Gordon (1964) concluded that U.S. society in the 1960s actually incorporated not three but four melting pots (one for each of the major ethnic/religious groups and one for black Americans), each of which were internally subdivided by social class. In his view, the most significant structural unit within American society was the ethclass, defined by the intersection of the religious, ethnic and social class boundaries(e.g., working-class catholic, upper-class protestant, etc.). Thus, people were not ''simply American" but tended to identify with, associate with, and choose their spouses from within their ethclasses.
