of capitalism, of the modern city, and of the bourgeois family: it is emblematic of changes in consumer culture and the changes in sexual attitudes and class relations taking place at the end of the century. This new translation of the eleventh novel in the... (more)

John L. Lewis: A BIOGRAPHY

by Melvyn Dubofsky

Belonging to the World: Women's Rights and American Constitutional Culture (Bicentennial Essays on the Bill of Rights)

Belonging to the World: Women's Rights and American Constitutional Culture (Bicentennial Essays on the Bill of Rights)

by Sandra F. VanBurkleo

Belonging to the World: Women's Rights and American Constitutional Culture surveys the treatment of women in American law from the nation's earliest beginnings in British North America to the present. Placing the legal history of women in the broader social, political, and economic context of American history, this book examines the evolution of women's constitutional status in the United States, the development... (more)

Subterranean Fire: A History of Working-Class Radicalism in the United States

Subterranean Fire: A History of Working-Class Radicalism in the United States

by Sharon Smith

Workers in the United States have a rich tradition of fighting back and achieving gains previously thought unthinkable, from the weekend, to health care, to the right to even form a union. But in 2005, the number of workers organized in unions reached a 100-year low in both the public and private sectors, even though more and more people would like the protection of a union, and real wages for most workers have... (more)

Counter Cultures: Saleswomen, Managers, and Customers in American Department Stores, 1890-1940 (Working Class in American History)

Counter Cultures: Saleswomen, Managers, and Customers in American Department Stores, 1890-1940 (Working Class in American History)

by Susan Porter Benson

The Haymarket Tragedy

by Paul Avrich

What makes <this book> so valuable is that Avrich has shown us a time when anarchism breathed life into American politics, and not simply when it drew its last breath in Chicago. -- Review

The SLAVE TRADE: THE STORY OF THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE: 1440 - 1870

The SLAVE TRADE: THE STORY OF THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE: 1440 - 1870

by Hugh Thomas

The author of The Spanish Civil War chronicles the Atlantic slave trade, discussing such issues as the backgrounds of the slaves and the involvement of prominent Europeans and Americans. 35,000 first printing. Tour.

Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity

Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity

by David Gutie?rrez

Covering more than one hundred years of American history, Walls and Mirrors examines the ways that continuous immigration from Mexico transformed--and continues to shape--the political, social, and cultural life of the American Southwest. Taking a fresh approach to one of the most divisive political issues of our time, David Gutiérrez explores the ways that nearly a century of steady immigration from Mexico has... (more)

In Labor's Cause: Main Themes on the History of the American Worker

In Labor's Cause: Main Themes on the History of the American Worker

by David Brody

These extended essays by one of the preeminent scholars in U.S. labor history discuss central questions in the field, from the colonial period to the present: What do the first demands for a fixed workday tell us about how early American workers experienced the beginnings of the industrial revolution? Why did American labor politics never manage to break the grip of the two-party system? What was the impact of... (more)

Labor in Crisis: THE STEEL STRIKE OF 1919 (Critical Periods of History.)

Labor in Crisis: THE STEEL STRIKE OF 1919 (Critical Periods of History.)

by David Brody

“This is a solid, well-balanced, well-documented piece of historical craftsmanship. It should be read by today's aspirants to union leadership. It is a necessary acquisition for labor history collections and a worthwhile addition to college and university libraries.”– Library Journal

Reweaving the World: The Emergence of Ecofeminism

Reweaving the World: The Emergence of Ecofeminism

by Irene Diamond

The Ecofeminist Movement represents the coming together or the environmental, feminist, and Women's spirituality movements out of a share concern for the well-concern for the well-being of the Earth and all forms of life that our Earth supports. Reweaving the World is a major resource on ecofeminism, gathering in a single volume articles, essays, and poetic prose pieces by the foremost writers, scholars,... (more)

On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker (Lisa Drew Books (Paperback))

On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker (Lisa Drew Books (Paperback))

by A'Lelia Perry Bundles

On Her Own Ground is the first full-scale, definitive biography of Madam C. J. Walker -- the legendary African American entrepreneur and philanthropist -- by her great-great-granddaughter, A'Lelia Bundles. The daughter of slaves, Madam C. J. Walker was orphaned at seven, married at fourteen and widowed at twenty. She spent the better part of the next two decades laboring as a washerwoman for $1.50 a week. Then... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: economic conditions

by David K. Shipler

by Sally Gunning

by Edmund Wilson

by James Agee, Walker Evans

by Monique Wittig

by Jacob A. Riis, David Leviatin

by Nat Brandt

by John Stackhouse

by Emile Zola

by Melvyn Dubofsky

by Sandra F. VanBurkleo

by Sharon Smith

by Susan Porter Benson

by Paul Avrich

by Hugh Thomas

by David Gutie?rrez

by David Brody

by David Brody

by Irene Diamond

by A'Lelia Perry Bundles