Topic: Guilford Ames

1 chapters across the catalog

47: Killer Wasp
1:38:56 - 1:40:49

47: Killer Wasp

Social Class and Status in 1950s America

A 1957 educational clip explains that while American babies are born with equal legal rights, they are not born into equal social classes. The "Ames family" is used as an example of the upper-class WASP elite whose status is ascribed at birth through wealth and lineage. This illustrates the rigid caste system that exists beneath the surface of American democracy.