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German writer Hans Fallada published Little Man, What Now? ( Kleiner Mann, was nun?) in 1932. This novel describes the proletarianization of a couple struggling with unemployment during the economic crisis of the 1930s. It became a bestseller in Germany and abroad the year it came out. The first part of this paper examines some of the reasons for this success before viewing it in light of the emerging field of the sociology of white-collar workers as well as of the literary and artistic works that turned this social category into an emblem of social and cultural modernity in the interwar period. The second part argues that regardless of the rich post-1945 historiography on white-collar workers, this novel is useful to today’s historians because it sheds light on aspects of this social group that require additional research, such as everyday culture, family life, and language.