On Monday Professor Rosenberg brought up a quote that appeared in Nancy Foner’s famous book From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s two great waves of immigration: New York City is increasingly becoming “hollow in the middle”. I found this quote to be quite interesting, because it clearly contradicts with what I’ve previously learned. New York City’s middle class was gradually becoming smaller and smaller as the economy was recovering.

The middle class first made its appearance during the Industrial Revolution, which was a transition from an agricultural economy to an industrial economy, and manufacturing processes were facilitated by technology and machines. As a result of this Revolution America’s economy was increasingly expanding and becoming better. The middle class included people that had “white-collar” jobs, such as lawyers, doctors, bank clerks and shopkeepers. Some middle-class individuals even contributed to the expansion of the economy by buying and constructing factories for manufacturing goods/products.

It’s really interesting how the things are so different in the two eras. I’ve learned that during the Industrial Revolution, as the economy was improving and more and more jobs were created thanks to the advancement of technologies; the middle class was unrelentingly thriving. Yet, in the 20th century when the economy was recovering and improving, the same middle class was becoming more and more “hollow”. Many jobs were also created thanks to the advancement of technology in the 20th century. For instance, Foner claimed that many jobs that had never existed before were created, such as computer programming. Both epochs certainly share many similarities, notably the economic improvement and technological advancement, yet the middle class of the industrial era was thriving and the middle class of the contemporary era is dwindling.