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The Hamlet Fire: A Tragic Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap Lives
"Captivating and brilliantly conceived. . . [ The Hamlet Fire ] will provide readers with insights into our current national politics."
― The Washington Post
A "gifted writer" ( Chicago Tribune ) uses a long forgotten factory fire in small-town North Carolina to show how cut-rate food and labor have become the new American norm
For decades, the small, quiet town of Hamlet, North Carolina, thrived thanks to the railroad. But by the 1970s, it had become a postindustrial backwater, a magnet for businesses searching for cheap labor with little or almost no official oversight. One of these businesses was Imperial Food Products. The company paid its workers a dollar above the minimum wage to stand in pools of freezing water for hours on end, scraping gobs of fat off frozen chicken breasts before they got dipped in batter and fried into golden brown nuggets and tenders. If a worker complained about the heat or the cold or missed a shift to take care of their children or went to the bathroom too often they were fired. But they kept coming back to work because Hamlet was a place where jobs were scarce. Then, on the morning of September 3, 1991, the day after Labor Day, this factory that had never been inspected burst into flame. Twenty-five people―many of whom were black women with children, living on their own―perished that day behind the plant’s locked and bolted doors. Eighty years after the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, industrial disasters were supposed to have been a thing of the past. After spending several years talking to local residents, state officials, and survivors of the fire, award-winning historian Bryant Simon has written a vivid, potent, and disturbing social autopsy of this town, this factory, and this time that shows how cheap labor, cheap government, and cheap food came together in a way that was bound for tragedy.
― The Washington Post
A "gifted writer" ( Chicago Tribune ) uses a long forgotten factory fire in small-town North Carolina to show how cut-rate food and labor have become the new American norm
For decades, the small, quiet town of Hamlet, North Carolina, thrived thanks to the railroad. But by the 1970s, it had become a postindustrial backwater, a magnet for businesses searching for cheap labor with little or almost no official oversight. One of these businesses was Imperial Food Products. The company paid its workers a dollar above the minimum wage to stand in pools of freezing water for hours on end, scraping gobs of fat off frozen chicken breasts before they got dipped in batter and fried into golden brown nuggets and tenders. If a worker complained about the heat or the cold or missed a shift to take care of their children or went to the bathroom too often they were fired. But they kept coming back to work because Hamlet was a place where jobs were scarce. Then, on the morning of September 3, 1991, the day after Labor Day, this factory that had never been inspected burst into flame. Twenty-five people―many of whom were black women with children, living on their own―perished that day behind the plant’s locked and bolted doors. Eighty years after the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, industrial disasters were supposed to have been a thing of the past. After spending several years talking to local residents, state officials, and survivors of the fire, award-winning historian Bryant Simon has written a vivid, potent, and disturbing social autopsy of this town, this factory, and this time that shows how cheap labor, cheap government, and cheap food came together in a way that was bound for tragedy.
320 pages, Hardcover
Published September 5, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
August 24, 2017
I remember the tragedy at the heart of The Hamlet Fire. It was all over the news for a short while, shocking the nation with the callous employer who ordered factory doors locked, killing twenty-five people out of greed. It was reminiscent of the Triangle Fire that shifted American attitudes toward labor and employers’ obligations to their workers. There was no such shift after The Hamlet Fire and much of that is explained by the book’s subtitle: A Tragic Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap Lives.
Author Bryan Simon organized the book into seven chapters that look at the trajectory toward tragedy through different lenses: Hamlet, the history of the town through boom, bust, and desperation for development; Silence, the history of Imperial Foods and Emmet Roe’s search for cheap labor and unregulated mastery of his empire; Chicken, following the industry from family farms to factory serfdom; Labor, the rise and fall of American labor and the South’s particular hostility to workers’ rights; Bodies, the changing American diet from natural to processed foods, from wholesome to cheap and fattening; Deregulation, the dismantling of oversight and the turning away from the idea of Commonweal; and Endings, the aftermath, the trauma that continues to this day. Through this, Simon shows that this is not a singular tragedy, but an inevitable result of trends that continue to this day.
The New Deal fostered higher wages, economic growth of American workers, with the understanding that by building from the bottom up, Americans could afford to buy the things we manufactured and grow the economy. With Reaganomics taking us back to Hoover’s Trickle Down, that covenant between government and its citizens was broken in favor of the promise of cheaper prices. Break the air traffic controllers union and get cheaper air fare, dismantle American industry and import from low-wage countries for cheaper cars, clothes, and electronics. Raising the minimum wage might make your burger cost more. No matter that WalMart workers rely on Medicaid, SNAP, and other taxpayer-funded benefits, the average family saves $3,000 a year by shopping at WalMart. In essence, we have traded well-paying jobs for cheap chicken nuggets.
Bryant Simon makes a convincing case that the ideology of cheap is degrading our society, increasing inequality, and making us work longer and harder for less. Many of his arguments I already believed but he pulls them together into a new focus, a focus on how much we value cheap and how that devalues us.
When people speak nostalgically about “the good old days” I usually wonder what was so good about Jim Crow and pre-Civil Rights Act America for women and people of color. However, this book makes me think that perhaps some of that nostalgia is for the old understanding of the commonweal, an understanding that excluded minoritized people, but that rested on the idea that government served the people, not the hedge fund managers. Perhaps that is what we really hunger for, not for Father Knows Best, but for the time when we thought of each other as citizens instead of consumers.
This is a heartbreaking book. It is also an important book that deserves a wider audience than it will get. I think it is being marketed to academics, not the general public if the dull cover is anything to go by. That’s unfortunate. Simon did not write this book in academic language. It’s journalistic, with a passionate call for justice. It also ties together many developments that lead inexorably toward an increasingly dismal future, not just here, but around the world. After all, when we outsourced manufacturing, we outsourced the tragedies as well, so now we have chicken factory fires in China that we won’t see widely covered on the nightly news. We will have our cheap.
The Hamlet Fire will be released September 5th. I received an e-galley from the publisher through Edelweiss.
The Hamlet Fire at The New Press
Bryant Simon faculty page
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpre...
Author Bryan Simon organized the book into seven chapters that look at the trajectory toward tragedy through different lenses: Hamlet, the history of the town through boom, bust, and desperation for development; Silence, the history of Imperial Foods and Emmet Roe’s search for cheap labor and unregulated mastery of his empire; Chicken, following the industry from family farms to factory serfdom; Labor, the rise and fall of American labor and the South’s particular hostility to workers’ rights; Bodies, the changing American diet from natural to processed foods, from wholesome to cheap and fattening; Deregulation, the dismantling of oversight and the turning away from the idea of Commonweal; and Endings, the aftermath, the trauma that continues to this day. Through this, Simon shows that this is not a singular tragedy, but an inevitable result of trends that continue to this day.
The New Deal fostered higher wages, economic growth of American workers, with the understanding that by building from the bottom up, Americans could afford to buy the things we manufactured and grow the economy. With Reaganomics taking us back to Hoover’s Trickle Down, that covenant between government and its citizens was broken in favor of the promise of cheaper prices. Break the air traffic controllers union and get cheaper air fare, dismantle American industry and import from low-wage countries for cheaper cars, clothes, and electronics. Raising the minimum wage might make your burger cost more. No matter that WalMart workers rely on Medicaid, SNAP, and other taxpayer-funded benefits, the average family saves $3,000 a year by shopping at WalMart. In essence, we have traded well-paying jobs for cheap chicken nuggets.
Bryant Simon makes a convincing case that the ideology of cheap is degrading our society, increasing inequality, and making us work longer and harder for less. Many of his arguments I already believed but he pulls them together into a new focus, a focus on how much we value cheap and how that devalues us.
