Buxton: A Black Utopia in the Heartland, An Expanded Edition

by Dorothy Schweider, Dorothy Schwieder, Joseph Hraba

From 1900 until the early 1920s, an unusual community existed in America's heartland-Buxton, Iowa. Originally established by the Consolidation Coal Company, Buxton was the largest unincorporated coal mining community in Iowa. What made Buxton unique, however, is the fact that the majority of its 5,000 residents were African Americans—a highly unusual racial composition for a state which was over 90 percent white. At a time when both southern and northern blacks were disadvantaged and oppressed, blacks in Buxton enjoyed true racial integration—steady employment, above-average wages, decent housing, and minimal discrimination. For such reasons, Buxton was commonly known as “the black man's utopia in Iowa.” Containing documentary evidence—including newspapers, census records, photographs, and state mining reports—along with interviews of 75 former residents, Work and Racial Equality in a Coal Mining Community (originally published in 1987 and winner of the 1988 Benjamin Shambaugh Award) explored the Buxton experience from a variety of perspectives. The authors—an American historian, a family sociologist, and a race relations sociologist—provided a truly interdisciplinary history of one Iowa's most unique communities. Now, eighty years after the town's demise and fifteen years after Buxton's original publication, the history of this Iowa town remains a compelling story that continues to capture people's imaginations. In A Black Utopia in the Heartland, the authors offer further reflections upon their original study and the many former Buxton residents who shared their memories. In the new essay, “A Buxton Perspective,” issues such as social class and the town's continuing legacy are addressed. The voices captured in Buxton , although recorded over twenty years ago, still resonate with exuberance, affection, and poignancy; this expanded edition will bring their amazing stories back to the forefront of Iowa and American history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

276 pages, Paperback

First published September 3, 2003

Reviews

[L.M. Elm · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to read an interesting history about an integrated coal mining town in early 20th Century Iowa, this is it. Consolidated Coal Company cared about making a profit, not about keep the races separate. Drawn from historical sources and person interviews of the former residences, Buxton offered a place where blacks and whites could become prosperous and have opportunity. These two items were harder for blacks to find outside Buxton.

[Mary Davidsaver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great source of information and photos. Especially more on the final years of operation, including 1919.

[Julie Mickens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Because it's a small-population state, Iowa's history is not well known. The history of its small African American population even less so. The short but interesting history of one community, Buxton, deserves to be remembered. Buxton was a predominantly Black coal patch town operated under the principles of "welfare capitalism" (like Pullman in Chicago) in the southeastern part of the state from roughly 1900-1920s. While the men worked below, community flourished above under relative corporate benevolence, as least compared to the exploitation more common to mining company towns. In addition to constructing Buxton's documented history, the authors interview former residents and descendants, finding a fondness for the lost settlement that persists in their memories. This is a formal academic study, so it's dry at times, but the subject matter still intrigues.