The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists
by Robert Tressell
Working-class rage before it was trending.
For you if
you're working class and have felt the specific indignity of being told to be grateful for your own exploitation
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A working-class epic written by a house painter who’d had enough. Tressell’s novel exposes the quiet dignity and crushing exploitation of laborers in early 20th-century England — and the delusion that keeps them loyal to their masters. Think Les Misérables with paint under its fingernails and revolution in its heart.
Where This Book Lives
Related Viewing
Shares a topic, theme, or setting with this book in the catalog.
Harlan County, U.S.A.(1976)
dir. Barbara Kopple
Shot from inside the picket line, not above it.
Cinema-verité account of a 13-month Kentucky coal miners' strike against Eastover Mining, filmed from inside the picket line as violence escalates on both sides.
Why it’s here: No talking-head remove — Kopple lived with the strikers for over a year, and the film's authority comes from proximity, not narration. A founding text for what labor documentary can look like when the filmmaker picks a side and stays there.
Sorry to Bother You(2018)
dir. Boots Riley
A satire sharp enough to double as a labor argument.
A Black telemarketer in an alternate-present Oakland discovers his 'white voice' can sell anything, and rides it straight into a company that's selling something much worse.
Why it’s here: Boots Riley is a labor organizer's kid making an organizer's film wearing surrealist-comedy clothes — the 'white voice' gag is funny right up until it isn't, and the film never lets you forget which one it actually is.
Same pattern, different era
Different time, different place. The same thing keeps happening.
Nickel and Dimed
Barbara Ehrenreich
She worked the minimum wage jobs. The math doesn't work.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Working
Studs Terkel
Americans talk about their jobs. All of them. No filter.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Hand to Mouth
Linda Tirado
Why do poor people make bad choices? She was one. Here's why.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Moderation
Elaine Castillo
She moderates everything. Then she can't moderate herself.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
For the family bookshelf
Same idea, written for a younger reader. Good for reading together.
