A rich man's war and a poor man's fight? Historical memory and the class dynamics of the Vietnam antiwar movement and antiwar sentiment in the United States.

摘要

This dissertation analyzes the relationship between social class, opposition to the war in Vietnam, and our collective memory of that opposition. It both refutes and contextualizes the myth of "worker hawks" opposing "elite doves" that dominates our collective memory of the period. Three central arguments are made. First, through archival research and secondary analysis, the dissertation argues that movement opposition to the war in its early years emerged mainly among middle-class students, privileged liberals and radicals, but as the war went on, this opposition was joined by working-class constituencies, including soldiers; veterans; African-American and Chicano/a movement activists; significant parts of the labor movement; and working-class students. Second, characteristics of the movement as it emerged limited its class base, a limitation amplified by inter-movement relations between labor, civil rights and antiwar forces in the period of 1965-1967. Finally, the antiwar movement's later cross-class nature has been elided because of the conventions of historical story-telling and because it contradicts a longstanding social narrative of "liberal elites" and "conservative workers" that, while largely false, is culturally resonant and expedient for multiple political elites.