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219 Pages·2018·1.046 MB·English
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The Half- Life of Deindustrialization CLASS : CULTURE SERIES EDITORS Amy Schrager Lang, Syracuse University, and Bill V. Mullen, Purdue University RECENT TITLES IN THE SERIES: Sherry Lee Linkon, The Half-Life of Deindustrialization: Working-Class Writing about Economic Restructuring Mark W. Robbins, Middle Class Union: Organizing the ‘Consuming Public’ in Post–World War I America Marie A. Failinger and Ezra Rosser, Editors, The Poverty Law Canon: Exploring the Major Cases M. Michelle Robinson, Dreams for Dead Bodies: Blackness, Labor, and the Corpus of American Detective Fiction Benjamin Balthaser, Anti-Imperialist Modernism: Race and Transnational Radical Culture from the Great Depression to the Cold War Clarence Lang, Black America in the Shadow of the Sixties: Notes on the Civil Rights Movement, Neoliberalism, and Politics Andreá N. Williams, Dividing Lines: Class Anxiety and Postbellum Black Fiction Liam Kennedy and Stephen Shapiro, Editors, The Wire: Race, Class, and Genre Mark W. Van Wienen, American Socialist Triptych: The Literary-Political Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Upton Sinclair, and W. E. B. Du Bois John Marsh, Hog Butchers, Beggars, and Busboys: Poverty, Labor, and the Making of Modern American Poetry Matthew H. Bernstein, Editor, Michael Moore: Filmmaker, Newsmaker, Cultural Icon Lorraine M. López, Editor, An Angle of Vision: Women Writers on Their Poor and Working-Class Roots Carole Srole, Transcribing Class and Gender: Masculinity and Femininity in Nineteenth-Century Courts and Offices Pamela Fox, Natural Acts: Gender, Race, and Rusticity in Country Music Clarence Lang, Grassroots at the Gateway: Class Politics and Black Freedom Struggle in St. Louis, 1936–75 Fran Leeper Buss, Editor, Moisture of the Earth: Mary Robinson, Civil Rights and Textile Union Activist The Half- Life of Deindustrialization Working- Class Writing about Economic Restructuring Sherry Lee Linkon University of Michigan Press • Ann Arbor Copyright © 2018 by Sherry Lee Linkon All rights reserved This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publisher. Published in the United States of America by the University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America c Printed on acid- free paper 2021 2020 2019 2018 4 3 2 1 A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Linkon, Sherry Lee, 1959– author. Title: The half- life of deindustrialization : working- class writing about economic restructuring / Sherry Lee Linkon. Description: Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2018. | Series: Class : culture | Includes index. | Identifiers: lccn 2017052937 (print) | lccn 2018007547 (ebook) | isbn 9780472123704 (e- book) | isbn 9780472053797 (paperback) | isbn 9780472073795 (hardcover) Subjects: LCSH: Deindustrialization— United States— History. | Industrial policy— United States. | Working class— United States— Economic conditions. | United States— Economic conditions— 20th century. | United States— Social conditions— 20th century. | BISAC: HISTORY / United States / 20th Century. | BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Economic History. | LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General. Classification: LCC hd5708.55.u6 (ebook) | LCC hd5708.55.u6 l56 2018 (print) | DDC 338.973— dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017052937 cover photos: (front) Clairton Coke Works, Pennsylvania; and (back) Train Hopping Couple, Conway Yard by Michael S. Williamson, courtesy of the photographer. Dedicated to the memory of my parents, Helene and Gordon, and to the future of my granddaughter, Francesca Acknowledgments Writing a book involves many hours of solitary labor, but it is never a solo act. This book grew out of discussions with students in my Working- Class Studies courses, and its development was supported by two universities and numerous colleagues and friends. The Center for Working-C lass Studies at Youngstown State University provided an intellectual home for many years. Conversations with three of its affiliates—S alvatore Attardo, Christopher Barzak, and James Rhodes— helped me begin to envision this project early on. Patty LaPresta made sure I had the time and focus to do “my own” work by effectively managing the collaborative work of the center. My thinking was also shaped by conversations with visiting speakers at the center, especially Dale Maharidge and George Packer, as well as with local colleagues outside the university, including Tyler Clark, John Slanina, and Hannah Woodroofe. When I moved to Georgetown, I was fortunate to find another circle of Working- Class Studies colleagues. Carolyn Forché, Pamela Fox, Joe McCartin, Lori Merish, and Patricia O’Connor offered friendship and support that helped me feel at home at Georgetown. I also appreciate the comradeship of the terrific team at the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. I found a writing comrade in Christine Ev- ans, whose friendship and faith in the power of art inspired me through much of this project. Amy Goldstein was a research fellow at Georgetown early in my time there, and discussions of her work on how Janesville, Wisconsin, was responding to a major plant closing reminded me that the process of deindustrialization is still active and fresh in many places. The commitment and extraordinary competence of my colleagues in the Georgetown University