This is backstory. I'm Peter Onough. In this election, presidential candidates

from both parties say they want to help America struggling middle-class. They just

disagree on how best to do that. Cut taxes or expand benefits to the middle-class.

Let the free market solve the problem of growing income inequality or get the

government to help pay college tuition. This week on backstory, we revisit an

earlier episode on the history of the American middle class. We'll explore the

aspirations of an 18th century shopkeeper. We'll go in search of the roots of the

African-American middle class and we'll consider how money isn't always the

most accurate marker of economic status. There's always been a black middle

class but it hasn't always been pegged to income. The challenges and dreams of

the middle class today on backstory. Major funding for backstory is provided

by the ShiaCon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Joseph

and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation and the Arthur Vining Davis foundations.

From the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, this is backstory with

the American History Guys.

Welcome to the show. I'm Brian Ballot and I'm here with Peter Rodolf. Hey Brian.

And Ed Ayers is with us. Hey Brian. There's a journalist a

political named Tim Noah. A few years ago he published a book about inequality

in America and in that book he wrote about a man you've probably never heard of.

I certainly hadn't heard of him. He's a guy named James Trezlow Adams. We don't

know his name. What we do know is the phrase that he created and that phrases the

American dream.

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