Introduction / William J. Hurst, Thomas B. Gold, and Jaeyoun Won -- Broadening the debate on xiagang : policy origins and parallels in history / Lei Guang -- Xiagang and the geometry of urban political patronage in China : celebrated state (once-) workers and state chagrin / Dorothy J. Solinger...

Are jobs enough for economic mobility? -- From the old to the new economic mobility -- The parents: their backgrounds, lives and locations -- The children: their lives and worlds -- Workforce development: systems and networks -- Yesterday's firms and today's families: connects and disconnects...

"A pretty fair representation of the American people" : the great uprising and pictorial order in Gilded Age America / Joshua Brown -- "Our rights as workingmen" : class traditions and collective action in a nineteenth-century railroad town, Hornellsville, N.Y., 1869-82 / Shelton Stromquist --...

Coming to work in the city -- A job for a working man -- Dredging and drudgery -- A job for a working woman -- The living wage -- The hard work of being poor -- The consequence of failure -- The market's grasp