Research Catalog
Heartland : a memoir of working hard and being broke in the richest country on Earth
- Title
- Heartland : a memoir of working hard and being broke in the richest country on Earth / Sarah Smarsh.
- Author
- Smarsh, Sarah
- Publication
- New York : Scribner, 2018.
- ©2018
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1 Item
| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JFD 18-5460 | Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315 |
Details
- Description
- ix, 290 pages; 22 cm
- Summary
- "During Sarah Smarsh's turbulent childhood in Kansas in the 1980s and 1990s, the country's changing economic policies solidified her family's place among the working poor. By telling the story of her life and the lives of the people she loves, Smarsh challenges us to examine the class divide in our country and the myths about people thought to be less because they earn less. Her personal history affirms the corrosive impact intergenerational poverty can have on individuals, families, and communities, and she explores this idea as lived experience, metaphor, and level of consciousness. Born a fifth-generation Kansas wheat farmer on her paternal side and the product of generations of teen mothers on her maternal side, Smarsh grew up in a family of laborers trapped in a cycle of poverty. Whether working the wheat harvest, helping on her dad's construction sites, or visiting her grandma's courthouse job, she learned about hard work. She also absorbed painful lessons about economic inequality. Through her experience growing up as the child of a dissatisfied teenage mother--and being raised predominantly by her grandmother on a farm thirty miles west of Wichita--she gives us a unique, essential look into the lives of poor and working-class Americans living in the middle of our country. Combining memoir with powerful analysis and cultural commentary, Heartland is an uncompromising look at class, identity, and the particular perils of having less in a country known for its excess. "--Dust jacket.
- Subjects
- Genre/Form
- Autobiographies.
- Biography.
- Contents
- Dear August -- A penny in a purse -- The body of a poor girl -- A stretch of gravel with wheat on either side -- The shame a country could assign -- A house that needs shingles -- A working-class woman -- The place I was from.
- Call Number
- JFD 18-5460
- ISBN
- 1501133098
- 9781501133091
- 9781925713633 (canceled/invalid)
- LCCN
- 2017301189
- OCLC
- 1022688633
- Author
- Smarsh, Sarah, author.
- Title
- Heartland : a memoir of working hard and being broke in the richest country on Earth / Sarah Smarsh.
- Publisher
- New York : Scribner, 2018.
- Copyright Date
- ©2018
- Edition
- First Scribner hardcover edition.
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Research Call Number
- JFD 18-5460