Social class in the United States in the context of "Middle class"

The inequality of wealth (i.e., inequality in the distribution of assets) has substantially increased in the United States since the late 1980s. Wealth commonly includes the values of any homes, automobiles, personal valuables, businesses, savings, and investments, as well as any associated debts.

Although different from income inequality, the two are related. Wealth is usually not used for daily expenditures or factored into household budgets, but combined with income, it represents a family's total opportunity to secure stature and a meaningful standard of living, or to pass their class status down to their children. Moreover, wealth provides for both short- and long-term financial security, bestows social prestige, contributes to political power, and can be leveraged to obtain more wealth. Hence, wealth provides mobility and agency—the ability to act. The accumulation of wealth enables a variety of freedoms, and removes limits on life that one might otherwise face.

Bacon's Rebellion was an armed rebellion by Virginia settlers that took place from 1676 to 1677. It was led by Nathaniel Bacon against Colonial Governor William Berkeley, after Berkeley refused Bacon's request to drive Native American Indians out of Virginia. Thousands of Virginians from all classes (including those in indentured servitude and slavery) and races rose up in arms against Berkeley, chasing him from Jamestown and ultimately torching the settlement. The rebellion was first suppressed by a few armed merchant ships from London whose captains sided with Berkeley and the loyalists.

Government forces led by Herbert Jeffreys arrived soon after and spent several years defeating pockets of resistance and reforming the colonial government to be once more under direct Crown control. While the rebellion did not succeed in the initial goal of driving the Native Americans from Virginia, it did result in Berkeley being recalled to England, where he died shortly thereafter.

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is an 1851 epic novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is centered on the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the maniacal quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for vengeance against Moby Dick, the giant white sperm whale that bit off his leg on the ship's previous voyage. A contribution to the literature of the American Renaissance, Moby-Dick was published to mixed reviews, was a commercial failure, and was out of print at the time of the author's death in 1891. Its reputation as a Great American Novel was established only in the 20th century, after the 1919 centennial of its author's birth. William Faulkner said he wished he had written the book himself, and D. H. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world" and "the greatest book of the sea ever written". Its opening sentence, "Call me Ishmael", is among world literature's most famous.

Melville began writing Moby-Dick in February 1850 and finished 18 months later, a year after he had anticipated. Melville drew on his experience as a common sailor from 1841 to 1844, including on whalers, and on wide reading in whaling literature. The white whale is modeled on a notoriously hard-to-catch albino whale Mocha Dick, and the book's ending is based on the sinking of the whaleship Essex in 1820. The detailed and realistic descriptions of sailing, whale hunting and of extracting whale oil, as well as life aboard ship among a culturally diverse crew, are mixed with exploration of class and social status, good and evil, and the existence of God.

The Keystone Corridor is a 349-mile (562 km) railroad corridor between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that consists of two rail lines: Amtrak and SEPTA's Philadelphia-to-Harrisburg main line, which hosts SEPTA's Paoli/Thorndale Line commuter rail service, and Amtrak's Keystone Service and Pennsylvanian inter-city trains; and the Norfolk Southern Pittsburgh Line. The corridor was originally the Main Line of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Amtrak runs two intercity rail services along the Keystone Corridor: the Harrisburg-to-New York City Keystone Service and the Pittsburgh-to-New York City Pennsylvanian. SEPTA operates daily Paoli/Thorndale commuter rail service between Philadelphia and Thorndale on the Philadelphia-to-Harrisburg main line. The towns along this stretch form a socio-cultural region called the "Philadelphia Main Line".

The underclass is the segment of the population that occupies the lowest possible position in a class hierarchy, below the core body of the working class. This group is usually considered cut off from the rest of the society.

The general idea that a class system includes a population under the working class has a long tradition in the social sciences (for example, lumpenproletariat). However, the specific term, underclass, was popularized during the last half of the 20th century, first by social scientists of American poverty, and then by American journalists.

The Philadelphia Main Line, known simply as the Main Line, is an informally delineated historical and social region of suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Lying along the former Pennsylvania Railroad's once prestigious Main Line, it runs northwest from Center City Philadelphia parallel to Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike, also known as U.S. Route 30.

The railroad first connected the Main Line towns in the 19th century. They became home to sprawling country estates belonging to Philadelphia's wealthiest families, and over the decades became a bastion of "old money". The Main Line includes some of the wealthiest communities in the country, Villanova, Radnor, Haverford, and Merion. Today, the railroad is Amtrak's Keystone Corridor, along which SEPTA's Paoli/Thorndale Line operates.