Fiction at Work argues that racialist constructs provided the common ground for negotiating industrial capitalism in nineteenth-century American labor fiction. Dime novel labor fiction adopts these narrative strategies, indicating the shared racialist code of labor fiction in the United States. In making this argument particular emphasis is placed on the narrative inclusions, exclusions and representations of the ethnic groups living in the United States as an index of the fictionality, rather than the verisimilitude, of labor fiction. Consequently, which ethnic groups are included or excluded in these narratives, and how these "races" are represented, is part of the larger discourse regarding the "races" deemed worthy or unworthy of full-fledged citizenship in the United States of America.
- dime novels
- American fiction
- class
- race
- immigration
"Fiction at Work: Forging American Class Identities in Nineteenth-Century Dime Novels"
Gardner, P. ((PhD) Student), Callens, J. (Promotor). 20 Feb 2009
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis