ERIC
SCHOCKET
Undercover Explorations of
the "Other Half," Or
the Writeras Class Transvestite
isafundamental
of
Thestruggle
division
oftheclassstruggle.
Thepower
ofclassifications
that
visible
andexplicit
social
a vision
ofdivisions,
is,the
power
ofmaking
imposing
divisions
that
areimplicit,
is the
itis the
power
tomake
political
power
parexcellence:
tomanipulate
theobjective
structure
ofsocie'y.
groups,
PierreBourdieu
ofexistence,
andyet
nysterious,
andinfinitely
appealing
arethebasalelements
Strong
likea spectrefrom
your
craving
grasp.
evasive,
receding
_WalterWyckoff'
I
ON A RAINY WINTER NIGHT, in the depressionyear of 1894, Stephen
Crane "wentforth"dressedin "rags and tatters... to tryto eat as a trampmay
eat, and sleep as the wandererssleep." His experiencesin the Bowerythatnight
providedthe basis forhis sketch'An Experimentin Misery,"which confronted
readersof theNePwYorkPresswith an unusualjournalisticmessage: Much of what
theythoughttheyknew about lower-classlifewas invalid."You can tellnothingof
he wrote,"It is idle to speculateabout
it unlessyou are in thatconditionyourself,"
it from... [a] distance."2The sketch'sfictionalizedaccount of one middle-class
youth'sdisguisedjourney into the lower classes attemptsto bridge this distance,
in transformation.
For
providingCrane's readerswitha studyof class subjectivity
whatCrane wishesto showis not "how the otherhalflives"but how "misery,"as a
social force,shapes perception.Workingtowardthisend, he carefully
class-specific
depicts the youth'srepresentativechange througha gradual movementinto the
lower-classsocial body.Walking along the streetsdressedin an "aged suit" (862),
the youthis "completelyplasteredwithyellsof 'bum' and 'hobo,'" and cast into
"a stateof profounddejection"(283). Later,in a lodginghouse, he feelsthe alteration deepen as "his liverturn[s]white" fromthe "unspeakable odors thatassail
him like malignantdiseases with wings" (287). This "misery" does produce the
desiredsociologicalreward:During thelongnight,theyouthstaysawake watching
"the formsof men ... lying in death-likesilence or heaving and snoringwith
REPRESENTATIONS
64
*
Fall 1998 (?
TIlE
REGENTS
OF THE
UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
109
tremendouseffort"(287) and then"carv[es] biographiesfor[them]fromhis meager experience"(289) in poverty.In theirclass now,but stillnot of it,he is able to
distinguish"an utteranceof meaning" in each "wail of a ... section,a class, a
people" (289). The mediatorialrole he assumes throughthis abilityto discern
meaning and translateperceptionallows him to arrogateto himselfthe cultural
power of "authentic"social knowledge.For the point of thejourney,as the youth
tellshis elderfriend,is notto actuallybecome "a tramp,"butto "discoverhis point
takehis guise in orderto "produce a veraciousnarrative"
ofview,"to momentarily
(862). In thisand other"veracious"narrativeslike it,the middle-classinvestigator
attemptsto bridge the social divide between the classes by assigning "tramps"
not on more
and workersa new meaning based on assimilableculturalattributes,
economic statuses.
intransigent
I have termedsuch tales of temporaryguise, "class-transvestite
narratives,"a
phrase that best describestheir attemptsto close epistemologicalgaps through
cross-classimpersonation.AlthoughCrane's experimentin class transvestism
is the
best knownof thistype,its methodologyand goals were hardlyunique. Between
thedepressionoftheearly1890s and theprogressivereformsofthe 191Os,a number
ofwhitemiddle-classwriters,
journalists,and social researchers"dresseddown" in
orderto traversewith theirbodies what theysaw as a growinggulfbetweenthe
middleclass and thewhiteworkingand lowerclasses.3Like Crane, thesedisguised
investigators
recognizedtheinherentdifficulty
ofsocial knowledgein an economicallysegmentedsociety:Perceptionsbased on a sympatheticmiddle-classpoint of
viewwereforthemas inaccurateas thoseinformedbythe sensationalizedreports
in the daily press.Recognizing the impossibilityof both an Archimedeanpoint
outsidea classedsubjectivity
and whatWilliamJamescalled theparticular"blindness" of "lookingat lifewith the eyes of a remotespectator,"4
these explorersattemptedto move "inside" and collapse the distance between subject and object
intoone performative,
narrational"body."
These authorsthus conceived of their own bodies both as objects of social
forcesand, consequently,
as sitesofsocial knowledge thevalue ofthe experience
depended,in thissense,on the very"authenticity"of the miserythe experiment
produced. As Mark Seltzer recentlynoted, notions of the malleable body were
endemicto thisperiod,classifiedand shaped throughNaturalistnarratives,
medical
texts,penologicalstudies,and otherdiscursivesystems.5
Indeed, as Crane's experimentmakesclear,thetractablebody of the class transvestite
is almostpreternaturallyprone to such forces:"plastered"withepithets,"assailed" by "diseases," but
nevertheless
stillawake and able to "carve biographies"fromthe undifferentiated
"wail" of the lower classes. It is this abilityto remain observantin the midstof
narratorsfromotherclassed
subjectionthatdistinguishesthese class-transvestite
subjectsofthisera's literature,and thatmarkstheseas middle-classtextsaboutthe
workingand lower classes. Throughouttheirjourneys to the realm of "misery,"
110
REPRESENTATIONS
thesenarratorsneverrelinquishtheirrole as translatorsof experienceand mediatorsbetween "knowing" and "being." This dual identityis also what makes their
consequent narrativesdistinct:While most middle-class documentariesof the
workingand lower classesproduce knowledgethroughthe distancingrhetoricof
narrativesreversethisprocess,producthe social spectacle,theseclass-transvestite
ing authenticknowledgeand performingauthenticityitself,throughthe act of
embodiment.
This distinctiongivesthiscorpus of textsitsparticularhistoricaland literary
value. During thepastdecade,literaryand culturalcriticsworkingwiththetheories
of Michel Foucaultand Guy Debord have writtena numberof studiesshowing
how the workingand lower classes have been contained and distancedwithina
discursivestructureof "the spectacle." Their readings of Stephen Crane, Jack
demonstratethe extentto whichsensaLondon,Jacob Riis, and otherseffectively
tionalizedscenesoflower-classdebaucheryand debasementhave servedto define
The class-transvestite
narratives,on
and solidifymiddle-classculturalauthority.6
controlthroughstrategic
the otherhand, constructculturalauthoritydifferently;
distanceis replacedby controlthroughstrategicengagement.By enteringinto the
realm of "misery"ratherthan castingout the miserable,thesenarrativesset up a
model ofintegrationand social incorporation.In each narrativethepresumption
exotic as to require a disguise,a journey,
is both thattheserealms are sufficiently
can be effectively
assimilatedthrough
and an "experiment"andthatsuchdifference
sartorialmeans alone. Underneaththe clothingand sumptuaryhabitsofthe ecolies an essentialsameness,a
nomic "Other,"according to the class transvestite,
commonhumanitythatrequiresonlyrecognitionand understandingforan inevitable amalgamation.These presumptionsof similitudederive,in no small part,
ideologies of social mobilityand egalitarianism.Yet in
fromnineteenth-century
class-transvestite
narratives,thesevestigesof working-classrepublicanismare inflectedand embodiedin farlessprogressive
ways.Mobilityresideswiththenarrator
alone, and egalitarianismbecomes his or her abilityto manipulatevestmentsdurjourney "down" ultimately
ing strategicmomentsof entry.The class transvestite's
servesto echo and circumventotherjourneys "up," reducingmobilityto a mere
play ofculturalsigns.
Followingthisjourney throughits various sitesof integrationand its various
I will examine how containmentthroughembodimentoper"objects" ofinterest,
Aftera briefhistory
ates and analyzethesocial and politicalchangesitunderwrites:
of transvestite
narration,
JackLondon's andJosiahFlynt'sappropriationand integrationofthe despised"tramp" will serveto outlinethe machinationsofthisprocess. The tramp,along withthe itinerantworker,was theprimary(thoughnot the
interest.Shorn of the web of social relaexclusive)objectofthemale transvestite's
tions maintained in stable working-classcommunities,he was a ripe targetfor
such sociologicalstudy.Alvan FrancisSanborn'sincursioninto the lodginghouse
UndercoverExplorationsofthe"OtherHalf,"Or theWriteras Class Transvestite
111
providesanother,more semioticversionofthesame paradigm.The lodginghouse,
Sanborn informsus, is where the itinerantcomes to rest,foundingand relying
upon a special kind of culturalcommunity.From these examples,the discussion
movesto a theoreticalmodel,suggestingthatthesewriters'searchforsociological
their"manhood" or "womanhood" in the
authorityserves,in part,to reconstruct
This section
faceofwhatJacksonLears has called the"crisisofculturalauthority."7
of the discussionalso servesto differentiate
between the immediategoals of the
Whereasmen likeLondon and Flyntsearchedforauthenmale and femalewriters.
ticityamong the "rustic"tramps,women such as theVan Vorstsisters(Bessie and
Marie) and Cornelia StrattonParkersoughttheirpoliticalvoices in the settlement
housesand thetextilemills.Finally,the discussionconcludeswithan examination
of contemporaryexplorationsof "working-classculture,"drawing analogies beand the "new labor history."By lookingat the discursive
tweenclass transvestism
constructionof class identityin these texts,I assert that what we call the "class
struggle"is alwaysalso a struggleovertheverytermsofclass analysis a struggle
overthe meaning of "class" itself
II
In thefirstyearsofthe 1890s, Annie Laurie and Nellie Blypopularized
this class-transvestite
mode of reportingin the large circulationdailies. Their articleson the workingconditionsin fruitcanneries,factories,and urban hospitals
enthralledreadersof San Francisco'sExaminer
and New York's WVorld.8
During the
same period,WalterWyckoff
undertooka more sustainedexercisein undercover
"politicaleconomy."His two-year
journeyas a "manual proletaire"tookhim from
AnExperiment
NewJerseyto thePacificand resultedin thetwo-volumeThe Workers:
inReality
at Princeton.9Though less academically
(1897, 1898),and a professorship
withTramps
inclined,Josiah Flynt,author of the enormouslypopular Tramping
(1893), also had intellectualleanings.In his study,he triedto rectifythe positivist
the "psychological"dimension
leaningsofcontemporarypenologybyinterpreting
ofvagrantcriminality.
