"The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844" by Frederick Engels is a powerful indictment of the Industrial Revolution's detrimental impact on workers. Engels meticulously demonstrates how industrial cities like Manchester and Liverpool experienced alarmingly high mortality rates due to diseases, with workers being four times more likely to succumb to illnesses like smallpox, measles, scarlet fever, and whooping cough compared to their rural counterparts. The overall death rate in these cities far surpassed the national average, painting a grim picture of the workers' plight. Engels goes beyond mortality statistics to shed light on the dire living conditions endured by industrial workers. He argues that their wages were lower than those of pre-industrial workers, and they were forced to inhabit unhealthy and unpleasant environments. Addressing a German audience, Engels' work is considered a classic account of the universal struggles faced by the industrial working class. It reveals his transformation into a radical thinker after witnessing the harsh realities in England. "The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844" remains an essential resource for understanding the hardships endured by workers during the Industrial Revolution. Engels' meticulous research and impassioned arguments continue to shape discussions on labor rights, social inequality, and the historical agency of the working class.

Men in hardhats were once the heart of America’s working class; now it is women in scrubs. What does this shift portend for our future? Pittsburgh was once synonymous with steel. But today most of its mills are gone. Like so many places across the United States, a city that was a center of blue-collar manufacturing is now dominated by the service economy—particularly health care, which employs more Americans than any other industry. Gabriel Winant takes us inside the Rust Belt to show how America’s cities have weathered new economic realities. In Pittsburgh’s neighborhoods, he finds that a new working class has emerged in the wake of deindustrialization. As steelworkers and their families grew older, they required more health care. Even as the industrial economy contracted sharply, the care economy thrived. Hospitals and nursing homes went on hiring sprees. But many care jobs bear little resemblance to the manufacturing work the city lost. Unlike their blue-collar predecessors, home health aides and hospital staff work unpredictable hours for low pay. And the new working class disproportionately comprises women and people of color. Today health care workers are on the front lines of our most pressing crises, yet we have been slow to appreciate that they are the face of our twenty-first-century workforce. The Next Shift offers unique insights into how we got here and what could happen next. If health care employees, along with other essential workers, can translate the increasing recognition of their economic value into political power, they may become a major force in the twenty-first century.

In the early-1870s, an ideological debate began to unfold in the German press on the shortage of affordable housing available to workers in major industrial areas. The rapid increase in industrial production necessitating an increase in industrial workers created a housing crisis. From June 1872 to February 1873, Fredrick Engels contributed a series of articles to the publication The Volksstaat (The People's State) titled "The Housing Question." Originally published as a booklet by the Co-Operative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers in the USSR and out of print for many years, INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS is proud to make this text available - as workers yet again face almost insurmountable obstacles to finding affordable housing. As Engels wrote in 1872, "What is meant today by housing shortage is the peculiar intensification of the bad housing conditions of the workers as the result of the sudden rush of population to the big towns; a colossal increase in rents, a still further aggravation of overcrowding in the individual houses, and, for some, the impossibility of finding a place to live in at all." Fredrick Engels' essays collected here as "The Housing Question" are just as relevant today, roughly 150 years after first written.

Each volume in the widely-successful Working Americans series focuses on a particular type of American and illustrates what life was like for that group from the 1800s to the present time. The volumes are arranged into decade-long chapters, each introducing to the reader three individuals or families. Individual profiles examine life at home, life at work, life in the community, family finances and budget, cost of living and amusements. To further the reader's understanding of the time period, profiles are supplemented with national current events, economic profiles, an historical snapshot, news profiles, local news articles and illustrations derived from popular printed materials. Profiles cover a wide range of ethnic groups and span the entire country, providing a thorough examination of all types of Americans in that particular group. From a wealth of government surveys, social worker histories, economic data, family diaries and letters, newspaper and magazine features, these unique volumes assemble a remarkably personal and realistic look at the lives of Americans. For easy reference, Volumes II through VIII contain an in-depth Subject Index to make sure that the reader can locate specific information quickly and easily. The Working Americans series has become an important reference for public libraries, academic libraries and high school libraries. These volumes will enrich the reader's understanding of American history, through the eyes of its people, and will be a welcome addition to all types of reference collections.

List of IllustrationsList of TablesAcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart I. The Quest for Independence, 1920-19401. Building Independence in Suburbia2. Peopling the Subur 3. The Texture of Everyday Life4. The Politics of IndependencePart II. Closing Ranks, 1940-19655. "A Beautiful Place"6. The Suburban Good Life Arrives7. The Racializing of Local PoliticsEpilogueAcronyms for Collections and ArchivesNotes Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.