A preeminent scholar explores the history of the "new immigrants" who came to the United States in the late nineteenth century and describes how they became insiders by the end of World War II At the vanguard of the study of race and labor in American history, David R. Roediger is the author of the now-classic The Wages of Whiteness , a study of racism in the development of a white working class in nineteenth-century America. In Working Toward Whiteness , he continues that history into the twentieth century. He recounts how American ethnic groups considered white today-including Jewish-, Italian-, and Polish-Americans-once occupied a confused racial status in their new country. They eventually became part of white America thanks to the nascent labor movement, New Deal reforms, and a rise in home-buying. From ethnic slurs to racially restrictive covenants--the racist real estate agreements that ensured all-white neighborhoods--Roediger explores the murky realities of race in twentieth-century America. A masterful history by an award-winning writer, Working Toward Whiteness charts the strange transformation of these new immigrants into the "white ethnics" of America today. "A cogent analysis of culture and race in early 20th-century America that ranks with such classics as Grace Hale's Making Whiteness and Linda Gordon's The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction ." ( Kirkus )