Making good use ofhis own material,he laterworkedas a
railroad detectiveand a crime reporter."'Like Flynt,Jack London initiallyemployed this methodologyin his "hobo writings,"though he later expanded his
purview to include the industrialproletariat."In all of his accounts,London focused on thetensionsbetweenintellectualand manual labor,perhapsmostpassionatelyin ThePeopleoftheAbyss(1902), his disguisedjourney throughLondon's East
End. Finally,afterthe turn of the century,these class-transvestite
"experiments"
tended,once more,to be practicedbywomen.Many ofthemuckrakingmagazines
competedforreadersby offeringdocuments sociological,confessional,and fictional ofmiddle-classwomen who brieflylived "working-class"lives.A number
112
REPRESENTATIONS
of thesewere laterpublishedin book form.Some, like Cornelia StrattonParker's
Working
withtheWorking
Women
(1922), garnerednational attention.'2Others,like
Bessie and Marie Van Vorst'sThe WomanWho Toils(1903, a personal favoriteof
Teddy Roosevelt),became gristforpoliticaldebate.'3
Of course, this typeof undercoverinvestigationdid not grind to a halt with
the close of the ProgressiveEra. Writerssuch as WhitingWilliams continuedto
Additionally,the redraw upon theirproletarianjourneyswell into midcentury.'4
centdiscoveryofFrederick
C. Mills's accountofhistenureas an undercoverinvestigator forthe CaliforniaCommission of Immigrationand Housing demonstrates
a (largelyundocumented)governmentaluse of this tactic. Beforebecoming an
Mills spent two monthsin "the world of the
economistat Columbia University,
submerged"in order"to investigate"and record "the activitiesof the Industrial
accountsaside,classWorkersoftheWorld."5 Yetsuch occasional and institutional
in thepopular pressgreatlydecreased in the 1920s with
transvestite
investigations
what Paul Boyerhas termeda move toward "secularism" and "professionalism"
in "the urban moral-controlmovement."Withinthisbroad ideological shift,not
at mediationdisplaced bygovernment-sponsored
onlyweresuchindividualefforts
institutions,
buttheonce problematiceconomic and ethnic"heterogeneity"ofthe
citywas increasingly"treatedas a positivesocial gain, adding to the richnessand
of Americanlife."'6When class transvestism
creativediversity
reappeared in the
1930s, accompanyinganothereconomic downturn,similarjourneysthroughthe
The spelowerclassescarriedtheweightof a new middle-classself-consciousness.
cificand vocal articulationsoflabor and leftistorganizationsprovokedhypersensitive apologias likeJames Agee and Walker Evans's Let Us Now PraiseFamousMen
'" The
and politicallyevasiveparodies like PrestonSturges'sfilm,Sullivan'sTravels.
naive assumptionsofCrane and his contemporaries perhapseven thebeliefthat
one could personallymediate betweenclasses would neveragain enjoysuch unequivocal popularity.
The historicity
of such attemptsat integrationis, however,integrallylinkedto
theircomplexculturalwork.The eventsthatinitiatedthismode ofrepresentation
suggestedtheneed forsociallyredemptivemodels ofengagementand assimilation.
had occasionallyvisitedthe pages of the urban
Though theparticipant/observer
gothic novel and the detectivestoryearlierin the nineteenthcentury,the crossdid not appear withregularityuntilaround the 1893 depresdressedinvestigator
sion.'8 The five-yeareconomic collapse, which instigatedthis mediational ploy,
followedtwo decades of reoccurringstrikewaves, labor militancy,and sustained
immigration,producing a set of social and economic forcesthat changed the
dimensionsand perceptionsof urban poverty.As Paul Ringenbach documentsin
Trampsand Reformers,
during the renewed "discoveryof unemployment"in this
depression,the lines between "tramps" and workers,between skilledAmerican
craftspeople and recent immigrants,blurred under the pressure of penury's
UndercoverExplorationsofthe"OtherHalf,"Or theWriteras Class Transvestite
113
seeminglyindiscriminatemobility.'9The once secure native workingclass and
the emergentmiddle class seemed suddenlyat riskfromthe risingtide ofmassive
unemployment.20
As one mightexpect,under the pressureof theseconditionsthe tramparose
as a leading emblem of the promiscuouseffectsof the industrialdownturn."To
ofthe economic
many observersthe hobo seemed themostobvious manifestation
dislocationsand social maladjustmentsof the times.He was ubiquitousand easily
identifiable theleastcommondenominatorofunemployment,
parasitism,crime,
and vice."'2'All ofthesefactorsmade him an obviouschoice forundercoverexamination.Trampshad, ofcourse,previouslyhauntedAmerica'spoliticalunconscious:
along withslaves,Native Americans,and the Irish,theysporadicallystood in for
the mythicbarbariansat the gate of the Protestantworkethic. FrancisWayland,
the normallysober Dean of Yale Law School, made just such a synecdochicleap
in 1877 (appropriately
enough,theyearofthegreatrailroadstrike):'As we utterthe
beforeus thespectacleofa lazy,incorrigible,
wordTramp,therearisesstraightaway
cowardly,utterlydepravedsavage."22By themid-nineties,
however,such rantshad
reached a new level,as the "spectacle"grewto unprecedentednumbersand began
tomake organizedpoliticaldemands.In 1894, "General"Jacob Sechler
collectively
Coxey and his "industrialarmy"marchedacrossthe countryplanningto present
Congress with a "petitionin boots." Though theirspecificpetitionwas forthe
enactmentofCoxey's Good Roads Bill and Non-Interest-Bearing
Bonds Bill, their
implicitappeal was forgeneral political recognition.Such recognitionwas not
and theirdemandswereansweredinsteadbypolice actionand politiforthcoming,
As C. S. Denny,theMayor ofIndianapolis,commentedsome months
cal derision.23
later,vagabonds, like "wife-beaters,"had "no rightto claim an existencein this
"shouldhave no legal protection."Ifexistingvagrancylaws
country"and therefore
failed to stop the flow of trampsinto urban centers,then municipalitiesshould
"substitutethewhipping-postfortheprison."24
In theface of such blatanthostilityJackLondon's exploration,appropriation,
and subsequentdepictionoftheseabject figuresis particularlyrelevant both for
what he achieves and forhow he does so. One of the less disciplinedof Coxey's
cadre (he leftthe "army" long beforeit reached Washington),he had otherless
collectivistways of solicitingpublic recognitionforthe unemployed.25
According
to theyoungLondon who wrote"The Road," the trampsuffers
mostfroma lack
ofunderstandingand appreciation.Labeled a vagrantby the "law," and a "Vag"
forshort,just "threeletters. .. stand betweenhim and the negationof being. He
is on the ragged edge of nonentity."26
Pulling him in offthat edge requires,not
a
unexpectedly, certainamountofauthenticinformation,
suppliedin thisinstance
byLondon'sfirsthand
experiencetravelingwiththetramps.Though "we have met
him everywhere,"
London reports,"we are less conversantwith his habits and
thoughtsthan with those of the inhabitantsof the Cannibal Islands" (70). The
tramp'ssumptuaryhabits,London assuresus, are actuallymuch less exotic (and
114
REPRESENTATIONS
parasitic). Unlike the "stationaryNegro population . . . of the South" (another
synecdochicleap), the "tramppopulation"is "fulloftheindomitability
oftheTeuton" (71). Like otherTeutons,trampslabor diligently,
accordingto the dictatesof
theirparticularvocation.Those who mightpresumea lazy egalitarianismare, in
this respect,greatlymisinformed:"In this outcastworldthe sharp lines of caste
are as rigorouslydrawn as in the worldfromwhichit has evolved" (71). London
demonstratesthislastpointin his narrativeby categorizingtrampsinto "classes"
and "subclasses,"charting"the trampproblem" in termsthat would have been
comfortablyfamiliarto his middle-classreaders. Once theyare categorizedaccordingto relativeskilllevel("efficiency"
is theword he would come to use), these
previouslyostracizedfiguresseem only to be slightlydegraded copies of factory
workers,as indeedtheyare forLondon. Forthe"trampproblem"shouldbe studied,
he concludes,as an integralpart of the relationshipbetweencapital and labornot as a "surpluslabor army" (as he would laterassert),but as an unavoidable and
generallyharmlessresultof economic cyclesofexpansionand contraction.27
JosiahFlynt'sappropriationofthese"humanparasites,"as he calls them,moves
along similarlysystematiclines.28But whereas London embraces economic and
social meansofintegration,
Flyntworksfroma "psychological"and criminological
withtheTramps,
he drawsupon his "intimate"acquaintance
perspective.In Tramping
with"notoriousmembers"(3) ofthisclass in orderto challenge,and indeed deconstruct,the predominatelyphrenologicalfoundationsof contemporarypenology:
"We have volumes ... about the criminal'sbody,skull,and face, his whimsical
and obscene writingson the prison-walls,the effectofvariouskindsof diet on his
deportment,the workingsof delicate instrumentsplaced on his wrists"(1). But
"we" stilldo not understandthe mentalworkingsof these outcastcharacters.In
orderto comprehendtheir"criminal" status thatis, in orderto rationalizewhat
seemsethicallyand sociallyillegible we need to augmentthistypeofknowledge
with more intimatedata. In short,we need the authenticknowledgegained by
studyingthem from"different
points of view" (7). Yet, frominside the tramp's
"point ofview,"Flynt,like Crane and London, becomes a good deal more sympathetic.The tramp'sphrenologicaldifference,
Flyntimmediatelynotices,derives
fromenvironmentalratherthan biological forces.Those trampswho have never
been to prison,who are successfulin theirvocation, "if well dressed,could pass
musterin almostanyclass ofsociety.... [A]n uninitiatedobserverwouldbe unable
to pick themout forwhattheyare" (8). And what theyare, in turn,seems also to
be now in question.As Flynt'sown narrativemoves from"Studies" to "Travels"
to "Sketches,"these parasiteslose a good deal of theironce onerous status,and
ofthe societyat large. Like London, Flyntfinds
(again) assume the characteristics
that "vagabonds specialize nowadays quite as much as otherpeople" (113), and
that "success in vagabondage depends largelyon distinctand indispensabletraits
ofcharacter diligence,patience,nerveand politeness"(138). As he concludeshis
study,Flynt'ssociologicaltone turnsfrankly
nostalgic,an indicationthatassimilaUndercoverExplorationsofthe"OtherHalf,"Or theWriteras Class Transvestite
115
tion is, fromhis new point of view,alreadyinevitable.For like "the Indian," the
trampis becomingpartofthecivilizednorm:"The secretsofHoboland are becoming common property,and the hobo is being deprivedof a picturesqueisolation
whichformerly
fewdisturbed"(391). Criminologicalreformsare almostunnecessary,Flyntdecides; ethnographicincursionslike his will integratethesemarginal
characterswithoutthe overtefforts
ofpolicyreformers.
the discoveryof the
But as Ringenbach documentsin Trampsand Reformers,
trampand ofhis destructive
mobilitydid indeed precipitatean escalationofurban
reformefforts.
