Cloaked culture and veiled diversity: why theorists ignored early US workforce diversity

This paper examines four questions: Was the US workforce diverse in previous times? What were the origins of its diversity? How did management scholars of the past view the diversity of the US workforce? Why did they view diversity as they did? While the workforce was diverse, particularly in the era 1880‐1930, the diversity was addressed exclusively in the early practitioner literature, not in theoretical literature. Five intellectual trends contributed to the “invisibility” of diversity in theoretical literature: ethnocentrism, the USA’s vision of itself, nativism (especially racial nativism), assimilationism and convergence theory.