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Journal of Interdisciplinary History 30.4 (2000) 717-719



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Book Review

Working with Class:
Social Workers and the Politics of Middle-Class Identity


Working with Class: Social Workers and the Politics of Middle-Class Identity. By Daniel J. Walkowitz (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1999) 440 pp. $59.95 cloth $22.50 paper.

Social work belongs to a set of occupations--along with the occupations of policeman and teacher--shot through with distinctive contradictions. These occupations bestow on incumbents street-level power over matters of great significance to the individuals that they serve, but, at the same time, they subject practitioners to petty authority, bureaucratic rules, and forms of discipline that professionals by and large neither expect nor tolerate. Practitioners demand professionalism and claim respectable social standing, but social work commands less salary than many skilled blue-collar jobs; it circumscribes the autonomy of its members; and it carries little respect. Walkowitz uses social work to [End Page 717] illustrate one semi-profession's uneasy, and only partially successful, passage through these contradictions in its search for the emblems of middle-class identity in twentieth-century America. The changing meaning of middle class constitutes a moving target, leaving social workers perpetually unsettled, chasing an elusive and unstable goal, trading pay and autonomy for an uncertain status as professionals and a toehold in the consumer culture.

From early to mid-century, social workers defined themselves "as middle class against others above and below them--philanthropists, elite volunteers, and relief recipients" (290). As they sought better pay through trade unions and more control over their work, middle class began to assume an economic meaning; it was about work and money. By the last quarter of the century, the term had dropped its economic meaning to signify culture and consumption. Above all, it stood for "white," distinguishing its members from a threatening, racialized, and degraded "other." Earlier in the century, social workers of immigrant backgrounds had identified with their immigrant clients, but by late in the century, white social workers were emphasizing the distance between themselves and the ghetto poor. In their search for status and more rewarding work, they backpeddled out of casework or other forms of direct contact with the poor and into the practice of therapy. They found a secure place in the white suburban middle class as cut-rate psychotherapists. The social workers who remained on the front lines were predominantly black or Hispanic, and public agencies began to de-professionalize the occupation by assigning many functions to "social work aides," largely minority women with little advanced education or training.

Walkowitz relates the intertwined stories of social work and middle-class formation to a wide array of factors, including labor-market demographics, the organization of work, national politics, unionization, and issues around race and gender. His analysis rests on published, manuscript, and oral sources, as well as excellent illustrations that vividly underline a number of themes. The oral histories provide the most striking evidence of the tensions and conflicts that continuously reshaped social work. Walkowitz sets his story in New York City with special emphasis on the city's Department of Public Welfare and the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, a public and private agency. With some exaggeration, he sees the New York story as paradigmatic for the nation.

As anyone familiar with Walkowitz's earlier work would expect, the book pays close attention to the relations between social work and organized labor. Social work's radicalization and initial unionization during the Great Depression constitute the high point for vision, daring, and concern for clients--a moment echoed by a briefly resurgent fraction of radical social workers in the 1960s. The Cold War wiped out the vestiges of 1930s and 1940s radicalism and left social work timid, tame, and increasingly conservative. This story, well told by Walkowitz, [End Page 718] adds an important chapter to the emerging understanding of how the Cold War stunted the growth of the American welfare state.

One could quibble with Walkowitz at various points, the most important...

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