And such reformswere,in a slightlydifferent
manner,also related
to the inceptionofclass-transvestite
reportage.Ifmobilityarose as a new tropefor
thenrecentlyinauguratedsitesofreformlike
the nation'sfearofimpoverishment,
the settlement
house and thelodginghouse operatedas compensatorylocationsof
temporaryrepose. Followingthe 1893 depression,reformideology shiftedfrom
a move thathighlightedthe importanceof these
moralismto environmentalism,
containedresidentialspaces.29The goal was to rehabilitateby example: "By 'settling'among the less fortunate,[reformers]
would practicea true charity,sharing
the day-to-dayexistenceof the poor while showingthembetterstandardsof life
and culture."3"Yet despitethesecommunitarianefforts,
the settlementhouse and
particularlythe less-monitoredlodging house oftenfunctionedquite differently,
both forthe residentsand forsocial investigators.
Withinthesenewlydemarcated
spaces of repose,anonymityand transiencewere more oftenthe norm a norm
upon whichundercoverinvestigationdepended foritsexistence.Beforethe largescale poverty,
urban migration,and immigrationofthe 1890s,journalistsand writerswould not have been able to "pass" withsuch apparentease, since manyofthe
unemployedand mostworkerslivedin "knowablecommunities"whereimpersonation would have been difficult.
Though reformerstriedto avoidjust this sortof
institutional
anonymity,
the atomizedclienteleofthelodginghouse constituted,
in
contrast,a class-specificrealm that was of interestto middle-classreaders and
eminentlypenetrableby theseproto-ethnographers.3
III
Atthesame timethattheseanonymousrealmsprovidedtheopportunity
forclass-passing,theyalso helped to supplythe materialforsuch performances.
workersand otherreformersmay have triedto inculcateresiThough settlement
dentswithmiddle-classculturalvalues, many boardinghousepatronsdeveloped,
out ofresistanceor perhaps out offeltnecessity,
theirown systemsof signs,codes,
To thenaive class transvestite,
and sumptuarysignifiers.
likeCrane's "youth,"these
appear to be mere disguises,sartorialritualsof the beggingtrade: The "men of
brawn" when "dressed in theirungainlygarments.... showed bumps and deficienciesofall kinds"(289-90). The fullerdescriptionsofferedin a book likeAlvan
116
REPRESENTATIONS
Sketches
reveal,however,
Lodging
Houseand OtherTenement
FrancisSanborn's AIoody's
To the "gang" at Moody's, clothingand
a different
level of symbolicfunctioning.
mannerssignifytheirsocial place, both withrespectto each otherand withinthe
largerBoston community:Gus, "a gentlemanbum,"prideshimselfon "urbanity,"
and always "pretendsto be adjustinga nonexistentgarteror suspender,when he
similarremiis goaded to scratchingbyan uncommonlyvirulentbite."32Affecting
niscences,"Barney" draws "money and sympathy"fromfellowIrish immigrants
with his "rich Irishbrogue" (10), just as "Shorty,""a genuineworkingmanoriginally" (10), turnshis biographyinto his pitch and persona. The disguise is, as
Sanborn explains,both a way to secure one's livingand a way of communicating
withinthis space of transience,a means of vestingone's selfwith a historyin an
institutionalrealmthatoperatesto denyit.
However,as Sanborn likewise demonstrates,the danger inherentin such a
a considerablyheightenedopportunity
compensatorysystemofsignsis thatitoffers
foradoption,inhabitation,and integration.To entera communityof people in
costume,whereone's historyis so blatantlyworn on the body,all thatis needed is
a "mien extraordinaryeloquent of rogueryor misery" shortof this "a disguise
is helpful"(1):
grimedface,hands,and neck,donned
Whenthetimeforgoingoutcame,I thoroughly
..., a pair ofdisreputable
pantaloons,a jacket
severalsuitsofworn,soiledunderclothes
discolored
shoes,and a hat thatwas almosta disguisein itself.In
outat elbows,clumsy,
certainfinishing
touchesI tooka genuineartisticpride;thesewerea dingyredflannel
a claypipefilledwithvile-smelling
tobacco,a
fastened
aroundtheneckwitha safety-pin,
gait,and a droopinghead.(2)
cheap-whiskey
breath,a shambling
is obviouslymeant as parody:Frombegrimedskinto soiled
This verbalminstrelsy
clothes to absurd accessorizing,it is played as much for Sanborn's middle-class
fulfills
readers as forMoody's residents.The point is, however,that it effectively
mimics"thegang's"
bothroles.AtleastfromSanborn'spointofview,his affectation
assumptionofsome discreditednotionofthe "authentic."Withinthisinstitutional
setting,the organiccommunityhas been entirelyreplaced by a nexus of cultural
signs. Paradoxicallyenough, this new systemof cultural affiliationresurrectsa
different
mode of"authenticity"at theverymomentofitsdiscreditation.For given
the strictlysuperficialdefinitionof the lower class, Sanborn can claim that after
one nighthe has forall intentsand purposes become "a cheap lodger." "Living
does away withthenecessityofplayingat living"(3). The sequentialexperienceof
"playing" thelower-classlifeand "living" thelower-classlife,we mightalso note,
with a certainamount of comfortin economically
providesthe class transvestite
troubledtimes:"Bums are, by generalconsent,the verydregsof society.Is it not,
to feelcertainthattheveryworstthatcan befallyou
then,wortha bitofsuffering
(in the world'sview)is not so verybad afterall?" (4).
If Sanborn's comforting
by an
slip from"playing"to "living" is underwritten
understandingof class as a systemof culturalsigns,then this move had its own
UndercoverExplorationsofthe"OtherHalf,"Or theWriteras Class Transvestite
117
historicalgenealogy.In 1890 Jacob Riis had initiatedthis shift,opening the way
forimitatorslike Sanborn and settinga precedentforthewayin whichProgressive
Era social scientistsand reporterswould understandthe urban lower classes. In
Riis's enormouslypopular How theOther
Ha//Lives,
the lowerclasses appeared, for
thefirsttime,in explicitlyculturalterms.The moral typologyof mid-nineteenthcenturystudiesand the racial taxonomythathad haunted "sociology" since the
antebellumera turnedwithRiis into a clear socioculturallexicon."3In thistexthe
createda classification
based on neighborhoodsand ethnicities,
butmorepointedly
and sumptuaryhabits.His use of photographswas, as Keith
on bodily signifiers
Until Riis's book
Leland Gandal notes,crucial in this lexiconic transformation.
was published,photographsof the cityuniversallydepictedbroad topographical
visions,celebratorypanoramas freeof povertyand urban crowds.Riis's photographicfocuson thelowerclasses' visual propertiesinvertedthisparadigm,representingthe cityas a bricolage of "scenes" that emphasized the visible,sartorial
differences
betweenthe classes.34In How theOther
Ha//Lives,the denizens of "the
Bend" and "Hell's Kitchen" wear theirclass identitiesin easily discernibleand
subsequentlysimulatablefashion.Riis's invitationto "go into any of the 'respectable' tenementneighborhoods. . . , be withand among itspeople untilyou undertheurban topographyin a new and important
standtheirways,"thusreconfigures
manner.He notonlyaligned "neighborhoods"withcorresponding"ways"butalso
depicted theseways as singularlyperceptibleand thus available formiddle-class
"35
"understanding.
Of course,theclass-transvestite
practitioners
tookhim a bitmoreliterallythan
he intended,activelyincorporatingwhat he had only categorized.In theirtexts
Riis's steadysociological gaze givesway to highlyambivalentnarrativepostures.
UnlikeRiis's study,whichretainsthepose ofobjectivityuntilitshistrionicconcluinRealiyand London's PeopleoftheAbyssare rife
sion,textslikeWyckoff's
Experiment
withconflicting
dispositionstoward theirsubjects.Workersand the dispossessed
appear to be alternatelyappealing in theirseemingfreedomand camaraderieand
in theirlack ofself-regulation.
forinstance,seemsto have spent
horrifying
Wyckoff,
a good deal ofhis tenureas a "proletaire"anguishingbetweenthesetwoextremes.
On Clark, his temporary"partner,"he notes: "It is strange. . . the closeness of
the intimacybetweenClark and me.... Perhapsmen come to know one another
quickestand best on a plane of life,where in the fellowshipof destitutionthey
struggleforthe primal needs and feelthe keen sympathieswhich attestthe basal
kinshipofour commonhumanity."More typically,
however,he findshimselfrebelling againstthephysicalurgenciesof thesesame "primal needs," especiallywhen
seemsalmost
theyincludean "instinct"for"liquor and lust."36London, alternately,
to findpleasurein inhabitingthisambivalence.He opens his study,forexample,
witha chapterentitled"The Descent,"whichdescribeshis initialhorrified
reaction
to the population of the East End: "The miserable multitudes"who walk the
118
REPRESENTATIONS
"screamingstreets"are like "so manywaves ofvast and malodoroussea, lapping
about me and threateningto well up and overme." Once in "costume,"however,
both he and his narrativetonechange remarkably:
All servility
vanishedfromthedemeanorofthecommonpeoplewithwhomI came in
ofan eye,so to say,I had becomeone ofthem.My frayed
contact.Presto!in thetwinkling
ofmyclasswhichwastheirclass.
and out-at-elbows
jacketwasthebadgeandadvertisement
attention
I had
and too-respectful
It mademe ofthelikekind,andin place ofthefawning
I nowsharedwiththema comradeship.37
hitherto
received,
A comradeship,one wouldhave to add, borne notout ofsharedlabor or a common
history,
but outofa vestigialsimulation.Forlike Sanborn,London's painlessmetamorphosisbeliesan unstablenotionof class identitythatrests,at least in thismoment,upon superficialvestments.
operations,ambivalence
Yet evenhere,duringsuch instantaneoustransvestite
is evident.For if the aim of the middle-classinvestigatoris to map, and thus to
contain rhetorically,
the mysteriousrealm of the workingand lower classes,then
such an easy transitionfromobserverto participantexposes, rather,the fragile
the act of vestingoneselfwith
border betweenthe two. Or to put it differently,
class-specific
apparel involvesa structuralcontradiction,since one presumesboth
a social dichotomy(theneed to cross-dress)and a countervailingsemioticslippage
(the abilityto cross-dressconvincingly).The presumptionof differenceis in part,
certainly,a historicalinheritance,renewed in the 1890s by the increasingsocial
The semioticslippagereflects,
howpressureofpovertyand economicstratification.
ever,a comparativelynew shiftin the discourse of dress and fashion.Although
the wide
sartorialsignshad historicallyfunctionedto indicate social difference,
disseminationof ready-madeclothingformen in the 1890s provided a site for
contestingarticulations of egalitarianism. (The "ready-made revolution" in
womens fashionwould nottakeplace untilthe 191Os.)"In thenineties,"according
to Claudia Kidwell,the"suitarrived"as an emblemoftheindustrial"democratizationofclothingin America."Marketedwidelyand withexplicitappeals to egalitarian sentiments,the suit became "a uniformwhich knew no class or economic
gentleman,the worker,and even the
group."38 In coming years,the -well-dressed
"tramp" would favorthe new "sack suit" as a normativestatementof masculine
fashion. Of course, as London's testimonyindicates,class signs persistedat the
same timethata superficialdisplayofindividualhistoryreplacedmore traditional
dressstylesas "the badge and advertisement"of class status.The fit,the material,
and the degreeofwear of one's "frayedand out-at-elbows
jacket" gained greater,
ifless codified,significance.
While thediscursiveshiftsbroughtabout bythedevelopmentofa mass-market
clothing industryhelp explain the language of class-passing,the ambivalences,
contradictions,and slippagesin thesetextsneed also to be theorizedin more general, structuralterms.As Marjorie Garber demonstratesin her book on cross-
as Class Transvestite
UndercoverExplorationsofthe"OtherHalf,"Or theWVriter
119
functionsof the transvestite
in
dressing,"One of the most consistentand effective
culture"is to repeatedlyexpose suchdisconsonantmoments,"to indicatetheplace
of . . . 'categorycrisis,'disruptingand calling attentionto cultural,social, or aesmarks,then,"a failureof definitheticdissonances."The figureofthetransvestite
tional distinction,a borderlinethat becomes permeable, that permitsof border
crossingsfromone (apparentlydistinct)categoryto another:black/white,Jew/
master/slave."39
Though her studyis
Christian,noble/bourgeois,master/servant,
broadlyconceived,Garber is most interestedin the categoryof gender.And in
her estimation,withinthiscategory,the "crisis"workstowardprogressiveends
denaturalizingthe dichotomousand oppressiverelationsbetweensociallyconstitutedmen and socially constitutedwomen. The categoryplaced in ontological
crisisin thetextscurrently
at issue is,however,not genderbut class,whichappears
to be both explicitand somehowmobile,constructednow throughtheproduction
and replicationofculturalsignsratherthan throughthe sharedexperienceofeconomic exploitation.Such a homologousreconstructiondoes not functiontoward
similarlyprogressiveends. For what is erased here is not the sociallyconstructed
which are in factreinrelationsbetweenbodily signifiersand political referents,
forced,butthesystemicrelationsbetweenlived experienceand historicallyspecific
logic" deconeconomic exploitation.In short,what Garber calls a "transvestite
structsclass as an economic referentand reconstructsit,in turn,as a functionof
culturalposition.40
Yet,ifthe categoryofclass is hereput in crisis,the exposed ambivalencesand
contradictions
are notsufficient
narratives.
to impairthefunctionofthetransvestite
what
enable
their
cultural
Rather,
Garber calls their"dissonances" structurally
work.As we have seen with Crane, the dynamicmovementof subjectiveidentity
throughthe symbolicallyfiguredlowerclasses avails an "authoritative"voice. Or
putdifferently,
sociologicalauthorityemergesout oftheabilityto have an "authentic" lower-classexperiencewhile retaininga supposedlymiddle-classabilityfor
"objective"assessment.On thisand othermatters,BessieVan Vorstis characteristicallyunambiguous:"My desireis to act as a mouthpieceforthe woman labourer.
I assumedhermode ofexistencewiththehope thatI mightput intowordshercry
forhelp." Like the lodgers who "wail" in Crane's sketch,Van Vorst's"woman
labourer"has no unmediated,intelligiblemeans ofcommunicatingher "material"
and "spiritualneeds." The degenerativeenvironmentof the factoryhas lefther
relianton narrationalmediation."It was probablemycomradesfeltat no timethe
I did," remarksVan Vorst;'As ourbodies accustomthemselvesto luxury
discomfort
and cleanliness,theirsgrowhardenedto deprivationand filth.As our souls develop
the advantagesof all that constitutesan ideal ... theirsouls diminishunder the
to meetmaterialdemands."'" Lacking Van
oppressionofa constantphysicaleffort
Vorst'sabilityto straddleclass identities to draw on a distinctionbetweeninner
sensibilityand outer degradation the "woman labourer" is not only unable to
articulateher cries for "help," she is, in Van Vorst'sestimation,unable even to
120
REPRESENTATIONS
understandthe dimensionofherneed. It is leftto WalterWyckoff,
however,to take
thisspecificoperationto itslogicalconclusion,revealingitsdiscursively
integrative
function.For ifVan Vorstusesmediationto promote"understanding,"thenWyckto enact a scene ofsocial cooperation,as in this
offresortsto blatantventriloquism
remarkableaddress,givenafterhis firstweek ofphysicallabor:
We areunskilled
laborers.
Wearegrownmen,andarewithout
a trade.In thelabormarket
we standreadyto sellto thehighest
bidderourmeremuscularstrength....We are here
and nothigherin thescale,byreasonofa variety
ofcauses.Someofus werethrown
upon
in childhood,
and haveearnedourlivingeversince,and bythelineof
ourownresources
leastresistance
we havesimply
grownto be unskilled
workmen.42
In the next dramaticturn,Wyckoff
alternatelyspeaks as a capitalist,eventually
dissolvingtheso-calledlabor probleminto a closetdrama.
Such actsofventriloquism
are,however,onlythemostobvioustextualfunction
of these narratives.The constructionof sociological authorityis part of a more
and reinvigorating
integralobjectiveofreestablishing
middle-classculturalauthorimpersonationseems to serve such a goal obscurely,thenwe
ity.If working-class
mustkeep in mind the particularlytransientand unidirectionalcharacteristicsof
these"experiments."The emergenceofmiddle-classidentityin the United States
occurredin a profoundlyrelationalprocess,a crystallizationof thatbroad "middling" segmentby means of constantreferenceto "aristocrats"and laborers.
such relationswere of the differentiating
More typically,
sort;theytended to distance and marginalizethe lower-class"other" (and less frequently
the aristocratic
of a bourgeois
"other")in an attemptto establishand solidifythe moral territory
center.Strictrulesof"social conduct,"writesKaren Halttunen,helped themiddle
class solve"theproblemofestablishingand recognizingsocial identityin a republic
based theoretically
on the boundless potentialof each individual. Yet again, I
narrativesofferanothermodel of class relations,
thinkthattheseclass-transvestite
one ofembodimentand integrationratherthaninvidiousdistinction.Withremarkable unanimity,
theytellan alternativetale ofa middle-class"lack" fulfilled
through
lower-class"experience,"bourgeoisennuicuredbyway ofproletarianpain. Facing
a new industrialorder,arguesJacksonLears, the middle class suffereda "crisisof
culturalauthority,"
compounded by a feelingthat"lifehad become ... curiously
unreal." Reality and authoritymight be recaptured,then, by a "pilgrimage"
throughsomethinglike the "authentic.""5
To put thissortof exercisein perspective,it mightbe usefulto note thatsuch
inhabitationwerenotnew in Amermodelsofreinvigoration
throughcross-identity
ican culture.By the 1890s, a successionof "marginal" figureshad already been
appropriatedas symbolsofwhatwas fearedlostto an emergentnation.During the
antebellumperiodsomemembersoftheworkingclass negotiatedtheir"whiteness"
and theirmasculinitythroughtheatricalappropriationsof the black body.46And
throughoutthis country'shistory,various authorshave projected theiranxieties
overrampantindustrialismonto the figureof the "vanishingnative."47Yet by the
UndercoverExplorationsofthe"OtherHalf,"Or theWriteras Class Transvestite
121
turn of the century,these fetishizedreceptaclesof identityhad already begun to
disappear new,abstractmodelsofcorporateidentityreplacedolderindividualist
Turnernotedin 1893, afterthe closingof the
embodiments.As FrederickJackson
frontier
one could no longer"stripoffthe garmentsof civilizationand array ...
[oneself]in the huntingshirtand moccasin."48One could no longer,thatis, become an Americanby way ofbecoming a savage. Yet duringthe ProgressiveEra,
one could stillgain a semblanceof such rusticvivacitythrougha journey into the
in the garmentsof poverty'scorpourban frontier,
arrayingoneself,temporarily,
real immediacy.
