The Strange Career of “the Working Class” in US Political Culture Since the 1950s

This article explores the use of the term working class in US political culture since the 1950s. Studying the trajectory of the phrase in the New York Times, the essay finds that the term fell from grace in the 1950s and early 1960s but reemerged thereafter and that the reasons for the increasing prevalence of the term in the 1970s and 1980s explain its ubiquity in the 2016 presidential election season.