The ground has shifted from the days in which "serious history" and "boring" went hand in glove. Textbooks and lectures have their place, but less traditional classrooms can be powerfully immersive and insightful. Take the 1929 Marx Brothers film The Cocoanuts and what it teaches about both the Great Depression and early sound films. The Marx Brothers are among the funniest comedy teams of all time. Four of their 13 films are on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest American comedies ever made. For many contemporary viewers, though, "getting" the jokes is not always easy because the humor can be subjective and timebound. This work looks at the American past through the lens of the Marx Brothers' films and other projects. Each of the chapters focuses on a specific film, contextualizing the world at the time and how the Marx Brothers lampooned those subjects. Along the way, the book demonstrates what the Marx Brothers revealed about weighty topics like gambling, gender relations, immigration, medical care, Prohibition, race and war, all leavened with offbeat humor.

This encyclopedia traces the evolution of American workers and labor organizations from pre-Revolutionary America through the present day. In 2001, Robert E. Weir's two-volume Historical Encyclopedia of American Labor was chosen as a New York Public Library Best in Reference selection. Weir recently revised this groundbreaking resource, resulting in content that is more accessible, comprehensive, and timely. The newest edition, Workers in America: A Historical Encyclopedia, features updated entries, recent court cases, a chronology of key events, an enriched index, and an extensive bibliography for additional research. This expansive encyclopedia examines the complete panorama of America's work history, including the historical account of work and workers, the social inequities between the rich and poor, violence in the Labor Movement, and issues of globalization and industrial economics. Organized in two volumes and arranged in A-Z order, the 350 entries span key events, collective actions, pivotal figures, landmark legislation, and important concepts in the world of labor and work. Suggested reading for each entry, including both print and online resources A chronology of important labor highlights 350 entries covering key topics

In the United States, social class ranks with gender, race, and ethnicity in determining the values, activities, political behavior, and life chances of individuals. Most scholars agree on the importance of class, although they often disagree on what it is and how it impacts Americans. This A-Z encyclopedia, the first to focus on class in the United States, surveys the breadth of class strata throughout our history, for high school students to the general public. Class is illuminated in 525 essay entries on significant people, terms, theories, programs, institutions, eras, ethnic groups, places, and much more. This useful set is an authoritative, fascinating source for in-demand information on key aspects of our culture and society and helps researchers to narrow down a broad topic. Class is revealed from angles that often intersect: through history, with entries such as Founding Fathers, the Industrial Revolution, Westward Expansion; through economics, with entries such as Dot.com Bubble, Robber Barons, Chicago School of Economics, Lottery, Wage Slaves, Economic Equal Opportunity Act, Stock Market, Inheritance Taxes, Wal-Mart, Welfare; through social indicators such as Conspicuous Consumption, the Hamptons, WASP, Homelessness, Social Climbing; through politics with entries such as Anarchism, Braceros, Heritage Foundation, Communist Party, Kennedy Family; and through culture through entries such as Country Music, The Great Gatsby, Television, and Studs Terkel. Class is also approached from ethnic, sexual, religious, educational, and regional angles. Special features include an introduction, timeline, suggested reading per entry, cross-references, reader's guide to topics, and thoroughindex. Sample entries: Immigration, Education, Labor Movement, Pink-Collar Workers, AFL-CIO, Strikes, Great Depression, Jacob Riis, Literature, the Rockefellers, Slavery, Music, Academia, Family, Suburbia, McMansions, Taxation, Segregation, Racism, Ivy League, Robber Barons, Philanthropists, Socialites, Religion, Welfare, the American Dream, Dot.com Millionaires, Equal Opportunity, Founding Fathers, Wage Slaves, Industrial Revolution, Capitalism, Economics, Appalachia, Horse Racing, Gender, Communist Party, Country Clubs, Religion, American Indians, Conspicuous Consumption, Studs Terkel, Film, Class-Consciousness, Work Ethic, Media, Television, Puritans, Homelessness, Status Symbols, Assimilation/Melting Pot, Art, Westward Expansion, Poverty, The Great Gatsby, Stock Market, Working Poor, Gated Communities, the Hamptons, Social Climbing, Crime, Lottery, Elitism, WASP, American Dream, Noam Chomsky, Fortune Magazine

The Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor was founded in 1869 as a secret fraternal order committed to the goal of uniting American labor. At its height in 1886, the Knights claimed the allegiance of perhaps a million workers.

Despite a host of local studies by the new labor historians of the 1970s and 1980s, there has been no general study of the Knights since Norman Ware's 1929 book, and no one has ever attempted a comprehensive study of the culture of the organization. In Beyond Labor's Veil, Robert E. Weir presents a fascinating cultural portrait of the Knights across regions, covering the years 1869 to 1893.

From the start, the Knights of Labor was an unusual organization, equal parts fraternal order and labor union. It was the only nineteenth-century labor organization to organize African Americans, women, and unskilled workers on an equal basis with white craftsmen. Weir goes beyond the rhetoric of public pronouncements and union politics to consider the real influence of the Knights--in communities and homes as well as in the workplace.

Weir explores the many cultural expressions of the Knights--ritual, religion, poetry, music, literature, material objects, graphics, and leisure. Although the Knights barely survived into the twentieth century, Weir concludes that the creative cultural expressions of the Knights enabled it to do as well as it did in the face of powerful oppositional forces. What emerges in Beyond Labor's Veil is a rich, detailed description of the Knights as its members adapted to the confusion and contradiction of America's Gilded Age.

We immerse ourselves daily in expressions of popular culture-YouTube videos, hip hop music, movies, adverts, greeting cards, videogames, and comics, to name just a few possibilities-and far too often we pay only scant critical attention to them. The essays in this collection redress this situation by probing a wide range of topics within the field of popular culture studies. Written in engaging and jargon-free prose, contributions critically examine various offerings in film, television, social media, music, literature, sports, and related areas. Moreover, they often pay special attention to the ways in which these pop culture artefacts intersect with issues of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, and ability. Providing a rich mixture of broad perspectives and intriguing case studies, the essays form a compelling mosaic of findings and viewpoints on popular culture. Exploring everything from toxic masculinity in twenty-first century television programmes to gendered greeting cards and adult colouring books, this provocative volume is essential reading for anyone interested in that fabricated and all-pervasive environment we call popular culture.