IV
These machinationsof middle-classrevitalizationare most obvious in
the highlygendered operationsof class-transvestite
narratives.Teddy Roosevelt's
call fora "strenuouslife"echoes throughthemen'snarratives,
hauntingtheauthors
withfearsofbookish effeminacyand overcivilization.As Melissa Dabakis writes,
a "crisisofmasculinity"provokedmiddle-classmen in the 1890s to fearthat"manlinesswas no longeran inevitableproductof middle-classlifeand thatthe ideals
ofindependence,self-reliance,
competitiveness,
and risktaking(essentiallymythic
constructionsof an agrarianfrontier)
were becoming lost to middle-classmen in
an industrializedculture."49London, Wyckoff,
Crane, and othersgo forth,then,
partlyin searchofa deferredmasculinity,
whichis dressedin theguiseofan experientialauthorityand Arcadian authenticity.
Wyckoff
prefaceshis two-volumework,
forinstance,witha descriptionofan apocryphalmeetingwithChanning E Meek,
a man outstandingin his "familiarity
withpracticalaffairs.""In our talk,"Wyckoff
betweenmyslender,bookwrites,c.... I could but feelincreasinglythe difference
learnedlore and his vitalknowledgeof men and the principlesby whichtheylive
and work."50
This barelyeuphemisticpanegyricto vitalmanhood stands,then,in
introduction.We are now to assume that
place of a more formal,or informative,
we are fullyapprisedoftherationaleforWyckoff's
two-yearjourney.
Much ofLondon's oeuvremightalso be cited as evidence ofthisregeneration
throughadventure.Though London came froma working-classbackground(and
claimed it repeatedlywithpride), this did not preventa considerableamount of
ofhissubsequentliterarysuccess.In hisfiction
anxietyoverthe"feminizing"effects
this anxietywas manifestedin continual attemptsto incorporate the atavistic
of thewild dog or the Teutonic supermanwiththe philosophicalacuity
strengths
one of London's more overtsyncreticexerof theculturedclasses.About Sea-Wotfi
man evidentlyfearedthatas 'JackLondon,
cises,one criticwrites:"The still-young
author' he was in dangeroflosingthemanhood whichhe had laboriouslyearned
by sweat, danger,and struggle.It is clear fromvarious remarkshe made that
122
REPRESENTATIONS
Jack identifiedboth withWolfLarson, the male 'brute,'and with the 'sissy'Van
Weyden,the sexlessand bloodless'scholarand dilettante.'"'51
in a vitalmanhood looms similarlythroughouthis depicLondon's investment
thoughthe East End slumsprove,
tion of the lowerclassesin ThePeopleoftheAbyss,
in contrast,hostileto thetypeof "stalwartmen" he had envied in the "West." Of
one blue-eyedacquaintancedestinedto a "wretched,inevitablefuture,"he notes:
forbed.I haveseenmanymen
I was notsurprised
byhisbodythatnightwhenhe stripped
menofgoodbloodandupbringing,
butI have
andtraining
quarters,
strip,in gymnasium
this
tobetteradvantagethanthisyoungsotoftwoandtwenty,
neverseenonewhostripped
younggoddoomedtorackand ruinin fouror fiveshortyears,and to passhencewithout
itwas histobequeath.
toreceivethesplendidheritage
posterity
The amazing conflationof eugenics and eroticsis not, of course, incidental.In
London's disguisedjourney throughLondon (a pun that unavoidablysuggestsa
search forpersonal Anglo-Saxon origins),he repeatedlyremarkson the bodily
degenerationof the men "who are left"while England colonizes the world: "The
strongmen,the men of pluck,initiative,and ambition,have been faringforthto
and freerportionsof the globe,to make new lands and nations.Those
the fresher
who are lacking,the weak of heart and head and hand, as well as the rottenand
hopeless,haveremainedto carryon thebreed."In orderto avoid a similardegeneration of race and masculinity,London pointedlyadvises his readersin the "new
lands" (who he repeatedlyaddressesas "dear softpeople") to attendto theirown
lowerclasses,thebiological foundationsof nationalprogress.52
Though seldom so pronounced, the gender dynamic in the women's classtransvestite
narrativesoperates in an analogous manner.As I noted, these texts
political
tendto come laterin theprogressiveperiod,oftenderivingfromreformist
activityand (at least implicitly)respondingto the preceding narrativesby men.
seems to have
Participationin SettlementHouse projectsand otherreformefforts
given more than one author the idea to undergo a more extensiveentryinto
life journeystheyundertookboth out ofa desireforsocial restituworking-class
thatfaced thisgenerationof
tionand in an attemptto battlethe "sense offutility"
middle-classwomen.53Perhapsbecause of thisagenda, the narrativetone of their
defromthe tone of the men's texts:The fetishistic
resultingaccountsis different
scriptionsoftheburlyproletariatare missing,and in theirplace we findimages of
an endangeredwomanhood plagued by thementaland physicaldemands ofmanual labor.Yetsuchnarratorsas BessieVan Vorst,Rheta Childe Dorr,and Cornelia
Ifwe
StrattonParkercome to theseimages withtheirown particularinvestments.
can reductively
characterizethemale paradigmas regenerationthroughincorporation,thenwe mightcharacterizethecorrespondingfemaleparadigmas legitimacy
throughredemption.This earlygenerationoffemalecollege graduatesfoundvalidation for theirnew statusas "workingwomen" throughreformactivitiesthat
This much is indicreatedgenderconsciousnessbut preservedclass distinctions.54
UndercoverExplorationsofthe"OtherHalf,"Or theWriteras Class Transvestite
123
withtheWorking
cated in Parker'sbrilliantly
Whatever
Wltoman.
punningtitle,Working
solidarityemergesfromthe sharedworkactivityis circumscribedby Parker'spropensityto work"with" the malleable subjectivitiesof the "workingwomen"-to
workthem,thatis, into some semblanceofmiddle-classmorality.
To stressboth theactiveand thedescriptiveconnotationofthistitleis,I think,
altogetherappropriate;forwithremarkableunanimity,the femaleclass transvestitesforegroundedtheirparticipatoryroles in the scenes theywitnessed.Unlike
theirmale counterparts,theirgoal was to reform,not merelypass through,the
lives of "the unknownclass." As Bessie Van Vorststatesaftercoining this term,
bridgingthe epistemologicaldistance with authenticknowledgeis not enough.
One mustsupplementknowledgewithmoralcommitment:"We mustdiscoverand
assumetheirburdens,
adopt theirpointofview,put ourselvesin theirsurroundings,
In thisway alone, . . . can we do themreal
unitewith themin theirdaily effort.
good, can we help themto finda moral,spiritual,estheticstandardsuitedto their
becoming a worker
conditionin life."55While forsomeone like WalterWyckoff
was alreadytantamountto becominga man, women like Bessie Van Vorstfaced a
more difficult
negotiationof gender and class ideologies. Provingtheirstatusas
New Women as middle-class women who nonetheless worked outside the
within
home requiredthemto articulatetheiridentitiesas professionalreformers
a traditionaldiscourseofdomesticideology.Helping working-class
women "to find
a . .. standardsuitedto theirconditions"was thusa way to move the structuresof
thebourgeoishomeintothesocial sphere,to assume,in Carroll Smith-Rosenberg's
words,"the roleofpublic mothers."5"
And as Van Vorstreports,suchpublicmotherswerebadlyneeded: "The American womanis restless,dissatisfied.Society... has drivenhertowarda destinythat
is not normal.The factoriesare fullof old maids.... For natural obligationsare
thefictitious
substituted
dutiesof clubs,meetings,committees,organizations,professions,a thousandunwomanlyoccupations." To more progressivemiddle-class
this"substitution"
wouldbelie changingeconomicconditions,theeffects
observers,
ofa rapidindustrialproletarianizationoftraditionalwomen'swork.Such an analysis is, however,clearlynot Van Vorst'sgoal. Rather,her narrativefixateson the
economic
womanhood,relentlessly
transferring
endangeredstatusofworking-class
pressuresinto moral shortcomings,political problemsinto physicaldecadence.
Even thebodily"degeneracy"ofthewoman worker,she concludes,is the resultof
"moral and not physical"causes. Her "increasingsterility"derivesfrom"the triumph of individualism"and "the love of luxury."Yet since these "two enemies"
were previouslyfoughtfromthe woman's vantage-pointwithin the home, they
shouldbe nowfoughtfromwithout,accordingto Van Vorst,bymorepublic maternalisticincursions.57
wrote with the same moralistic
Of course,not all female class transvestites
butan anxiousinvestmentin thefemaleworking-class
body did consistently
fervor,
functionas a unifying
Unlike BessieVan Vorst,Rheta
focusfortheirinvestigations.
124
REPRESENTATIONS
Childe Dorr (and hercollaboratorWilliamHard) saw women's"industrialemancipation" as a progressivedevelopment-a movementthatran "parallel" to the "intellectualemancipation"that"tookwomen of the 'middle class' fromtheirhomes
to colleges and universities
to study."Accordingto theirreport,thislinkeddeparture did not relievewomen fromtheirdutyas women. Rather,it called for"the
establishmentof theprinciplethatthe home itselfmustbe sociallydeveloped and
expanded." Recastinghistoricaldevelopmentas a sentimentalromanceplot,Dorr
and Hard proceeded to push this domesticconceitto the limit,calling forsocial
in obviouslychargedlanguage: For "women,enteringindustry,
restitution
are still
women, with bodies that can easily be wrecked." "Industry,"which "is still ...
a bachelor,with energetic,exhausting,short-sighted,
temperamentally
irresponsible, bachelor ways,"must be taughtto "marr[y] and settledown" so that "we
shall see some housekeeping."Afterall, this housekeeping"is necessaryforthe
preservationofthephysicalhealthof the woman workers"and "necessaryforthe
perpetuationofan undebilitatedhuman race."58
V
Though the calls fora returnto "natural obligations"and a shotgun
marriagebetweenindustryand labor may at firstglance seem distinctfromthe
male class transvestite's
more blatantlibidinal investments,
theyserve a similar
representational
function.In all oftheseaccounts,the authorsrecastthediscourse
of class and class differencein new and more accommodatingterms.From the
abject to theintegral,fromcommunityto signifying
system,fromsharedworkto
shared morality,fromeconomy to culture,the transvestite'srecordedjourney
throughthelowerclass produces a translationthatcreatesthe discursivespace for
As Cornelia StrattonParkerasserts,
a fictitious
resolutionofmaterialclass conflicts.
these illusory"conflicts"derive principallyfroma limitedperspective,the lack
(echoingCrane) ofan expanded point ofview: 'A certaintypeoflabor agitator,or
'parlorlaborite,'prefersto see only the gloomyside of the worker'slife.They are
as dishonestas the employerwho would see only the contentment.The picture
mustbe viewedin its entirety and thatmeans consideringthe workersnot as a
labor problem,but as a social problem."59Considered as such which is to say,
consideredapart fromtheirrelationto the mode of production the workersas
"social problem"are finallynotall thatproblematic.Forunderneaththeirdifferent
idioms (underneath"class" as it is here
clothing,different
habits,and different
conceived)liesa certainsameness,a common"humanity"thatcan be reconstituted
and resurrectedwithina renewed,more harmonic notion of American culture.
were not the only,nor even the principal,
To be sure,theseclass transvestites
protagonistsin thislargerideological transformation.