When people speak nostalgically about “the good old days” I usually wonder what was so good about Jim Crow and pre-Civil Rights Act America for women and people of color. However, this book makes me think that perhaps some of that nostalgia is for the old understanding of the commonweal, an understanding that excluded minoritized people, but that rested on the idea that government served the people, not the hedge fund managers. Perhaps that is what we really hunger for, not for Father Knows Best, but for the time when we thought of each other as citizens instead of consumers.
This is a heartbreaking book. It is also an important book that deserves a wider audience than it will get. I think it is being marketed to academics, not the general public if the dull cover is anything to go by. That’s unfortunate. Simon did not write this book in academic language. It’s journalistic, with a passionate call for justice. It also ties together many developments that lead inexorably toward an increasingly dismal future, not just here, but around the world. After all, when we outsourced manufacturing, we outsourced the tragedies as well, so now we have chicken factory fires in China that we won’t see widely covered on the nightly news. We will have our cheap.
The Hamlet Fire will be released September 5th. I received an e-galley from the publisher through Edelweiss.
The Hamlet Fire at The New Press
Bryant Simon faculty page
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpre...
May 3, 2018
A hundred years from now when people want to understand what daily life was like in the small towns in the South at the end of the 20th Century, this book will be on the top of the stack. Just as Upton Sinclair opened our eyes to the unknown reality of the meat packers in Chicago a hundred years earlier, Simon's book has done the same for the people struggling to stay out of poverty in the rural communities of the American South.
Although the book is loaded with all the documentation required of a scholarly text, Simon uses some of this data (like the death certificates that describe the clothing and undergarments worn by the victims) to help provide us with with revealing portraits of the men and women who died in this fire. Those portraits also include the ongoing struggles of their children and families as Simon makes it clear that being undereducated in an era of deregulation offers little opportunity to create a better life.
By including references to the television drama The Wire, and weaving in national celebrities like Willie Nelson and Neil Young who appear on the Farm Aid telecasts, and pointing out the Arkansas connections between President Clinton and the Waltons and Tyson families, Bryant Simon makes it clear that the heartwrenching fire that took place in Hamlet, North Carolina was a truly American tragedy. A trajedy that forces us to look closely at the true costs of having cheap food and cheap government.
Although the book is loaded with all the documentation required of a scholarly text, Simon uses some of this data (like the death certificates that describe the clothing and undergarments worn by the victims) to help provide us with with revealing portraits of the men and women who died in this fire. Those portraits also include the ongoing struggles of their children and families as Simon makes it clear that being undereducated in an era of deregulation offers little opportunity to create a better life.
By including references to the television drama The Wire, and weaving in national celebrities like Willie Nelson and Neil Young who appear on the Farm Aid telecasts, and pointing out the Arkansas connections between President Clinton and the Waltons and Tyson families, Bryant Simon makes it clear that the heartwrenching fire that took place in Hamlet, North Carolina was a truly American tragedy. A trajedy that forces us to look closely at the true costs of having cheap food and cheap government.
November 16, 2017
Well researched, thought provoking and easy to read. America today seems to focus on getting more by paying less and not thinking about the hidden costs behind low prices. The Hamlet Fire digs deep into those externalities.
This is "a book about a fire in 1991 in a chicken processing plant in Hamlet, North Carolina, where John Coltrane was born, and where twenty-five people died behind locked doors."
This is a book about "deregulation, monopoly control over labor markets, and mass economic and physical insecurity."
This is "a book about a fire in 1991 in a chicken processing plant in Hamlet, North Carolina, where John Coltrane was born, and where twenty-five people died behind locked doors."
This is a book about "deregulation, monopoly control over labor markets, and mass economic and physical insecurity."
March 18, 2018
3.5 stars.
A little uneven within a narrow band (i.e. always good and sometimes very good). When it was merely good it felt just a little too academic. Also, I thought the author used quotation marks for too many unquotable comments. That's it for the negatives. (Although this isn't necessarily a negative, you're probably not going to want to eat chicken for a few days while reading this book.)
The sections about the local workers and residents of Hamlet, NC were strong and any book that references The Wire to make a point deserves credit for fine taste.
There's a fair amount of overlap with other books I've read about the social and financial disadvantages of the working poor and the black community, the dangers of diets rich in salt, sugar and fat and the dangerous working conditions in slaughterhouses and further processing facilities. I don't recall reading anything else that described as much the efforts of state governments to lure businesses with the implicit promise of lax oversight and low taxes, so that was a highlight for me.
A little uneven within a narrow band (i.e. always good and sometimes very good). When it was merely good it felt just a little too academic. Also, I thought the author used quotation marks for too many unquotable comments. That's it for the negatives. (Although this isn't necessarily a negative, you're probably not going to want to eat chicken for a few days while reading this book.)
The sections about the local workers and residents of Hamlet, NC were strong and any book that references The Wire to make a point deserves credit for fine taste.
There's a fair amount of overlap with other books I've read about the social and financial disadvantages of the working poor and the black community, the dangers of diets rich in salt, sugar and fat and the dangerous working conditions in slaughterhouses and further processing facilities. I don't recall reading anything else that described as much the efforts of state governments to lure businesses with the implicit promise of lax oversight and low taxes, so that was a highlight for me.
October 27, 2018
In this extraordinary book, historian Bryant Simon describes a system of cheapness, a symptom of neoliberal ideology and practices, that encourages a race to the bottom where consumers seek cheap prices, and corporations seek cheap labor and chicken. Many other trends are tied up within this system that disproportionately affects people of color and women of color in particular. Transportation equity, decline of union jobs, a rise in obesity, weakened government regulations, are all wrapped in this narrative where workers are alienated from labor, employers are alienated from their workers and all seem to lose varying degrees of agency within this system. Simon masterfully weaves a web of these exploitative trends and practices that led to the Hamlet Fire and exacerbated its consequences. He explains these larger abstract trends by grounding them in the experiences of the victims and survivors of the disaster.
June 17, 2019
Unlike a lot of the other reviews I've seen here for this book, I cannot rate it very high. The author does a very good job in the few sections in this book that are actually about the Hamlet Fire. I'm from North Carolina and I remember when the Hamlet fire was in the news. I really enjoyed how the author showed the lives that the workers lived, what they went through working for Emmet Roe, the history of Hamlet that let something like this happen there, and why the workers and their families suffered so much.
However, the rest is a mixed bag at best and at the worst shows a shallow histography of industrialization and business cycles. The author falls into the trap of lionizing Henry Ford, when in reality and in irony Emmet Roe was following in Ford's footsteps in every way he ran his plant except for the pay. Ford was militantly anti-unions and there were no unions in Ford plants until 1941 when government and competitive forces forced him to give way. The way his plants were run with an iron fist were used as plans for how Germany and Russia ran their concentration camps in WW2. Ford only paid the $5 wage because his plant turn over in 1928 was 381%. The author juxtaposes Ford against Emmet Roe and the industry of cheap as well, again showing a shallow understanding of how mass production of anything in the post industrial revolution has worked. Ford was the king of cheap. He used vertical integration of supply chains to squeeze every bit of profit out of his cars and dominate his competitors. Ford cars went from $1,000+ in 1910 to $300 in a very short period of time. But he did this with abysmal work conditions and cutting off any possible collective bargaining, because Ford believed that unions only served to artificially inflate wages. Workers weren't allowed to even talk to each other or use the bathroom so as to not waste time on assembly. Workers weren't allowed to work in the winter months when demand was low to maximize profits. Ford made his profits on the backs of his workers not as some imaginary hero to the blue collar man. Even the housing he built was to make it more difficult for the poor, uneducated people he hired to leave the assembly lines for somewhere else. To even qualify for either benefit he sent investigator to the worker's homes to make sure they even deserved the wages. Ford is not the role model of power to the workers that too many people have made him, he was a ruthless capitalist that would have blanched even Emmet Roe. Given the amount of work done on the history of Hamlet, I expected the author to have done the same on this part of his book and for the lack of that research made it hard to read. The vast majority of the book falls into this section.
