{"product_id":"building-a-social-contract-9781439923924","title":"Building a Social Contract","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe dream of the modern worker’s house emerged in early twentieth-century America as wage earners gained access to new, larger, and better-equipped dwellings. \u003ci\u003eBuilding a Social Contract\u003c\/i\u003e is a cogent history of the houses those workers dreamed of and labored for. Michael McCulloch chronicles the efforts of employers, government agencies, and the building industry who, along with workers themselves, produced an unprecedented boom in housing construction that peaked in the mid-1920s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Through oral histories, letters, photographs, and period fiction, McCulloch traces wage earners’ agency in negotiating a new implicit social contract, one that rewarded hard work with upward mobility in modern houses. This promise reflected workers’ increased bargaining power but, at the same time, left them increasingly vulnerable to layoffs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBuilding a Social Contract\u003c\/i\u003e focuses on Detroit, the quintessential city of the era, where migrant workers came and","brand":"Temple University Press,U.S.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49408326828375,"sku":"9781439923924","price":25.19,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781439923924.jpg?v=1730502454","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/building-a-social-contract-9781439923924","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}