Ragtime is a novel about three families and their interactions as parts of the American Melting Pot. A wealthy white family, a poor black man and his son, and an old Jewish paper-cutter and his beautiful daughter all live near to one another in turn-of-the-century New York. The novel progresses from 1900 to 1917 and charts the slow union of elements of the three households and the happiness they find together.
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