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The End of the Line

Lost Jobs, New Lives in Postindustrial America

The End of the Line tells the story of the 1988 closing of the Chrysler assembly plant in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Kathryn Marie Dudley uses interviews with residents to chart the often confusing process of change that deindustrialization forced on every corner of the community. This honest, moving portrait of one town’s radical shift from a manufacturing to a postindustrial economy will redefine the way Americans think about our families, communities, and future.

"An excellent study not only of the cultural disruptions caused by the shutdown of Chrysler’s operations in Kenosha, Wisconsin, but also of the ideology of progress that abetted the shutdown."—Stephen Amberg, Industrial and Labor Relations Review

"With the eye of an anthropologist, [Dudley] examines the tensions between the ’culture of hands’ and the ’culture of mind.’ Her account is especially instructive because, by many measures, Kenosha has successfully recovered, yet for many the pain still remains."—Booklist

"Exceptional. . . . Should be widely read."—Douglas Harper, Contemporary Sociology

"Make[s] clear what a tenuous concept economic security is, especially when the rules for achieving security are in flux."—Barbara Presley Noble, New York Times

250 pages | 14 halftones, 3 maps, 8 line drawings, 7 tables | 6 x 9 | © 1994

Morality and Society Series

Anthropology: Cultural and Social Anthropology

Culture Studies

Sociology: Occupations, Professions, Work, Social Change, Social Movements, Political Sociology

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Tradition of Opportunity
Part One: What Happened to the American Dream?
1. Kenosha Had a Dream
2. Keep Kenosha Open!
3. Dollars and Diplomas
Part Two: Culture of the Mind
4. Turning the Tables
5. Social Darwinism Revisited
6. That Haunting Thing
Part Three: Culture of the Hands
7. Shopfloor Culture
8. Badges of Ability
9. Broken Promises
10. Mapping the Moral Terrain
Conclusion: American Primitive
Appendix: The Kenosha Workforce
Notes
Index

Awards

World Hunger Year: Harry Chapin Media Awards
Won

Society for Applied Anthropology: Margaret Mead Award
Won

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