Rather,the recognition,revaluation, and accommodation of "difference"withinAmerican culture what
UndercoverExplorationsofthe"OtherHalf,"Or theWriteras Class Transvestite
125
we mightnow call "culturalpluralism" progressedslowlyand unevenlyat the
turn of the centurythroughthe popular press,academic departmentsof social
science,and legislativebodies. Withregardto the categoriesof race and ethnicity
(itsmain targets),the discourseofpluralismwas a qualifiedsuccess; it gave some
legitimacyto thosestruggling
againstnativistand racistpolicies,and it opened the
Yet the specificideological variantof
way to broadermovementsforcivil rights.6"'
class pluralismor "industrialpluralism"underwroteother,less progressivestructuraland institutional
changes.The price of a place at the table,a role withinthe
new industrialregime,was a circumscription
of working-classaction withinthe
"Out ofthenadir ofthe 1890s depresdominantformsofpoliticalrepresentation.
sion,"writesLeon Fink,"labor unionshad revived,noton thebasis oftheinclusive,
and
antimonopolyplatformoftheKnightsofLabor butthroughtheself-protective
politicallyconservativecraftunionism of the AFL." Followingthis conservative
trend,"industrialpluralists"connected such traditionallyprogressiveactions as
collectivebargaining"not to thedestructionofthecapitalistorderbutto itsreinvigoration,"pressing"forlegallysanctionedmechanismsofmanaged conflictbetween
employersand workers."" The most popular mechanisms of management,we
mightadd here,affectedthe livesof the unorganizedand the unemployedas well.
As Martha Banta has recentlydemonstrated,
themode of"scientificmanagement"
initiatedbyFrederickWinslowTaylorin the 1890s had a wide sphereofinfluence,
and rationalizingboth theworkplacerelationsand theculturalexperistructuring
ences oftheworkingand lowerclasses duringthisera.62
Banta's recentintervention
not withstanding,
the trendin much of the "new"
labor historyof recentyears has been to findresistanceto these newlycodified
structuralchanges withinan autonomousrealm of "working-classculture."Followingsuch Britishlabor historiansas E. P Thompson, and writingagainstolder
historiographicmodels of industrialconsent,a generationofAmericanhistorians
has looked outsideofthemanaged labor processforresistantpocketsof"preindustrial culturalvalues." For Herbert Gutman, who firstcharted this theoryin his
seminal essay"Work,Culture,and Societyin IndustrializingAmerica,"thepreindustrialwas morethansimplya romanticpast,necessarilyabandoned at thefactory
gates.It was, rather,an alternatesystemofworking-classvalues,continuallyreassertedby thesuccessivewaves ofimmigrantsand migrantsto theseindustrialcenters.This complex tapestryofpoliticalrepublicanism,ethniccommunitarianism,
and producerideologyformeda residualdiscourse(toborrowfromRaymondWilliams)thatcould and did create the basis foractionsagainstthe modernizingdictatesof industrialcapitalism. To the extentthat this "culture" stood outside of
economic and industrialdictates,it was unencumberedby the pervasive effects
of workplacerationalizationand corporatistmanagement,freeof the "pluralist"
recognition,celebration,and accommodationofworking-classdifference.'
Yet, I thinkthat as a corpus these class-transvestite
textsoffera contrasting
view to such "culturalist"approaches.Long beforeGutman and othersidentified
126
REPRESENTATIONS
and exploredworking-and lower-classculture,theseclass transvestites
had already
founda particularuse forsuch realmsof "autonomy."And thoughthisnefarious
precedentcan hardlyserveas a counter-argument
to the new labor history'sreliitmightat leastoperateas a methodologicalwarnance on "culture"as resistance,
ing,thatone shouldcontinuallybe aware ofthecontextualand ideologicalimplicationsof such a paradigmaticmove. For in the class transvestites'
journeysthrough
working-and lower-classcommunitiesin search of authenticculturalforms,we
hear more than an echo of FrederickWinslow Taylor'sown cross-dressedtravels
on thefactoryfloorin orderto discover,catalogue,and colonizetheworkers'"mass
Much like Taylor,the class transvestites
of traditionalknowledge."64
believed that
such culturalknowledgemightbe successfullycolonized and utilizedwithinthe
productionand vitalizationofnew formsofmiddle-classauthority.
The pointofsuch an abruptanalogy is not,finally,thatworkersand the lower
class lackeda cultureof theirown, even a culturebased on anti-industrial
values,
was no moreinherently
butratherthatthis"culture,"howeverformulated,
resistant
to appropriationthan was the considerableskill-baseof industrialcraft-workers.
Indeed, itwas preciselythe aura of authenticity
and resistancesurroundingworking-and lower-classculturethatassureditsfetishistic
attractionto the class transvestite.Its sociologicaland journalisticvalue derivedspecificallyfromitssupposed
positionofautonomyoutsideofthehomogenizedrealmofthenew industrialorder.
Once itwas identified,
mapped, and to variousdegreesappropriated,itcould serve
as part ofa newlyexpanded "point ofview."The resultof thesediscursiveacts of
not simplythe co-optationof working-and lowerimperialismwas, furthermore,
class culture,but the co-optationof "class" as "culture" an analyticsleightof
hand, constantly
reiterated,whichunderwrotethe translationofclass conflictinto
Once understoodas a culture
and theninto culturaldifference.65
class difference
among many,theworkingand lowerclasses could be containedwithina rhetoric
of pluralismthatcelebrateddifferenceeven as it denied revolutionaryvisions of
transcendence.
Notes
I would like to thankAlison Greene, David Cantrell, George Dekker,Barbara Foley,
Regenia Gagnier,Albert Gelpi, Susan Gilman, William Maxwell, Ramon Saldivar,
editorialboard fortheirhelpfulcommentary.
William Watson,and the Representations
trans.MatthewAdamSociology,
a Reflexive
1. PierreBourdieu,In OtherWords:
EssaysToward
The West,volume 2 of The Workers:
son (Stanford,Calif., 1990), 138; WalterWyckoff,
2 vols. (New York,1897, 1898), 147.
inReality,
An Experiment
2. From the originaltextof Stephen Crane, "An Experimentin Misery,"printedin the
Crane:
YorkPress,22 April 1894, 2. A copy of this opening is reprintedin Stephen
JNew
Va., 1973),862. All subseed. FredsonBowers(Charlottesville,
Tales,Sketches,
andReports,
UndercoverExplorationsofthe"OtherHalf,"Or theWriteras Class Transvestite
127
quent quotationsfromCrane's sketchwill be fromthiseditionand will be citedparentheticallyin thetext.There is littlescholarlyagreementabout theveracityofthissketch.
YetitmatterslittlewhetherCrane actuallyeverspenta nightin a lodginghouse dressed
as a "tramp."Certainlytherevisionshe made in theanthologizedversiondistancethe
sketchfromany such implications.This particular instance aside, one should note
lived a sortof cross-dressedlife,retreating
thatduringthisperiod Crane consistently
repeatedlyto his brotherEdmund's Lake View (now Paterson)home wherehe "could
count on a meal, a bed, and a writingtable afterhis foraysin the New York slums";
see ChristopherBenfey,TheDoubleLfe ofStephenCrane(New York, 1992), 58. Classtransvestite
tales such as his seem always to inhabit a thin border between factual
account and fictiveprojection veracitycontinuallyclaimed even as "literary"stylistics are baldly flaunted.What interestsme most is not discernment,but ratherthe
tenaciousattemptto constructfactual "authority"out of the figuresof literarydocument.
3. Althoughthereare numerousinstancesof cross-racialpassing and nonwhiteundercoverreportagein theUnited States,forclarityand precisionI have focusedexclusively
on whiteclass transvestites.
Cross-racialpassingis obviouslymotivatedbyverydifferent
social forces,and I have foundno instancesof nonwhiteclass transvestism
duringthe
period in question.
4. WilliamJames, "What Makes Life Significant,"in The Wr4itings
James,ed.
of JWVilliam
JohnJ.McDermott (Chicago, 1977), 649. James'sessay (originallypublishedin 1899)
is itselfan interesting
additionto thisparadigm.ForJames,the "blindness"and "mediocrity"of "middle-classparadise" (647) can only be puncturedby the heroic "daily
livesofthelaboringclasses." Such heroismis,ofcourse,notallowed to standunaltered,
but must be recapitulatedwithina middle-class"ideal" of "depth . . . of character"
(657).
5. Mark Seltzer,BodiesandMachines(New York,1992).
6. See forexample, Giorgio Mariani, Spectacular
Representations
ofClass and liar
Narratives:
in Stephen
CraneandtheAmerican
1890s (New York,1992); Amy Kaplan, "The Spectacle
of War in Crane's Revision of History,"in JfewEssaysonThe Red Badge of Courage,
ed. Lee Clare Mitchell(New York,1986); Rachel Bowlby,JustLooking:Consumer
Culture
in Dreiser,Gissing,and cola (New York, 1985); and June Howard, Formand Historyin
American
Literary
Naturalism
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1985). The foundationaltheoreticaltexts
forthis understandingof cross-classrepresentationare Michel Foucault,Disciplineand
Punish,trans.Alan Sheridan (New York,1978); Guy Debord, Society
oftheSpectacle
(Detrans.Mark
troit,1970); and to a lesserextent,JeanBaudrillard,TheMirrorofProduction,
Poster(St. Louis, Mo., 1975).
7. TJ. JacksonLears, No PlaceofGrace:Antimodernism
andtheTransformation
ofAmerican
Culture
(Chicago, 1981), 5.
8. As ChristopherWilson notes,by the 1890s, "reportinghad become a pressurizedand
unstableworld;ratherthan an objectivesocial laboratory,reportersnow witnessevents
in which theirown presence and craftwere implicated:eventsthatwere preplanned,
promoted,or,in extremecases, even fabricated";TheLaborofWords:
Literary
ProfessionalismintheProgressive
Era (Athens,Ga., 1985), 39. There is no biographyofAnnie Laurie
(thepseudonymof WinifredSweet Black Bonfils),but see W A. Swandberg, Citizen
Hearst:A
Biography
ofW4R.Hearst(New York,1961),59-60,74-5, and Ishbel Ross,Ladies
ofthePress(New York, 1936), 60-73. On Nellie Bly's transvestite
reportingsee Brooke
Kroeger,NellieBly:Daredevil,
Feminist
(New York, 1994), 79-136.
Reporter
9. Wyckof,Workers.
128
REPRESENTATIONS
10. Josiah Flynt, Trainping
(New York, 1893). See also his AllyLife(New York,
withTramps
1908), andJohn Seelye,"The AmericanTramp: A VersionofthePicaresque,"American
15 (Winter1963): 547-49.
Quarterly
11. The best sourcefortheseis Richard W Etulain, ed.,JackLondonontheRoad: The T7anp
Diaryand Other
Hobo T14?ritings
(Logan, Utah, 1979).
withtheWorking
12. Cornelia StrattonParker,Wfobrking
W/lloman
(New York,1922).
13. Bessie Van Vorstand Marie Van Vorst,The H/Ioman
Toils:BeingtheExperiences
ofTwo
W111ho
Gentlewomen
as Factory
Girls(New York, 1903). This is, needless to say,only a partial
adumbration.A completebibliographyofundercoverreportsin books,magazines,and
newspaperswould span severalpages.
14. WhitingWilliamspublisheda numberof worksthatdrew upon his earlyproletarian
journeys.See, forexample,Whiting Williams, WT1hat's
on theVWorker's
Mind (New York,
andtheGreatSociety
1920), and WhitingWilliams,America's
Mainspring
(New York,1967).
15. GregoryR. Woirol,In theFloatingArny:E C. Mills on Itinerant
Lfe in Calfornia,1914
(Urbana, Ill., 1992), 1, 3.
16. Paul Boyer,UrbanA/lasses
and AlIoralOrderin America,1820-1920 (Cambridge,Mass.,
1978), 278-9, 287.
17. JamesAgee and WalkerEvans' textis,I trust,well enoughknown.This is Paramount's
summaryofSullivan'sTravels
(writtenwithoutirony):'A successfulHollywood director
disguiseshimselfas a bum and setsoffto see Americafromthebottomup. In themidst
ofthebrutalityand despair,he makesa valuable discovery-thatwhatthedowntrodden
need mostis laughter."A recentnewspaperarticleprovidesan interestingcontemporarymanifestation
ofthiscross-dressing
technique.Injane H. Lii, "Week in Sweatshop
Reveals Grim ConspiracyofthePoor,"iew YorkTimes,12 March 1995, Al, the author
goes undercoverto expose the "complicity"of immigrantsweatshop workerswith
immigrantsweatshopowners.Reactionarypoliticsaside, the absence of the usual account of sartorialdissimulationraises an interestingpoint. In our period of so-called
deindustrialization,
theproletariat(both inside and outsidethe U.S.) becomes increasinglyrecognized by its racial characteristics.The author's race and abilityto speak
Cantonese are now,at least fromher point ofview,sufficient
prerequisitesto passing.
Accents:
18. Michael Denning has documenteda numberofsuch instances.See hisMechanic
Culture
inAnerica(New York,1987),85-148. CarolynPorter
andJl/orking-Class
Di~Me/ovels
has also examinedthe "plightoftheparticipantobserver"in SeeingandBeing:ThePlight
inEmerson,
Observer
oftheParticipant
James,
Adams,andFaulkner
(Middletown,Conn., 1981).
Though her focusis on more canonical figuresand less literalparticipation,I have
foundherdiscussionsof alienation and reificationhighlyproductive.
in
19. Paul T Ringenbach, Tramps
andReformers,
1873-1916.: TheDiscovery
ofUnemployment
New York
(Westport,Conn., 1973), 39-8 1.
millionlaborerswere
20. Accordingto Howard Zinn, threemillion of the nation'sfifteen
out of workin 1893; A People'sHistoryoftheUnitedStates(New York, 1980), 271. For a
"The DepressionoftheNineties,"Journal
moredetailedanalysissee Charles Hoffi-nann,
16 (June 1956): 137-64; Samuel Rezneck, "Unemployment,Unrest,
ofEconomic
Histowy
and Reliefin theUnited StatesDuring theDepression of 1893-1897,"JournalofPolitical
Econony61 (August 1953): 324-45; and Douglas W Steeples, "The Panic of 1893:
47 (July1965): 155-75. For
ContemporaryReflectionsand Reactions," M1id-America
one of Steeples'smostaccessible and informativesourcessee Richard T Ely,"Unem37 (2 September 1893): 845.
ployed,"Haiper'sWfleekly
theDepths:TheDiscoveiyofPoverty
in theUnitedStates(New York,
21. Robert Bremner,Fronm
1956), 142.
UndercoverExplorationsofthe"OtherHalf,"Or theWriteras Class Transvestite
129
22. FrancisWayland,'A Paper on Tramps,Read at theSaratoga Meeting oftheAmerican
Social Science Association,Beforethe Conferenceof State Charities,September6th,
1877" (New Haven, 1877), 10. Quoted in Seelye,"AmericanTramp," 541.
23. Ringenbach, TrampsandReformers,
43-47. See also Carlos A. Schwantes,Coxey's
Army
(Lincoln, Nebr., 1985).
24. Denny's comparisonbetweentrampsand wife-beatersis one ofa numberofseemingly
incidentalcommentsthatalign trampswithothermiscreantswho do violence to bourgeois gender norms.By visiblyand violentlyenacting the repressivepower thatwas
supposed to remain hidden and normalized within the domestic sphere,the wifebeater exceeded the limitsof social control.The tramp'svagrancysimilarlyenacted
and displayeda male rightto freedomand mobilitythatwas supposed to be bounded
by familial obligations.In short,what Denny objects to is not the exercise of male
privilege,but itsmomentsofexaggerationand visibility.
Calling forthewhippingpost
ratherthan the prison matchesvisible crime with visible punishment;C. S. Denny,
"The Whipping-PostforTramps," Century
49 (March 1895): 794. On the legal rights
of trampssee Amy Dru Stanley,"Beggars Can't Be Choosers: Compulsion and Contractin PostbellumAmerica,"JournalofrAmerican
History78 (March 1992): 1265-93.
25. There is littlespecificinformationonjack London's timein Coxey'sArmy,but seeJoan
London, jack LondonandHis Times:An Unconventional
Biography
(New York, 1939), 7172, and Etulain, introductiontojack LondonontheRoad, 1-27.
26. Though writtenin 1897, Jack London's "The Road" was not published untilJack
LondonReports
publisheditin 1970. It is also includedin Etulain,JackLondonontheRoad,
70. All subsequentquotationsfromLondon's sketchwill be fromthiseditionand will
be citedparentheticallyin the text.
27. As I indicate,London's treatmentof the trampchanges afterhis radicalization.As a
socialist,his economic analysisgains a certain economic rigorat the expense of his
previous sympathy.London's fear of the abject poor is, perhaps, nevermore evident
than in thisremarkablepassage fromthe 1907 novel, TheIronHeel (London, 1990):
I had seen thepeople oftheabyssbefore,gone throughitsghettos,
and thoughtI
knewit;butI foundthatI was now lookingon itforthefirsttime.Dumb apathy
had vanished.It was now dynamic-a fascinatingspectacleof dread. It surged
past my visionin concretewaves of wrath,snarlingand growingcarnivorous,
drunkwithhatred,drunkwithlustforblood-men, women,and children,in
dimferociousintelligences
withall thegodlikeblottedfromtheir
ragsand tatters,
featuresand all thefiendlikestampedin,apes, and tigers,anaemicconsumptives
and greathairybeasts of burden,wan faces fromwhichvampiresocietyhad
suckedthejuice oflife,bloatedformsswollenwithphysicalgrossnessand corruption,witheredhagsand death'sheadsbeardedlikepatriarchs,
festering
youthand
festering
age, facesoffiends,crooked,twisted,misshapenmonstersblastedwith
theravagesofdisease and all thehorrorsofchronicinnutrition-therefuseand
thescumoflife,a raging,screaming,screeching,
demoniacalhorde.(207)
ix. Subsequentpage references
will be givenparenthetically
in thetext.
28. Flynt,Tramping,
29. Boyer,UrbanMasses,159.
30. Ruth Hutchinson Crocker,Social J/brk
and Social Order:The Settlement
in Two
Movement
Industrial
Cities,1889-1930 (Chicago, 1992), 2.
31. For a criticalreading of the mixed successofcommunitarianefforts
to createcommunitywithinthe institutionalsettingseeJean B. Quandt, FromtheSmallTowntotheGreat
Community:
TheSocialThought
Intellectuals
ofProgressive
(New Brunswick,NJ., 1970), 79157.
130
REPRESENTATIONS
HouseandOtherTenement
Sketches
(Boston, 1895),
32. Alvan FrancisSanborn,Moody'sLodging
8. All subsequent quotationsfromSanborn's sketcheswill be cited parentheticallyin
the text.