The other area of this book that fell flat for me was the arguments about the industry of cheap that is somehow making our society degenerate and strangle low wage workers. And while I don't like the fact that unskilled workers get paid next to nothing, and I've even been in those type jobs myself, whether I like something or not doesn't change the reality of how industry works. The poor and uneducated are trampled by the rich. And if you research every industry in modern history that targets mass consumption you will find an industry of cheap that is built on the manipulation and exploitation of uneducated, unskilled laborers. That is the price we pay for the goods the middle class wants at the price they want them. If anything the fly in the ointment is the very existence of the middle class as a driver of consumption and the political power of unskilled labor that started in the late 1800's and started waning in the 1960's. The history of economic cycles since the end of feudalism and, arguably even before, that is one of creative destruction where competition and introduction of transformative technology destroy old firms and business plans to create new ones. Its painful and it doesn't seem fair, but reality has never been fair. In our modern world of convenience we are generally oblivious to the true cost of what we buy. Most of the cost is paid in poor developing countries without regulations and protections for their workers. Do away with the industry of cheap, like the author argues, and unintended outcome if an inequality of accumulation. The high wage, educated, specialized worker becomes the driver of consumption. The industry of cheap hides that fact by giving the middle class an appearance of power that it doesn't really have. Dig into this subject deeply and it will leave you jaded and cynical. Capitalism isn't pretty, it isn't fair, and it isn't nice. It is an efficient way of allocating production capital and it has the benefit of giving us nice shiny things.
The other minor complaint I had was that the author bounced around his topics. One moment we are in Hamlet, then he talks about the history of the chicken nugget, then Hamlet, then something else, then Hamlet and something else in the same paragraph. I was getting whiplash. I think that talking about the history of Hamlet, then the chicken industry, then Emmet Roe, and then the fire and aftermath would have been more cohesive. That said I'm not an author and my preference thematic structure isn't a deal breaker. For for me that was that on any part but the actual Hamlet fire, the author engages in flights of fancy based on an incomplete understanding of the broader history of industrialization and nostalgia for a time when the blue collar worker had power. A time that if we ever see again, it won't be until history repeats itself and by then most of us reading this are unlikely to be around. So while The Hamlet Fires is good when it talks about Hamlet, it loses credibility everywhere else.
However, the rest is a mixed bag at best and at the worst shows a shallow histography of industrialization and business cycles. The author falls into the trap of lionizing Henry Ford, when in reality and in irony Emmet Roe was following in Ford's footsteps in every way he ran his plant except for the pay. Ford was militantly anti-unions and there were no unions in Ford plants until 1941 when government and competitive forces forced him to give way. The way his plants were run with an iron fist were used as plans for how Germany and Russia ran their concentration camps in WW2. Ford only paid the $5 wage because his plant turn over in 1928 was 381%. The author juxtaposes Ford against Emmet Roe and the industry of cheap as well, again showing a shallow understanding of how mass production of anything in the post industrial revolution has worked. Ford was the king of cheap. He used vertical integration of supply chains to squeeze every bit of profit out of his cars and dominate his competitors. Ford cars went from $1,000+ in 1910 to $300 in a very short period of time. But he did this with abysmal work conditions and cutting off any possible collective bargaining, because Ford believed that unions only served to artificially inflate wages. Workers weren't allowed to even talk to each other or use the bathroom so as to not waste time on assembly. Workers weren't allowed to work in the winter months when demand was low to maximize profits. Ford made his profits on the backs of his workers not as some imaginary hero to the blue collar man. Even the housing he built was to make it more difficult for the poor, uneducated people he hired to leave the assembly lines for somewhere else. To even qualify for either benefit he sent investigator to the worker's homes to make sure they even deserved the wages. Ford is not the role model of power to the workers that too many people have made him, he was a ruthless capitalist that would have blanched even Emmet Roe. Given the amount of work done on the history of Hamlet, I expected the author to have done the same on this part of his book and for the lack of that research made it hard to read. The vast majority of the book falls into this section.
The other area of this book that fell flat for me was the arguments about the industry of cheap that is somehow making our society degenerate and strangle low wage workers. And while I don't like the fact that unskilled workers get paid next to nothing, and I've even been in those type jobs myself, whether I like something or not doesn't change the reality of how industry works. The poor and uneducated are trampled by the rich. And if you research every industry in modern history that targets mass consumption you will find an industry of cheap that is built on the manipulation and exploitation of uneducated, unskilled laborers. That is the price we pay for the goods the middle class wants at the price they want them. If anything the fly in the ointment is the very existence of the middle class as a driver of consumption and the political power of unskilled labor that started in the late 1800's and started waning in the 1960's. The history of economic cycles since the end of feudalism and, arguably even before, that is one of creative destruction where competition and introduction of transformative technology destroy old firms and business plans to create new ones. Its painful and it doesn't seem fair, but reality has never been fair. In our modern world of convenience we are generally oblivious to the true cost of what we buy. Most of the cost is paid in poor developing countries without regulations and protections for their workers. Do away with the industry of cheap, like the author argues, and unintended outcome if an inequality of accumulation. The high wage, educated, specialized worker becomes the driver of consumption. The industry of cheap hides that fact by giving the middle class an appearance of power that it doesn't really have. Dig into this subject deeply and it will leave you jaded and cynical. Capitalism isn't pretty, it isn't fair, and it isn't nice. It is an efficient way of allocating production capital and it has the benefit of giving us nice shiny things.
The other minor complaint I had was that the author bounced around his topics. One moment we are in Hamlet, then he talks about the history of the chicken nugget, then Hamlet, then something else, then Hamlet and something else in the same paragraph. I was getting whiplash. I think that talking about the history of Hamlet, then the chicken industry, then Emmet Roe, and then the fire and aftermath would have been more cohesive. That said I'm not an author and my preference thematic structure isn't a deal breaker. For for me that was that on any part but the actual Hamlet fire, the author engages in flights of fancy based on an incomplete understanding of the broader history of industrialization and nostalgia for a time when the blue collar worker had power. A time that if we ever see again, it won't be until history repeats itself and by then most of us reading this are unlikely to be around. So while The Hamlet Fires is good when it talks about Hamlet, it loses credibility everywhere else.
September 29, 2025
It is not often I am entirely moved to tears by a book I had to read for a class. Bryant does a brilliant job of telling the stories of the 25 people killed by Emmett Roe’s callous and greed-inspired disregard for the humans he employed to try and save his failing business, but he goes well beyond this and explains how and why this fire could happen. It is fairly often that a book assigned to me for class fills me with nihilism and a sense of the never changing tides of history. This book does the same. Stop eating chicken. Take a walk. Read the nutrition labels. Buy from local sellers. Cheap and convenient are not the answers to all the troubles this life throws our way.
December 16, 2023
Incredible labor history, focused intently on a single tragic factory fire in a small North Carolina town, but with chapters diving deep into the political, economic, and sociological history of why neoliberal American industry sought out and created internally colonized places of ever cheapened government, food, health, and lives. He even fit all that in the subtitle, bravo, highly recommended.
July 12, 2019
A remarkable work of investigative journalism that delves deeply into penetrating examinations of economic and racial disparities, and America's "culture of cheapness" underlying this horrific tragedy.
