Meet Joe Copper
Masculinity and Race on Montana’s World War II Home Front
- Contents
- Review Quotes
- Awards

Acknowledgments
PART I: WHITE LABOR, 1882–1940
ONE / Butte: “Only White Men and Dagoes”
TWO / Black Eagle: Immigrants’ Bond
THREE / Anaconda: “Husky Smeltermen” and “Company Boys”
PART II: COPPER MEN AND THE CHALLENGES OF THE EARLY WAR HOME FRONT
FOUR / Redrafting Masculinity: Breadwinners, Shirkers, or “Soldiers of Production”
FIVE / The Emerging Labor Shortage: Independent Masculinity, Patriotic Demands, and the Threat of New Workers
PART III: MAKING THE HOME FRONT SOCIAL ORDER
SIX / Butte, 1942: White Men, Black Soldier-Miners, and the Limits of Popular Front Interracialism
SEVEN / Black Eagle, 1943: Home Front Servicemen, Women Workers, and the Maintenance of Immigrant Masculinity
EIGHT / Anaconda, 1944: White Women, Men of Color, and Cross-Class White Male Solidarity
CONCLUSION / The Man in the Blue-Collar Shirt: The Working Class and Postwar Masculinity
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Index
“Basso has written a dense, state-of-the-art study of working-class masculinity, one sharply attuned to its many ‘contradictions and paradoxes’ . . . . Perhaps most impressive is Basso’s use of hegemonic masculinity. The concept is frequently invoked by scholars, but Basso gives it some real empirical teeth and actually deploys the hegemony half of the equation. We see it most clearly in his discussions of ‘cross-class white male solidarity’—those moments when white and white ethnic male workers and white male bosses found common cause—which Basso treats as shifting ‘historic blocs.’ In approaching copper men from the perspective of hegemonic masculinity, Basso avoids viewing workers as ideological dupes or as suffering from false consciousness.”
Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association: Pacific Coast Branch Book Award
Won
Cornell Univiversity ILR and Labor and Working Class Historical Association: Philip Taft Labor History Award
Won
History: American History
Sociology: Occupations, Professions, Work | Race, Ethnic, and Minority Relations
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