The classic history of how the identity of “white worker” came to be, and the awful results An enduring history of how race and class came together to mark the course of US history. Roediger shows how the identity of “white” came to allow many Northern workers to see themselves as having something in common with their bosses. Projecting onto enslaved people and free Blacks the preindustrial closeness to pleasure that regimented labor denied them, “white workers” consumed blackface popular culture, reshaped languages of class, and embraced racist practises on and off the job.