Introduction : fables we forget by

Part I. To begin the world anew ; Taking out the trash : waste people in the New World

John Locke's Lubberland : the settlements of Carolina and Georgia

Benjamin Franklin's American breed : the demographics of mediocrity

Thomas Jefferson's rubbish : a curious topography of class

Andrew Jackson's cracker country : the squatter as common man

Part II. Degeneration of the American breed ; Pedigree and poor white trash : bad blood, half-breeds and clay-eaters

Cowards, poltroons, and mudsills : Civil War as class warfare

Thoroughbreds and scalawags : bloodlines and bastard stock in the age of eugenics

Forgotten men and poor folk : downward mobility and the Great Depression

The cult of the country boy : Elvis Presley, Andy Griffith, and LBJ's Great Society

Part III. The white trash makeover ; Redneck roots : 'Deliverance', Billy Beer, and Tammy Faye

Outing rednecks : slumming, Slick Willie, and Sarah Palin

Epilogue: America's strange breed : the long legacy of white trash.