Claudia Strauss
What Work Means: Beyond the Puritan Work Ethic
“This book is smart, timely, and beautifully written. It offers a thoughtful, nuanced, always-accessible look at the various ways people understand work and being out of work in the contemporary US.”
Carrie Lane, Cal State Fullerton, author of A Company of One
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What Work Means goes beyond the stereotypes and captures the diverse ways Americans view work as a part of a good life. Dispelling the notion of Americans as obsessive workaholics, Claudia Strauss presents a more nuanced perspective. While some live to work, others prefer a diligent 9-to-5 work ethic that is conscientious but preserves time for other interests. Her participants often enjoyed their jobs without making work the focus of their life. These findings challenge laborist views of waged work as central to a good life as well as post-work theories that treat work solely as exploitative and soul-crushing.
Drawing upon the evocative stories of unemployed Americans from a wide range of occupations, from day laborers to corporate managers, both immigrant and native-born, Strauss also explores how diverse Americans think about accepting financial support from family, friends, and the state, gendered meanings of breadwinning, and what the ever-elusive American dream means to them. By considering how unemployment experiences now diverge from joblessness earlier, What Work Means paves the way for a historically and culturally informed discussion of meanings of work in a future of teleworking, greater automation, and increasing nonstandard employment.
In a conversation with host Tom Discenna about What Work Means, Claudia Strauss explains four key meanings of work in the United States today, why white picket fences are a symbol of appropriate consumption desires, continuity and change in traditional gendered meanings of being a breadwinner, problems with both post-work and laborist work politics, and why, in the end, the specifics of one’s job matter more than abstract work ethics.
Cornell University Press 1869 podcast
Host Jonathan Hall interviews Claudia Strauss about her new book, What Work Means. The topics they discuss include:
*The two American work ethics and why being an obsessive workaholic is not the American way
*The harm from not recognizing the diligent-9-to-5 work ethic
*What’s wrong with “Nobody wants to work anymore”
*Why you don’t have to love your work to enjoy it
https://soundcloud.com/1869thecuppodcast/1869-ep-150-claudia-strauss
Read more:
"What Weber’s Protestant work ethic misses about Americans’ attitudes about work," Cornell University Press Blog, June 4, 2024,