Writing Program—M atthew Pavesich, Mag- gie Debelius, David Lipscomb, and Karen Shaup— helped me balance research and writing with the program’s needs. I also found support in the English Department, led by Kathryn Temple and Ricardo Ortiz. The Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice funded a research assis- tant, Tyler Laminack. English and American Studies colleagues, includ- ing participants in an English Department works-i n- progress session and in the Americas Initiative, organized by John Tutino, offered valuable advice on drafts. Sandra Hussey, Melissa Jones, and Maura Seale at Lau- inger Library made sure I had access to sometimes obscure books and materials. In more practical terms, a sabbatical and summer research award from Georgetown enabled me to complete the manuscript. As the book developed, I presented a series of papers about deindus- trialization literature at Working- Class Studies Association conferences, where I also spent many hours in informal conversations with colleagues whose work inspired me and whose enthusiasm provided essential en- couragement. My thanks to Jim Catano, Nick Coles, Joseph Entin, Mi- chele Fazio, Fred Gardaphe, Larry Hanley, and Christine Walley. I am also deeply grateful to Paul Lauter for providing advice and support throughout my career and for serving as a scholarly and professional role model. While University of Michigan Press editor LeAnn Fields deserves particular thanks for her support for and advice on this project, I also want to express my appreciation for her larger contribution to Working- Class Studies by developing the series in which this volume appears. Her commitment and insight have helped to shape and to promote this field. I am also grateful to Jenny Geyer, Kevin M. Rennells, and Anne Taylor at the Press for their work on shepherding this book through the publica- tion process. Special thanks to the extraordinary Michael Williamson for the beautiful cover photos. Many years ago, after an especially uncomfortable interaction with a famous working- class writer, I swore I would never again write about living authors. This project not only required me to break that oath, but it also changed my mind. I did not have the opportunity to interact directly with most of the writers discussed in this book, but four of them have been especially generous. I had known Jim Daniels and Christo- pher Barzak for many years, so I was not surprised— but I am nonetheless grateful— that they were willing to answer my many questions about their work, and I appreciate their encouragement of this project. I have never met either Dominique Morisseau or Lynn Nottage, but both trusted me with copies of their as-y et unpublished plays. Their work was incredibly viii • Acknowledgments important to this project, and I am deeply grateful for their willingness to share it. This book would not exist, plain and simple, without Jack Metzgar, Tim Strangleman, and John Russo. All three read and critiqued ev- ery chapter of this book multiple times. Thanking Jack for his fierce and formative arguments, his insightful editing, and his enthusiastic cheerleading has become a tradition in Working- Class Studies, and I am grateful to join (again) the long list of scholars who rely upon him. As someone who spends a lot of time editing my colleagues’ work, I especially appreciate having a true critical friend in Jack, someone I trust to help me hone arguments and polish sentences. If I don’t always take his advice, the error is mine, but his wisdom is—a s he occasion- ally reminds me— almost always right. Tim’s contribution to this book was even more crucial. We were writing in tandem, two very different books on deindustrialization, and that made the process into an ex- tended conversation. Tim also pointed me to many of the conceptual sources that shaped this book. A few times he literally sent me books he thought I needed, all the way from England. That Tim’s own writing on deindustrialization is cited here so many times reflects the depth of his influence on this project. For academic writing to be a shared, interac- tive experience is in itself a gift, and I am thankful to have found such a generous intellectual brother. I have been lucky to have John Russo as my “partner in all things” for many years now. The work we have done together laid the groundwork for this project, and John’s influence is as important to this book as it has been in everything we have written together. We have often commented that we make each other better, and there is no doubt I am a better scholar (and a better person) because I have spent years talking through ideas and experiences with John. I depend on his knowledge, insight, and political commitment, not to mention his everyday presence and as- sistance. He challenges me all the time, but he also believes in me. I am grateful for his love and wisdom every day. Anyone working on a big project needs the support of friends and family who see you not as a scholar but just as a person. I wrote most of this book during summers in Youngstown, where Ellen and Sascha Lamb, Hunter Morrison, Barbara Orton, and Sharon Stringer cheered me on but also helped distract me from the labor. In D.C., I have been productively distracted by Michael Coventry, Chuck Fant, Pam Fox, Vicki Gray, John and Denise MacGaffin, Mark Popovich, Bert Quint, and Hope Zoss. The last months of work on this book coincided with a particularly Acknowledgments • ix

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