April 18, 2021
This is the story of cheap. Cheap politicians, cheap jobs, cheap paychecks, cheap food, cheap country. It all adds up to our becoming a th1rd w0rld SH1TH0L3 c0untry.
I have taken out excerpts that spoke the most to me. They serve better than any words that I could say, To show what happened at the Hamlet, North Carolina fire in the Imperial chicken processing plant, where 25 lives were lost, In 1991.
2017, Hardcover, The New Press
P.4-5:
"Fire and insurance investigators would later learn that on the morning of the fire, John gagnon and the Imperial maintenance crew decided to cut the hydraulic hose that was dragging on the ground. As they made the changes, they shut off the hydraulic system but left the burners under the fryer on. They used a hacksaw to cut and shorten the hose before they reconnected it to the machine box. No one remembered if gagnon pulled on the connection this time but the maintenance man must have trusted that the parts would hold just like they had in the past. Maybe they cut end of the hose didn't fit snugly enough, or maybe it was slightly smaller than the fitting, or maybe in a rush to keep things moving they didn't tighten the coupling quite enough. Whatever the exact reason, only seconds after the mechanics turned the hydraulic line back on to at least 800 pounds per square inch (p.s.i.) though it sometimes surged to 1500 p.s.i. -- the hose came loose and launched into a wild dance, spewing flammable oil-based Chevron 32 hydraulic fluid in every direction. The liquid hit the concrete floor with enough force that droplets formed and bounced up and down all over the place. Some landed under the gas plumes rising up under the fryer. The heat from the gas vaporized the splashing oil and created the horrible hissing sound that Goodwin mistook for a missile.
From that point, the fire intensified, greedily feeding on the chicken grease on the floors and the walls and the oils from the fire and the hydraulic line.
P.15:
"This book... argues that the Hamlet fire broke out because the nation, not just this place or these people, had essentially given up on protecting its most vulnerable and precarious citizens. It shows that in the years leading up to the blaze the United States had become a more callous and divided, less patient and generous land. Above all, america, and specially the spaces on its margins, became dominated by the idea -- the system, really -- of cheap. Cheap's Central notion was that the combination of less pay, less regulation, and less attention to the economic and racial inequities of the past was the best way to solve the nation's most pressing problems. By 1991, this idea had seeped into every part of the country, every political discussion, every debate about civil rights, and every workplace and government agency until it reached the factory floor and the dinner table. Again and again, those with power valued cheap food, cheap government, and cheap lives over quality ingredients, investment in human capital, and strong oversight and regulation."
Jim Hunt, NC's governor,
P.54:
"... Told them about the state's 'pro-business climate,' it's right-to-work law, and the fact that North Carolina maintained the second lowest rate of unionization in the country. He told them that the state didn't have a whistleblower protection law on the books, that it had its own state-run OSHA department, and that it was one of only nine states where insurance companies could assign a doctor to examine an injured laborer in a workman's compensation case. When a deal needed closing, Hunt or one of his professional industry seekers would sweeten the bid by offering free access roads and sewer lines and breaks on industrial training, taxes, and salaries."
P.85:
"The new miracle breeds of broilers, with names like Vantress and Cyprus C, that Imperial bought from Cagle's to make its tenders, fillets and nuggets got bigger, faster, while consuming less feed. When these puffed-up creatures tried to walk, they could barely go more than a step or two without wobbling and toppling over. To get them to this size, The growers turned the overhead fluorescent lights in the chicken houses on for 20 to 22 hours a day because they wanted their chickens to eat like pigs, and they knew that these birds were biologically hardwired not to eat in the dark. So the animals lived in artificial light and ate almost around the clock, even if it made them sick. Many became so agitated in these bright, closed quarters that they attacked the birds next to them and sometimes tried to Peck themselves to death. Protecting their investments and pushed by The contractors, growers would de-beaj the broilers, sometimes with an instrument that resembled a blowtorch and usually without administering any anesthesia. The system wouldn't allow for any unnecessary expenses. The growers did, though, turn to a pharmacy of other drugs for other reasons -- all economic. Anxious birds didn't eat. When they didn't eat, they didn't grow to their full weight in a flash of time. Jumpy birds also tended to yield tougher meat. By the 1980s, in response, some growers started to lace their chicken feed with Benadryl to settle the nerves of the cooped-up birds and keep them on the fast-growing track. Others dropped traces of caffeine into the feeding machine so the birds would stay awake and keep eating. Perdue apparently added xanthophyll to its feed mix, a die found in alfalfa and Marigold pedals that turned the skin of broilers an artificial shade of golden yellow. Birds living so close together easily passed germs and diseases to one another, so farmers put penicillin, tetracycline, chlortetracycline, and oxytetracycline in their foods. Over time, as a result, broilers inevitably became resistant to some of these antibiotics, starting another round of chemical Solutions and producing a range of possibly dangerous foodborne illnesses for chicken eaters."
P.105-6:
"Shortly after purchasing the Haverpride facility, Roe shook hands on a multi-year deal worth as much as $20 million to supply generic nuggets to Lyle farms, inc. The roswell, Georgia-based food brokerage planned to sell Roe's further-processed microwavable chicken products to supermarket chains and other outlets under the Big Top, Shur-Fine, and Jewell labels. Almost as soon as the nuggets hit the freezer aisles and gas station warming trays, Lysle officials claimed that they started to receive complaints. 'Where's the chicken?' customers Supposedly asked. Lyle accused Roe's company of using rancid meat and of cutting costs and corners by concocting nuggets full of more than the usual amounts of filler, breading and water. Perhaps this was the only way Emmett Roe, the firm's Chief decision maker, could service his mounting debts or deal with the razor-thin margins in big food. Or perhaps Lyle was flexing its muscles and shaking down a smaller player in the pecking order of poultry capitalism.
By March 1990, Lyle had allegedly reneged on its deal with Roe's company. Yet it kept, according to one inside source, as much as a million dollars worth of unpaid-for chicken products. This was money that Roe didn't have. By then, the only contract the hulking Haverpride plant still had left was to supply nuggets to an Alabama school district for lunches. This deal was set to expire when classes ended late that spring. That didn't give Haverpride enough cash to cover its bills and keep the factory running. And there was no extra money from any of the other parts of Roe's shaky chicken empire to bail out the Alabama branch. By this point, Roe hadn't paid in full the finance corporation he relied on for debt relief or his chicken suppliers in months. His companies in Georgia and North Carolina owed thousands in back taxes, and the Alabama outlet fell so far behind on its electric bill that the power company turned off the lights. even before Haverpride went dark, Roe reportedly stopped paying his share of his employees' health care coverage, though he apparently continued to draw deductions for this expense out of their paychecks, using the funds, it seems, to cover the other costs and keep the plant open and their jobs still going. Haverpride operatives only found out about the owner's moves when they went to the doctor's office and discovered that they had no insurance."
P143-4:
"... By the early 1980s, policy discussions in the United States had changed and changed dramatically. The ideas of cheap Rose to the fore, influencing ideas about government and its role in the economy and every daily life, including School food policies, which quickly seemed as emblematic of their era as the Humphrey - Hawkins act was of an earlier moment in time. Reduced tax revenues due to business losses and jumps in unemployment led to government cuts at the federal and state levels, which in turn reduced support for school nutrition and exercise programs. Faced with persistent shortfalls and narrow choices between an extra science or reading class and physical education or home economics, educational administrators often chose biology and English over gym and cooking courses. To cover up the growing holes in their budgets, they cut down on visits from nurses and slashed funding for teacher's aids. Often these were the people who oversaw non-academic activities, like going outside to play and taking time for lunch. according to a 2001 study by the clearingHouse on early adult education and parenting, almost 40% of the nation's School districts had cut or eliminated recess because of a lack of funding. With money in short supply, more and more new school buildings went up in cities and towns without costly playgrounds or gyms. Some school districts cut back on their sports programs while others entered into dubious privatization deals. They let Coke and Pepsi line their halls with vending machines stuffed with high-calorie foods and drinks in exchange for money for new scoreboards for the baseball field and helmets for the football team.
