Of the core group, roughly half were women and half were men. All were white and between the ages of forty and eighty-five. Their occupations placed them in the middle, lower-middle, and working class. Roughly one-third worked or had worked for oil directly (e.g., as pipefitters) or indirectly (e.g., as suppliers) and two-thirds were in lines of work unrelated to oil—teachers, secretaries, a flight attendant, and a trailer park owner, for example. Interestingly, attitudes across these groups varied very little.
