1. Historians using worker memoirs have categorized them into six types -- how do these fit the memoirs you have read so far?

a. legacy to posterity (family written written for heirs)
b. picaresque adventure (revealing the random curiosities of human life)
c. success story ("How I made it to the middle class")
d. plea for the defense (vindicating conduct that has been controversial or led to harm)
e. conversion experience (switiching from identity A to identity B)
f. representative life ("My story is but one of many.")

2. Why do people write memoirs? What gives these their authenticity? What reasons can you think of for why these memoirs are NOT good evidence for "working class experience"?

3. Note the difference between experience as lived and experience as remembered. How does distance from the event color these particular memoirs? Can you tell?

4. We may look for evidence of many aspects of worker experience in these memoirs: work, leisure, values, attitudes towards women, family values, personal identity, class identity, political engagement. Which of the memoirs best treats each of these eight features?