The Reagan administration, looking for more money with which to pay for the Contras and several colossal new aircraft carriers, cut support for the school lunch and food stamp programs. Famously, officials in Washington tried to reclassify ketchup as a vegetable on school lunch trays to save money as well. Distrustful of the decision making of the poor and the not thin, some lawmakers proposed limiting what recipients could purchase with federal and state funds. while the nation's growing legions of the working poor were told they couldn't buy wine or beer or some prepared foods with government-issued food stamps, they could still use them to purchase cookies, chips, and soda. Big food and big agriculture celebrated choice as well, it seems. When a number of lawmakers suggested restrictions on sugary drinks and salty snacks, industry Representatives rolled out the flag and complained that any limits on consumer choice amounted to an alarming loss of cherished freedoms. Few Congressional representatives wanted to vote against American rights or forgo campaign contributions from Big donors, so it remained okay to buy chips and soda with government funds."
P.151:
"Really, the article in the Richmond county daily journal and most of the other reports on obesity in the 1980s and 1990s missed the key issue behind the timing of the tipping of the nation's scales. More than supersize meals, more than subsidies for corn and soft drinks, more than government cuts and support for recess and healthy school lunches, more than chicken pieces loaded with fat, salt, and sugar, the jump in obesity in poor communities turned on income. In fact, across the country, bodies got bigger as pay envelopes shrunk. This represented a massive, almost schizophrenic, historic shift. For more time than anyone could possibly count, poor people starved. They starved during the Roman empire and the renaissance, and during Charles dickens, George orwell, and Upton Sinclair's days. Novelists and commentators read their thin, gaunt, and emaciated bodies as sure signs of poverty, just as they read girth, plumpness, and softness as indicators of wealth. All of a sudden, the cultural codes reversed themselves. 'Thinness' became a sign of righteousness and success; 'fatness' an emblem of poverty and failure. the American diet was filled with danger long before the spike in obesity in the 1970s. Coke machines appeared at bus stations and crossroads gas stations after world war ii. At the same time, boxes of sugary Betty crocker cake mixes begin to line supermarket aisles...."
P.215-6:
"By August 1992, Emmett Roe ended up in bankruptcy court, though he showed up in the Greensboro Chambers without a lawyer, acting confused and befuddled. 'I don't know where I am,' he whispered to judge James wolfe. 'I have no assets.' Claiming that Banks removed $600,000 from his accounts the day after the fire to pay back the money he owed them, Roe declared, 'I'm broke.' In a court filing, he said he had no cash, no savings, no furs or jewelry, and no auto, video, or computer equipment of any value. Over the next year or so, creditors, court officers, and forensic accountants found out that Emmett roe wasn't lying, though some of the victims still believed he was hiding money and other assets."
Author Bryant Simon did an excellent job researching and compiling information that he shares with his readers in an unbiased formula that only needs eyes and critical thinking to see where to point the finger for the lives lost in this tragedy and the the end of the American experiment.
I have taken out excerpts that spoke the most to me. They serve better than any words that I could say, To show what happened at the Hamlet, North Carolina fire in the Imperial chicken processing plant, where 25 lives were lost, In 1991.
2017, Hardcover, The New Press
P.4-5:
"Fire and insurance investigators would later learn that on the morning of the fire, John gagnon and the Imperial maintenance crew decided to cut the hydraulic hose that was dragging on the ground. As they made the changes, they shut off the hydraulic system but left the burners under the fryer on. They used a hacksaw to cut and shorten the hose before they reconnected it to the machine box. No one remembered if gagnon pulled on the connection this time but the maintenance man must have trusted that the parts would hold just like they had in the past. Maybe they cut end of the hose didn't fit snugly enough, or maybe it was slightly smaller than the fitting, or maybe in a rush to keep things moving they didn't tighten the coupling quite enough. Whatever the exact reason, only seconds after the mechanics turned the hydraulic line back on to at least 800 pounds per square inch (p.s.i.) though it sometimes surged to 1500 p.s.i. -- the hose came loose and launched into a wild dance, spewing flammable oil-based Chevron 32 hydraulic fluid in every direction. The liquid hit the concrete floor with enough force that droplets formed and bounced up and down all over the place. Some landed under the gas plumes rising up under the fryer. The heat from the gas vaporized the splashing oil and created the horrible hissing sound that Goodwin mistook for a missile.
From that point, the fire intensified, greedily feeding on the chicken grease on the floors and the walls and the oils from the fire and the hydraulic line.
P.15:
"This book... argues that the Hamlet fire broke out because the nation, not just this place or these people, had essentially given up on protecting its most vulnerable and precarious citizens. It shows that in the years leading up to the blaze the United States had become a more callous and divided, less patient and generous land. Above all, america, and specially the spaces on its margins, became dominated by the idea -- the system, really -- of cheap. Cheap's Central notion was that the combination of less pay, less regulation, and less attention to the economic and racial inequities of the past was the best way to solve the nation's most pressing problems. By 1991, this idea had seeped into every part of the country, every political discussion, every debate about civil rights, and every workplace and government agency until it reached the factory floor and the dinner table. Again and again, those with power valued cheap food, cheap government, and cheap lives over quality ingredients, investment in human capital, and strong oversight and regulation."
Jim Hunt, NC's governor,
P.54:
"... Told them about the state's 'pro-business climate,' it's right-to-work law, and the fact that North Carolina maintained the second lowest rate of unionization in the country. He told them that the state didn't have a whistleblower protection law on the books, that it had its own state-run OSHA department, and that it was one of only nine states where insurance companies could assign a doctor to examine an injured laborer in a workman's compensation case. When a deal needed closing, Hunt or one of his professional industry seekers would sweeten the bid by offering free access roads and sewer lines and breaks on industrial training, taxes, and salaries."
P.85:
"The new miracle breeds of broilers, with names like Vantress and Cyprus C, that Imperial bought from Cagle's to make its tenders, fillets and nuggets got bigger, faster, while consuming less feed. When these puffed-up creatures tried to walk, they could barely go more than a step or two without wobbling and toppling over. To get them to this size, The growers turned the overhead fluorescent lights in the chicken houses on for 20 to 22 hours a day because they wanted their chickens to eat like pigs, and they knew that these birds were biologically hardwired not to eat in the dark. So the animals lived in artificial light and ate almost around the clock, even if it made them sick. Many became so agitated in these bright, closed quarters that they attacked the birds next to them and sometimes tried to Peck themselves to death. Protecting their investments and pushed by The contractors, growers would de-beaj the broilers, sometimes with an instrument that resembled a blowtorch and usually without administering any anesthesia. The system wouldn't allow for any unnecessary expenses. The growers did, though, turn to a pharmacy of other drugs for other reasons -- all economic. Anxious birds didn't eat. When they didn't eat, they didn't grow to their full weight in a flash of time. Jumpy birds also tended to yield tougher meat. By the 1980s, in response, some growers started to lace their chicken feed with Benadryl to settle the nerves of the cooped-up birds and keep them on the fast-growing track. Others dropped traces of caffeine into the feeding machine so the birds would stay awake and keep eating. Perdue apparently added xanthophyll to its feed mix, a die found in alfalfa and Marigold pedals that turned the skin of broilers an artificial shade of golden yellow. Birds living so close together easily passed germs and diseases to one another, so farmers put penicillin, tetracycline, chlortetracycline, and oxytetracycline in their foods. Over time, as a result, broilers inevitably became resistant to some of these antibiotics, starting another round of chemical Solutions and producing a range of possibly dangerous foodborne illnesses for chicken eaters."
