“Class and the Color Line greatly enriches our understanding of the historical grounds of racial inequality in American politics.” — Elisabeth S. Clemens, American Journal of Sociology
“[A] fine study of race and class in the United States . . . [and] an impressive account of how organizational narratives shape social movement boundary work.” — Jeffrey Haydu, Contemporary Sociology
“[A] well written, impressively researched book [that] has much to praise. . . . [W]ell worth reading for scholars of labor, politics, and race relations in the late nineteenth-century South.” — American Historical Review,
“[I]t is not difficult to be impressed by the caliber of Gerteis’ scholarship. He covers key theoretical questions and large amounts of literature with commendable clarity and efficiency, confidently inserting his new perspectives. . . . it will likely make a lasting contribution to the scholarship on race, class, and popular movements, especially in the US South.” — David Goutor, Labor/Le Travail,
“Gerteis’s book makes major contributions to the fields of labor history, sociology, and race studies (including ‘whiteness studies’). It will be of particular interest to scholars of 19th century race and reform, whether before or after the Civil War. Gerteis provides an interesting and readable analysis of what happened after Reconstruction ended, and Class and the Color Line traces a number of pre-war issues, especially the growth of labor republicanism, into the Gilded Age.” — Beverly C. Tomek, Working USA
“Professor Gerteis provides and innovative analysis of social movements and how they were organized across racial lines in the South during the later part of the nineteenth century. . . .The book merits attention of those interested in social movements, labor history, and the historical development of racism in the United States.” — Arthur G. Neal, The Journal of American Culture
“Readers of Class and the Color Line will gain new insights and ways to consider the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in social movements. Imaginatively researched and clearly written, Gerteis has written a smart, informative, and provocative book of value to anyone interested in the confounding relationship between race and class in American history.” — Charles Postel H-Law, H-Net Reviews
“This innovative and insightful study sheds new light on interracial organizing by the Knights of Labor and the Populists in the late-nineteenth-century South and provides a framework for understanding the broader interactions between race and class politics in the United States and beyond.” — William P. Jones, Journal of American Ethnic History
“This is a valuable book and looks upon the issue of trade union history and attempts to organise the working class to be more inclusive. . . . This is good examination of trade union history and its difficulties in drawing together different races of workers in the same class. It has good relevance and applicability for scholars in the field and as mentioned rather depressingly, these issues remain pertinent even today.” — Jeff Fernandez, Newsletter of the British Sociological Association,
"[A] fresh analysis. . . . Gerteis succeeds in showing with greater granularity how those movements failed to provide real alternatives to the racial dynamics of the era." — Jeffrey J. Crow, Journal of American History
"Highly recommended." — K. G. Wilkison, Choice,
“No issue has dogged American history more than the entangling of race and class. At the end of the nineteenth century, the complicated relations between the two shaped political struggles that have influenced American politics ever since. The fate of Populism and the Knights of Labor is thus important not just for understanding the ‘Gilded Age’ but for understanding American society in general. Joseph Gerteis brings new insights to these crucial cases, especially about how local structural conditions shaped participation in broader movements, and about the interracial organizing that took place despite animosities and manipulations. His book deserves to be widely read.” — Craig Calhoun, University Professor of the Social Sciences, New York University
“The first serious review in years of the great late-nineteenth-century social movements. Combining a theoretical overview with selected case studies, Joseph Gerteis convincingly demonstrates how the race, class, and republican identities of the actors were shaped by the shifting strategic possibilities of the moment.” — Leon Fink, editor of the journal Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas