From the cannery rows of California to the sweatshops of New York, this anthology of poems captures the drama of work and working-class life in industrial America. It speaks of rolling mills, mine shafts, and foundries, and of a people who dig coal, tap blast furnaces, sew shirts, clean fish, and assemble cars. These subjects, though largely absent from literary anthologies and textbooks, are increasingly evident in the work of contemporary poets. Working Classics gathers the best and most representative of these poems, American and Canadian, from 1945 to the present. Included are poems by Antler, Robert Bly, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Jim Daniels, Patricia Dobler, Stephen Dunn, Tess Gallagher, Edward Hirsch, David Ignatow, June Jordan, Lawrence Joseph, Philip Levine, Chris Llewellyn, Joyce Carol Oates, Anthony Petrosky, Michael Ryan, Gary Soto, Tom Wayman, James Wright, and many others. The result is a diverse and evocative collection of 169 poems by 74 poets, nearly a third of them women.

America's workers have been singing, reciting, performing, telling stories, writing, and publishing for more than three centuries. Ranging from early colonial times to the present, American Working-Class Literature presents more than 300 literary texts that exemplify this tradition. It demonstrates how American working people live, labor, struggle, express themselves, and give meaning to their experiences both inside and outside of the workplace. The only book of its kind, this groundbreaking anthology includes work not only by the industrial proletariat but also by slaves and unskilled workers, by those who work unpaid at home, and by workers in contemporary service industries. As diverse in race, gender, culture, and region as America's working class itself, the selections represent a wide range of genres including fiction, poetry, drama, memoir, oratory, journalism, letters, oral history, and songs. Works by little-known or anonymous authors are included alongside texts from such acclaimed writers as Frederick Douglass, Upton Sinclair, Tillie Olsen, Philip Levine, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Leslie Marmon Silko. A rich selection of contemporary writing includes Martin Espada's poem "Alabanza" about the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center.
American Working-Class Literature is organized chronologically into seven sections that highlight key historical and cultural developments in working-class life. The book is enhanced by an editors' introduction, section introductions, and individual head notes for each selection that provide biographical and historical context. A timeline of working-class history, rich illustrations, sidebars, reading lists, and a bibliography ofcritical commentary are also included. This unique volume is ideal for courses in American literature, cultural and working-class studies, and labor history.

A History of American Working-Class Literature sheds light not only on the lived experience of class but the enormously varied creativity of working-class people throughout the history of what is now the United States. By charting a chronology of working-class experience, as the conditions of work have changed over time, this volume shows how the practice of organizing, economic competition, place, and time shape opportunity and desire. The subjects range from transportation narratives and slave songs to the literature of deindustrialization and globalization. Among the literary forms discussed are memoir, journalism, film, drama, poetry, speeches, fiction, and song. Essays focus on plantation, prison, factory, and farm, as well as on labor unions, workers' theaters, and innovative publishing ventures. Chapters spotlight the intersections of class with race, gender, and place. The variety, depth, and many provocations of this History are certain to enrich the study and teaching of American literature.