P.105-6:
"Shortly after purchasing the Haverpride facility, Roe shook hands on a multi-year deal worth as much as $20 million to supply generic nuggets to Lyle farms, inc. The roswell, Georgia-based food brokerage planned to sell Roe's further-processed microwavable chicken products to supermarket chains and other outlets under the Big Top, Shur-Fine, and Jewell labels. Almost as soon as the nuggets hit the freezer aisles and gas station warming trays, Lysle officials claimed that they started to receive complaints. 'Where's the chicken?' customers Supposedly asked. Lyle accused Roe's company of using rancid meat and of cutting costs and corners by concocting nuggets full of more than the usual amounts of filler, breading and water. Perhaps this was the only way Emmett Roe, the firm's Chief decision maker, could service his mounting debts or deal with the razor-thin margins in big food. Or perhaps Lyle was flexing its muscles and shaking down a smaller player in the pecking order of poultry capitalism.
By March 1990, Lyle had allegedly reneged on its deal with Roe's company. Yet it kept, according to one inside source, as much as a million dollars worth of unpaid-for chicken products. This was money that Roe didn't have. By then, the only contract the hulking Haverpride plant still had left was to supply nuggets to an Alabama school district for lunches. This deal was set to expire when classes ended late that spring. That didn't give Haverpride enough cash to cover its bills and keep the factory running. And there was no extra money from any of the other parts of Roe's shaky chicken empire to bail out the Alabama branch. By this point, Roe hadn't paid in full the finance corporation he relied on for debt relief or his chicken suppliers in months. His companies in Georgia and North Carolina owed thousands in back taxes, and the Alabama outlet fell so far behind on its electric bill that the power company turned off the lights. even before Haverpride went dark, Roe reportedly stopped paying his share of his employees' health care coverage, though he apparently continued to draw deductions for this expense out of their paychecks, using the funds, it seems, to cover the other costs and keep the plant open and their jobs still going. Haverpride operatives only found out about the owner's moves when they went to the doctor's office and discovered that they had no insurance."
P143-4:
"... By the early 1980s, policy discussions in the United States had changed and changed dramatically. The ideas of cheap Rose to the fore, influencing ideas about government and its role in the economy and every daily life, including School food policies, which quickly seemed as emblematic of their era as the Humphrey - Hawkins act was of an earlier moment in time. Reduced tax revenues due to business losses and jumps in unemployment led to government cuts at the federal and state levels, which in turn reduced support for school nutrition and exercise programs. Faced with persistent shortfalls and narrow choices between an extra science or reading class and physical education or home economics, educational administrators often chose biology and English over gym and cooking courses. To cover up the growing holes in their budgets, they cut down on visits from nurses and slashed funding for teacher's aids. Often these were the people who oversaw non-academic activities, like going outside to play and taking time for lunch. according to a 2001 study by the clearingHouse on early adult education and parenting, almost 40% of the nation's School districts had cut or eliminated recess because of a lack of funding. With money in short supply, more and more new school buildings went up in cities and towns without costly playgrounds or gyms. Some school districts cut back on their sports programs while others entered into dubious privatization deals. They let Coke and Pepsi line their halls with vending machines stuffed with high-calorie foods and drinks in exchange for money for new scoreboards for the baseball field and helmets for the football team.
The Reagan administration, looking for more money with which to pay for the Contras and several colossal new aircraft carriers, cut support for the school lunch and food stamp programs. Famously, officials in Washington tried to reclassify ketchup as a vegetable on school lunch trays to save money as well. Distrustful of the decision making of the poor and the not thin, some lawmakers proposed limiting what recipients could purchase with federal and state funds. while the nation's growing legions of the working poor were told they couldn't buy wine or beer or some prepared foods with government-issued food stamps, they could still use them to purchase cookies, chips, and soda. Big food and big agriculture celebrated choice as well, it seems. When a number of lawmakers suggested restrictions on sugary drinks and salty snacks, industry Representatives rolled out the flag and complained that any limits on consumer choice amounted to an alarming loss of cherished freedoms. Few Congressional representatives wanted to vote against American rights or forgo campaign contributions from Big donors, so it remained okay to buy chips and soda with government funds."
P.151:
"Really, the article in the Richmond county daily journal and most of the other reports on obesity in the 1980s and 1990s missed the key issue behind the timing of the tipping of the nation's scales. More than supersize meals, more than subsidies for corn and soft drinks, more than government cuts and support for recess and healthy school lunches, more than chicken pieces loaded with fat, salt, and sugar, the jump in obesity in poor communities turned on income. In fact, across the country, bodies got bigger as pay envelopes shrunk. This represented a massive, almost schizophrenic, historic shift. For more time than anyone could possibly count, poor people starved. They starved during the Roman empire and the renaissance, and during Charles dickens, George orwell, and Upton Sinclair's days. Novelists and commentators read their thin, gaunt, and emaciated bodies as sure signs of poverty, just as they read girth, plumpness, and softness as indicators of wealth. All of a sudden, the cultural codes reversed themselves. 'Thinness' became a sign of righteousness and success; 'fatness' an emblem of poverty and failure. the American diet was filled with danger long before the spike in obesity in the 1970s. Coke machines appeared at bus stations and crossroads gas stations after world war ii. At the same time, boxes of sugary Betty crocker cake mixes begin to line supermarket aisles...."
P.215-6:
"By August 1992, Emmett Roe ended up in bankruptcy court, though he showed up in the Greensboro Chambers without a lawyer, acting confused and befuddled. 'I don't know where I am,' he whispered to judge James wolfe. 'I have no assets.' Claiming that Banks removed $600,000 from his accounts the day after the fire to pay back the money he owed them, Roe declared, 'I'm broke.' In a court filing, he said he had no cash, no savings, no furs or jewelry, and no auto, video, or computer equipment of any value. Over the next year or so, creditors, court officers, and forensic accountants found out that Emmett roe wasn't lying, though some of the victims still believed he was hiding money and other assets."
Author Bryant Simon did an excellent job researching and compiling information that he shares with his readers in an unbiased formula that only needs eyes and critical thinking to see where to point the finger for the lives lost in this tragedy and the the end of the American experiment.
November 7, 2017
I have studied and taught the basic facts about this emergency for years. The author brought to light some of the things that the government reviews and studies have not. I remember working for companies with these sorts of problems as a consultant. Some wanted to change, some only hired me because they were forced to do so. It was a well written enlightening book. I found it to be two books actually. Both were well written. One book focused on the chicken industry and the hazards of cheap processed food. The other was about the shortcomings of OSHA, the disaster and its effects on the community. I found that there was a sharp break between the two and there was not a good bridge between the two subjects.
Nonetheless, I highly recommend the book. It is a very interesting read for those studying critical incident stress, OSHA related issues, and the human effects of industrial scale farming.
Nonetheless, I highly recommend the book. It is a very interesting read for those studying critical incident stress, OSHA related issues, and the human effects of industrial scale farming.
January 8, 2019
My dad worked at Buttercup Ice Cream Company in Hamlet, North Carolina. He was the shipping clerk responsible for sending product to branch locations in Southeastern North Carolina and Northeastern South Carolina and coordinating the route salesmen who delivered product to retail outlets throughout the Sandhills. As a child and young boy I spent a lot of time at Buttercup with Daddy. I knew many of the employees and was recognized as “Cam’s Boy.” Every summer from the age if sixteen through college I worked at Buttercup in the plant, the warehouse, the mixing room, the hardening room and even as a filing clerk in the office.