33. Moralistic mid-nineteenth-century
studiesare numerous.For some more notable exYork
(New York,1848); Edwin
andMiseries
ofi'/ew
amples see Ned Buntline,TheMysteries
H. Chapin, ioral Aspects
ofCityLife(New York,1853); andJohn Todd, MoralInfluence,
withGreatCities(New York,1841). One can, of course,find
Dangers,
andDuties,Connected
racial taxonomiesin the "sociological" studies of such proslaverywritersas George
Fitzhugh and John C. Calhoun. Scholars more seldom acknowledge the profound
social
influenceof racistethnographyand phrenologyon later nineteenth-century
scientists.The currentcriticalre-evaluationof Charles Loring Brace (author of The
sidestephis earlier
Dangerous
ClassesofNewYork[New York,1872]) manages to effectively
A Manual ofEthnology
(New York,
work.See particularlyhis The RacesoftheOld World:
1870).
34. Keith Leland Gandal, "The Spectacle ofthePoor:Jacob Riis, Stephen Crane, and the
Representationof Slum Life" (Ph.D. diss., Universityof California, Berkeley,1990),
139-42.
35. Jacob Riis, How theOtherHa/fLives(New York, 1890), 121. The criticalliteratureon
Riis is large and rapidly growing.Along with Gandal's fine studysee Lewis Fried,
MakersoftheCity(Amherst,Mass., 1990),andJamesB. Lane, JacobA. RiisandtheAmerican
City(PortWashington,N.Y, 1974).
181.
36. Wyckoff,
The West,4; WalterWyckoff,
TheEast,volume 1 of Workers,
37. London,Abyss,8, 13-14.
Everyone:
TheDemocratization
of
38. Claudia B. Kidwell and Margaret C. Christman,Suiting
inAmerica
Clothing
(Washington,D.C., 1974), 115. Kidwell and Christman'sstudyis still
theclassictreatmentofready-madeclothing,but see also Alison Lurie, TheLanguageof
Clothes
(New York,1981), 140-46. Lurie sharpensKidwell and Christman'slaudatory
analysisby arguingthatthe "sack suit ... not onlyflattersthe inactive,it deformsthe
laborious.It was designedformen who did littleor no physicalworkand weretherefore
tall in relationto their breadth; it accommodated and emphasized the gesturesof
walking,sitting,speaking and pointing,but not those of running,lifting,carrying,
haulingand digging.In addition,since itrumpledand soiled easily,itdemanded to be
wornindoorsor on citystreets.When physicallyactivemen withbroad shoulders,deep
chestsand well-developedmusclesput on cheap versionsof the sack suittheylooked
misshapen,even deformed"(141).
andCultural
Interests:
39. Marjorie Garber, Vested
Anxiety
(New York,1992), 16.
Cross-Dressing
40. For Garber,the transvestite"marksa place ofpossibility"(11) because s/he functions
the original dyadic relations.To study
as a "thirdterm,"reconfiguring(disfiguring)
is to understand"natural"hierarchiesas innately"cultural."The transthetransvestite
vestiteis thus"inextricable"(13) fromLacan's SymbolicOrder,the siteof "immersion
in thecodes and constraintsofculture"(12). Yet,bymakingtransvestism
alwaysalready
creates
about culture(shedividesherstudyintoan explorationof"theway transvestism
culture"and "thewayin whichculturecreatestransvestites"
[16]), she avoidsan analysis of the ways in which such bodily acts of acculturationcan underwriteregressive
ideologies. In other words, the move froman embodied "nature" to an embodied
"culture" onlyensuresthat disciplinarystructuresmustbe iteratedin new terms.To
assume thatsuchtermswill be liberatingis to vastlyunderestimateboth theflexibility
of disciplinarydiscoursesand regressivecapabilitiesof culturalmodes offiguration.
UndercoverExplorationsofthe"OtherHalf,"Or theWriteras Class Transvestite
131
41.
42.
43.
44.
Van Vorst,WomanWhoToils,5, 19-20.
TheEast, 61.
Wyckoff,
See StuartBlumin, TheEmergence
oftheA/fiddle
Class(New York,1989), 1-16, 258-97.
A StudyofMiddle-ClassCulture
Karen Halttunen, Confidence
Men and PaintedWomen:
in
America,
1830-1870 (New Haven, Conn., 1982), xvi, xvii. See also John F Kasson,
inJNineteenth-Century
Rudeness
and Civility:
Manners
UrbanAmerica
(New York,1990).
45. Lears, No PlaceofGrace,5.
46. Eric Lott, Loveand Theft:Blackface
and theAmerican
Class (New York,
Minstrelsy
Working
1993). David Roediger,The WagesofWhiteness:
RaceandtheMakingofthe
American
Working
Class(New York,1991).
47. The classicstudyofthisis Richard Slotkin,TheFatalEnvironment:
TheAIiyth
ofthe
Frontier
intheAgeofIndustrialization,
1800-1890 (New York,1985). See also Lora Romero,"VanishingAmericans:Gender,Empire,and New Historicism,"American
Literature
63, no. 3
385-404.
(1991):
48. FrederickJackson Turner, The Frontier
in American
History,
forewordby WilburJacobs
(Tucson, Ariz., 1994), 4.
49. Melissa Dabakis, "Douglas Tilden's Mechanics
Fountain:
Labor and the 'CrisisofMascu47 (June1995): 219. On thecrisisofmasculinity
linity'in the 1890s,"American
Quarterly
see also Mark C. Carnes and Clyde Griffen,eds., Meaningsfor
Manhood:Constructions
in Victorian
America(Chicago, 1990), and Gail Bederman, Manlinessand
ofMasculinity
A Cultural
History
andRace intheUnitedStates,1880-1917 (Chicago,
Civilization:
ofGender
1995).
50. Wyckoff,
TheEast,vii.
51. John Sutherland,introductionto The Sea-W4ofbyJack London (1904; reprint,New
York,1992),xii.
52. London, Abyss,55, 39, 221.
53. Jane Addams, Twenty
Yearsat Hull House(1910; reprint,New York,1960), 92.
54. On thispoint see MariJo Buhle, Women
andAmerican
Socialism
(Urbana, 1981), 49-103.
"The Gilded Age woman's movement,"she argues,"named women'sown institutions
a motiveforceforsocial change; forthe hallowed class consciousnesstheysubstituted
an alternativesensibility,
genderconsciousnessor faithin a collectivesisterhood"(53).
Such a substitution,she notes, did not always facilitatetheir larger political goals:
"Class differences
oftenprovedinsuperable,and many dreams of universalsisterhood
wentunfulfilled.... Sisterlycooperationalone could notovercomethelargerobstacles
to women's advancement" (59). While less criticalof these reformers'class politics,
Carroll Smith-Rosenbergis also good on thispoint. See her Disorderly
Conduct:
Visions
in Victorian
America
ofGender
(New York, 1985), 174-75.
55. Van Vorst,WomanWhoToils,4.
56. Smith-Rosenberg,
Disorderly
Conduct,
263.
57. Van Vorst,WomanWhoToils,80-81.
58. Rheta Childe Dorr and William Hard's "The Woman's Invasion" ran seriallyin EveTvMagazinefromNovember 1908 to April 1909. Quotes are from:Part Four,"The
body's
Long March Up and Around" (Feb. 1909): 238; Part One, "Fall River,an Outpost on
the Edge of the Future" (Nov. 1908): 591, 585; Part Five, "Humanizing Industry"
(March 1909): 373; and Part One: 587.
59. Parker,Working,
ix.
60. The criticalliteratureon culturalpluralismis, as one mightimagine,vast and largely
A good startingpoint is CrawfordYoung, ThePolitics
unsynthesized.
ofCulturalPluralism
(Madison, Wisc., 1976).
132
REPRESENTATIONS
61. Leon Fink,In SearchoftheWorking
Class:EssaysinAmerican
LaborHistory
andPolitical
Culture
(Urbana, Ill., 1994), 219-20. See also ChristopherLasch, "The Moral and Intellectual
RehabilitationoftheRulingClass," in The World
Reflections
onAmerican
History,
of3Nations:
Politics,
and Culture
(New York,1973), 80-99.
62. Martha Banta, Taylored
Lives:Narrative
Productions
intheAgeofTaylorVeblen,
andFord(Chicago, 1993). Indeed, FrancesFox Piven and Richard Cloward argued some time ago
thatreliefefforts
and reformcampaigns aimed at thepoor werenothingifnotcomplicitouswithcontemporaneousmanagerial movementsto cutwages and "de-skill"workers in the traditionalindustries.In both cases, the goal was to increase industrialproductivityand profitbylimitingthepossibilitiesforwages or otherformsof subsistence
outsideofa wellregulatedpolitical and industrialsystem;FrancesFox Piven and Richard Cloward,Regulating
thePoor:TheFunctions
ofPublicWe/fare
(New York,1971).
63. HerbertGutman, "Work,Culture, and Societyin IndustrializingAmerica,"American
Historical
Review78 (June1973): 531-88. On Gutman'suse of"culture"and itshistorioonAmerigraphiclegacyseeJ. Carroll Moody and Alice Kessler-Harris,eds., Perspectives
canLaborHistory:TheProblems
ofSynthesis
(DeKalb, Ill., 1989), and JerryLee Lembcke,
59
"Labor History's'SynthesisDebate': Sociological Interventions,"ScienceandSociety
(Summer 1995):137-73.
64. FrederickWinslowTaylor,ThePrinciples
ofScientific
Management
(New York,1947), 32. On
Taylor'ssearch for"traditionalknowledge"see Harry Braverman,LaborandMonopoly
Century
Capital:TheDegradation
ofWorki theTwentieth
(New York,1974), 85-123.
65. WalterBenn Michaels findsa similarparadigm in contemporaneousconstructionsof
"race." See his "Race into Culture:A CriticalGenealogy of Cultural Identity,"Critical
Inquiry18 (Summer 1992): 655-85.
UndercoverExplorationsofthe"OtherHalf,"Or theWriteras Class Transvestite
133