In 1969 Buttercup was sold to Mello from Wilson. A few years later the plant was closed. It was the end of an era for me and my family. Daddy died in 1972.
In 1980 the property was bought by Imperial Products and converted into a chicken processing facility. On September 3, 1991, the old Buttercup plant was the scene of the worst industrial fire in the history of North Carolina.
The Hamlet Fire: A Tragic Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government and Cheap Lives by Bryant Simon is the story of that tragedy. Because of my personal connections to the site and my boyhood roots in the town, this was a particularly upsetting book for me to read.
Simon’s thoroughly researched volume begins with the background. He tells about a small town, its economy, its politics and its people. At first glance Imperial Products seemed to be a saving grace for a small town in economic decline. The jobs weren’t great, but they were jobs. Underneath, however, there was complacency and denial. A “business first” focus allowed questions not only to go unanswered; they weren’t even asked. The questions concerned worker safety, food safety, unreasonable production quotas and lax or nonexistent inspections. The silence was deafening.
Further background is provided through the author’s description of “poultry capitalism.” The highly competitive industry has extremely thin production margins where cost cutting is a matter of survival. The result is a factory system from the hatchery to the fast food counter and freezer section of your local market. In between is a deregulated industry characterized by cheap labor, minimum benefits, lax attention to safety and an emphasis on high speed production.
The description of the genesis of the tragic fire and its horrific aftermath is difficult to read. The almost nonexistent preparedness of first responders is perplexing. The insufficiency and incompetence of the response is angering. Denial, second guessing and buck passing characterize the response and follow-up evaluation.
This story does not end well. Not much has changed. One can only assume that other poultry plants are ticking time bombs waiting to capture the headlines. Expand that to other food production facilities and then to other industries producing other products.
With the scarcity of unions in the South and their decline elsewhere the voice to protect workers from predatory capitalism is sadly waning. “Profits over people” continues to be our national mantra.
In 1969 Buttercup was sold to Mello from Wilson. A few years later the plant was closed. It was the end of an era for me and my family. Daddy died in 1972.
In 1980 the property was bought by Imperial Products and converted into a chicken processing facility. On September 3, 1991, the old Buttercup plant was the scene of the worst industrial fire in the history of North Carolina.
The Hamlet Fire: A Tragic Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government and Cheap Lives by Bryant Simon is the story of that tragedy. Because of my personal connections to the site and my boyhood roots in the town, this was a particularly upsetting book for me to read.
Simon’s thoroughly researched volume begins with the background. He tells about a small town, its economy, its politics and its people. At first glance Imperial Products seemed to be a saving grace for a small town in economic decline. The jobs weren’t great, but they were jobs. Underneath, however, there was complacency and denial. A “business first” focus allowed questions not only to go unanswered; they weren’t even asked. The questions concerned worker safety, food safety, unreasonable production quotas and lax or nonexistent inspections. The silence was deafening.
Further background is provided through the author’s description of “poultry capitalism.” The highly competitive industry has extremely thin production margins where cost cutting is a matter of survival. The result is a factory system from the hatchery to the fast food counter and freezer section of your local market. In between is a deregulated industry characterized by cheap labor, minimum benefits, lax attention to safety and an emphasis on high speed production.
The description of the genesis of the tragic fire and its horrific aftermath is difficult to read. The almost nonexistent preparedness of first responders is perplexing. The insufficiency and incompetence of the response is angering. Denial, second guessing and buck passing characterize the response and follow-up evaluation.
This story does not end well. Not much has changed. One can only assume that other poultry plants are ticking time bombs waiting to capture the headlines. Expand that to other food production facilities and then to other industries producing other products.
With the scarcity of unions in the South and their decline elsewhere the voice to protect workers from predatory capitalism is sadly waning. “Profits over people” continues to be our national mantra.
April 24, 2019
A bit of backstory before I get to the meat of the review. I have lived in North Carolina my entire life. In 1991 when the fire happened, I only lived about 50 miles away from Hamlet (though I was very young at the time). I had never heard anything about this until about 3 years ago when I went to a library workshop at Richmond Community College in Hamlet and my mom mentioned the fire, which I immediately looked up on Wikipedia. A few months later I noticed this book on library shelves and immediately put it on my to-read list.
This book goes into the social and economic factors that led to the factory being built where it was, and the disaster that occurred. It was shocking to me that 80 years after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that something like this could happen, but Simon shows exactly why that is. Unfortunately a lot of the social and economic factors are still with us: people needing a job and being afraid to speak up about safety issues, businessmen willing to do anything to protect their bottom line and government more than willing to look the other way, and the sexism and racism that many workers face that keep them from being able to escape poverty any other way.
The book includes interviews with the survivors of the fire, as well as others who were involved that day. It is not an easy read, and not just because of the fire. The book shows the dark side of government and the meat processing industry (I would definitely recommend avoiding the chicken chapter if you have a weak stomach). It shows that these workplace issues were not left behind in the 1910s. It will definitely make you think about where your food and other goods come from.
I would recommend this book to those interested in labor issues and the social history of work in America. Like I said, it is a hard read, but it is worth it.
This book goes into the social and economic factors that led to the factory being built where it was, and the disaster that occurred. It was shocking to me that 80 years after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that something like this could happen, but Simon shows exactly why that is. Unfortunately a lot of the social and economic factors are still with us: people needing a job and being afraid to speak up about safety issues, businessmen willing to do anything to protect their bottom line and government more than willing to look the other way, and the sexism and racism that many workers face that keep them from being able to escape poverty any other way.
The book includes interviews with the survivors of the fire, as well as others who were involved that day. It is not an easy read, and not just because of the fire. The book shows the dark side of government and the meat processing industry (I would definitely recommend avoiding the chicken chapter if you have a weak stomach). It shows that these workplace issues were not left behind in the 1910s. It will definitely make you think about where your food and other goods come from.
I would recommend this book to those interested in labor issues and the social history of work in America. Like I said, it is a hard read, but it is worth it.
December 2, 2017
This is a very good book, well researched & well written. It seems to me to cover some of the same ground as Strangers in Their Own Land but whereas in Strangers, the threat was industrial pollution & the fall guy was the EPA, in Hamlet, unsafe working conditions are the culprit & OSHA the patsy. This is a book about people unlucky enough to be born in the wrong place with the wrong color & the wrong parents are short changed from birth to death. Furthermore, the disease is highly contagious. We all wind up being shortchanged as the title suggests. Some points of interest which might surprise: in this study, the bad guy, the factory owner isn't getting rich of the backs of his employees; in fact he's only barely staying in business. If anyone's getting rich - & yes, someone is - it's the big time oligopolists, in this case big chicken guys like Tyson and/or big fast food guys like Hardee's. Second to me was the question of what's right & wrong in this case. Suppose the plant didn't exist or was shut down because OSHA dropped the hammer & the owner couldn't afford to get into compliance. Would that have been better for the players. Of course some of them wouldn't have died in the fire but how could they live? How can any of us live in security in such a society as ours? You tell me. I haven't found the answer. BTW, Hamlet, NC sounds like it was a nice place to live & work once, but that was a long time ago.
February 9, 2018
Very well written account of a devastating industrial fire at a North Carolina chicken processing plant in 1991, with an underlying belief by the author that the REAL cause of the fire was the gradual dissolution of the social contract/New Deal/union labor and replacement with deregulation and the ideology of cheap, the latter creating a burgeoning poor class and trapping them.
As a student of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (which the author discusses near the end), I could not help compare this event to that one, seeing one parallel after the other, especially the disregard for employee labor and the idea that people are disposable. I agree with Simon that we have returned to the 19th century Gilded Age, and I appreciate his placing the blame on both political parties. Not sure if all of the details within his argument would hold up under intense scrutiny (like the idea that women relieved of the burden of cooking ended up spending less time with their kids than their counterparts of earlier decades; I think it's about equal, i.e. not as much time as we think). The real value of this book is to get the conversation started about the "cheap" ideology, and whether we can get out from under it or not.
Highly recommended.
As a student of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (which the author discusses near the end), I could not help compare this event to that one, seeing one parallel after the other, especially the disregard for employee labor and the idea that people are disposable. I agree with Simon that we have returned to the 19th century Gilded Age, and I appreciate his placing the blame on both political parties. Not sure if all of the details within his argument would hold up under intense scrutiny (like the idea that women relieved of the burden of cooking ended up spending less time with their kids than their counterparts of earlier decades; I think it's about equal, i.e. not as much time as we think). The real value of this book is to get the conversation started about the "cheap" ideology, and whether we can get out from under it or not.
Highly recommended.
August 22, 2023
I don’t quite know what I wanted out of this book that I didn’t get but something just wasn’t there. It may just be that I didn’t enjoy Simon’s writing, which read too much like a competent but slapped-together piece of online journalism and didn’t really get at any non-superficial truth or revealing lyricism. I was very excited someone had written about this case — the fire at the Imperial Foods chicken processing plant in Hamlet, NC in 1991 — because it has always been an inexplicable source of morbid fascination for me, and frankly is one of the events that “made me” in a political sense. Simon delves into the sociopolitical and economic stresses that contributed to the tragedy but I didn’t find that he illuminated much about it. He’s right that the fire is a convergence of many things, especially in terms of labor and politics, but I feel that there were secrets and horrors embodied in that building, before and after the disaster, that he doesn’t have the energy to deeply investigate. The first and last chapters are handy basic rundowns of what happened but there are newspaper articles that were both more direct in their empathy and that really dove into the soul of what happened, who these people were, and what kind of a world it all inhabits.
April 18, 2022
You know you aren't "INTO" a book when you are packing for a week-long stay on the beach, need to bring a pile of books along to read and this one keeps getting put aside. I found this book incredibly interesting until the author started going into the politics that possibly aided and abetted this tragedy. Initially reading it, I was shocked to learn I wasn't reading about some factory fire in the 1920's and but in 1991. The "spoiler" is in the introduction when the author tells you everything you need to know about the Hamlet Fire. Then he begins the dissection of the town, the up and comers of the local society etc. etc.
Having lived through the construction of various interstates around the US, I have witnessed firsthand what can happen when a town is bypassed by a newer highway system. I have also witnessed the arrival of big box stores to rural areas, and the exporting of generational jobs overseas, it was all too painful to revisit. Why would anyone lock the back door of a factory to eliminate flies on the factory floor is beyond comprehension, but again, this is the South in the 1990's.
Having lived through the construction of various interstates around the US, I have witnessed firsthand what can happen when a town is bypassed by a newer highway system. I have also witnessed the arrival of big box stores to rural areas, and the exporting of generational jobs overseas, it was all too painful to revisit. Why would anyone lock the back door of a factory to eliminate flies on the factory floor is beyond comprehension, but again, this is the South in the 1990's.
December 4, 2017
The story of the Hamlet fire is and interesting one. At times reading this book I felt like I was being beaten over the head with raw statistics. Sometimes I longed for Simon to draw a conclusion or state an opinion. If not from Simon, than please from those people detailed in the book, if only to give me something to agree or disagree with. This really only comes in the epilogue.
The dry sections aside, there is an important tale told by this book, bigger than the problems with industrial chicken, or how racism didn't disappear with the elimination of slavery, or with the social movements of the 60s, or how the United States has moved away from the ideals of the New Deal. The real problem outlined by The Hamlet Fire is how these and other factors come together to create a situation where we as a people are undervaluing our labor and our health in favor of "cheap".
The dry sections aside, there is an important tale told by this book, bigger than the problems with industrial chicken, or how racism didn't disappear with the elimination of slavery, or with the social movements of the 60s, or how the United States has moved away from the ideals of the New Deal. The real problem outlined by The Hamlet Fire is how these and other factors come together to create a situation where we as a people are undervaluing our labor and our health in favor of "cheap".
November 14, 2017
Bryant Simon uses the tragedy of a fire at a Hamlet, NC chicken factory in 1991 that killed a number of workers due to unsafe working conditions to discuss issues that still exist today. The pursuit of cheap food, profit, deregulation, lax oversight, and the view that certain people are disposable all led to this tragedy, and continue to persist over 25 years later.
It's an infuriating book that helped continue to degrade my view of humanity. Ultimately though it's a bit scattered and the various pieces of the book don't completely fit together well. It's definitely one of those books that would have been better as a long form article in say The New Yorker than something dragged out into a full-length book that the author really doesn't have enough content to fill.
It's an infuriating book that helped continue to degrade my view of humanity. Ultimately though it's a bit scattered and the various pieces of the book don't completely fit together well. It's definitely one of those books that would have been better as a long form article in say The New Yorker than something dragged out into a full-length book that the author really doesn't have enough content to fill.
May 7, 2022
Such as stunning account of the concrete harm done by neoliberal economic policies. Definitely the most powerful and eloquent demonstration of how these policies influence, motivate and undermine the lives and intentions of everyone who lives under the political hellscape of the now.
Microhistories are my favorite types of history to read because of how well they illustrate broader historical trends and movements. I hope this book becomes more popular. If we lived in a different era of American politics with higher class conscious this book might have been a best seller.
Microhistories are my favorite types of history to read because of how well they illustrate broader historical trends and movements. I hope this book becomes more popular. If we lived in a different era of American politics with higher class conscious this book might have been a best seller.
February 2, 2022
Tragic and senseless occurrence and a very hard book to shake. It’s very difficult for me to understand the racial attitudes in this area just 30 years ago. While an extremely difficult book for me to read because of the tragic loss of life, I found it interesting to understand how economic factors and greed led to this horrendous event. Quite eye opening.
January 1, 2024
Solid information presented in this book. Worth the read when wanting to have deeper understanding of systemic problems with employment. It goes over the context (web of connected interactions) that leads to failures and social problems created by certain ideologies using unfettered capitalism. Try it, you'll enjoy. Fyi, the writing is dry at times.
June 5, 2024
A well written deep dive into the work place tragedy of Imperial Foods. From blatant safety violations, disregard for human lives, the actual food we ingest and the outcome that took several lives and changed others forever, a must read if you believe that everyone is entitled to a safe and healthy workplace.
February 14, 2018
Fascinating look into the tragedy of the Imperial Food fire. The author highlights the true cost of cheap food, cheap labor and racism that is embedded into our culture. I highly recommend this book. The story is disturbing and engrossing at the same time.
May 7, 2025
Enjoyed it enough. Too much detail to be a great read, and I think it was unnecessarily long, but I liked the thematic cost of cheap and the thorough depiction of Hamlet politically, economically, socially, racially, etc
October 2, 2017
would've have read better as an article. too all over the place and gossipy. 2.5
October 13, 2017
An important book, meticulously researched.
February 27, 2018
Powerful story-- very easy to read history of a tragic event and all of the social forces surrounding it, from race to labor.
April 19, 2018
Overall a good read, moments of repetitiveness and some disorganization.
July 17, 2018
cheap labor = cheap government = cheap food = extremely high personal, communal and political costs
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