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The Company Town: The Industrial Edens and Satanic Mills That Shaped the American Economy
Company The very phrase sounds un-American. Yet company towns are the essence of America. Hershey bars, Corning glassware, Kohler bathroom fixtures, Maytag washers, Spam—each is the signature product of a company town in which one business, for better or worse, exercises a grip over the population. In The Company Town , Hardy Green, who has covered American business for over a decade, offers a compelling analysis of the emergence of these communities and their role in shaping the American economy, beginning in the country’s earliest years. From the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, to the R&D labs of Corning, New York; from the coal mines of Ludlow, Colorado, to corporate campuses of today’s major tech America has been uniquely open to the development of the single-company community. But rather than adhering to a uniform blueprint, American company towns represent two very different strands of capitalism. One is socially benign—a paternalistic, utopian ideal that fosters the development of schools, hospitals, parks, and desirable housing for its workers. The other, “Exploitationville,” focuses only on profits, at the expense of employees’ well-being. Adeptly distinguishing between these two models, Green offers rich stories about town-builders and workers. He vividly describes the origins of America’s company towns, the living and working conditions that characterize them, and the violent, sometimes fatal labor confrontations that have punctuated their existence. And he chronicles the surprising transformation underway in many such communities today. With fascinating profiles of American moguls—from candyman Milton Hershey and steel man Elbert H. Gary to oil tycoon Frank Phillips and Manhattan Project czar General Leslie B. Groves— The Company Town is a sweeping tale of how the American economy has grown and changed, and how these urban centers have reflected the best and worst of American capitalism.
264 pages, Hardcover
First published July 28, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
November 24, 2021
What is a “company town”? And if the “company” goes bye-bye, what happens to that town? This interesting book looks at the way the United States industrialized, creating pockets of manufacturing economies in the 19th and 20th centuries. Even today, the concept has continued with Silicon Valley, where huge complexes have been built to provide little townships for time-starved employees. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
When England started the Industrial Revolution, the midlands became polluted areas filled with quickly built homes for the workers. Striving to learn from that mistake, the East Coast Americans built their first structures next to bodies of water, so industry was powered in a cleaner manner. Once the American Civil War was over and the North’s economy exploded, the oligarchs were more concerned with building their Steel Belt facilities with enough amenities to keep the factories open twenty-four hours a day. In the South, there were fewer decent homes and a post-slavery system whereby workers could only purchase food and goods on store credit…which meant they perpetually owed money they could never pay off completely. Thus, some of these “company towns” became satanic mills. Company owners across the states also used state and federal enforcers to ensure strikes would not break their profit-making industries. Eventually, something had to give.
As laws gradually came into play with more rights for employees, unions also ensured better housing and comforts for factory workers. Some owners started with good intentions, such as Milton Hershey. Inspired by the Cadbury complex in England, Hershey created his own company town with the goal of providing real housing with modern plumbing, electricity, and central heating at a time when most Americans still lived in simple rural homesteads. He didn’t want the poverty or nuisances that other industrial complexes had developed, just a wholesome atmosphere that would take advantage of a plethora of local dairy farms for fresh milk and a hard-working local workforce already ingrained with a Protestant work ethic. Hershey Park became famous for its themed atmosphere and is considered to be an inspiration for the future Disneyland. Most companies didn’t really think like this, however, so the company towns became dying emblems of a dying culture.
Today, the high-tech campuses built in California provide everything but housing. Buildings will have multiple cafeterias and laundry services available for their employees, in the hopes they will spend more time working. What this book makes clear is that even those corporations with good intentions still have to strive for corporate profits, so there’s only so much they will set aside for employees. Since this was published before the massive changes wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s interesting to see how companies have promised employees the right to work from home, only to start reeling those promises back once the vaccinations started.
I like the way the book was put together, providing a chronological expedition through the beginning of the Industrial Age. Reading about the way some of the early tycoons operated was enlightening and learning about these various company towns was new to me, as I wasn’t aware of many of them. It’s a good history to have not only for its explanation of assembly lines and factory improvements but also as a reminder that all glory is, essentially, fleeting.
Book Season = Winter (little responsibility)
When England started the Industrial Revolution, the midlands became polluted areas filled with quickly built homes for the workers. Striving to learn from that mistake, the East Coast Americans built their first structures next to bodies of water, so industry was powered in a cleaner manner. Once the American Civil War was over and the North’s economy exploded, the oligarchs were more concerned with building their Steel Belt facilities with enough amenities to keep the factories open twenty-four hours a day. In the South, there were fewer decent homes and a post-slavery system whereby workers could only purchase food and goods on store credit…which meant they perpetually owed money they could never pay off completely. Thus, some of these “company towns” became satanic mills. Company owners across the states also used state and federal enforcers to ensure strikes would not break their profit-making industries. Eventually, something had to give.
As laws gradually came into play with more rights for employees, unions also ensured better housing and comforts for factory workers. Some owners started with good intentions, such as Milton Hershey. Inspired by the Cadbury complex in England, Hershey created his own company town with the goal of providing real housing with modern plumbing, electricity, and central heating at a time when most Americans still lived in simple rural homesteads. He didn’t want the poverty or nuisances that other industrial complexes had developed, just a wholesome atmosphere that would take advantage of a plethora of local dairy farms for fresh milk and a hard-working local workforce already ingrained with a Protestant work ethic. Hershey Park became famous for its themed atmosphere and is considered to be an inspiration for the future Disneyland. Most companies didn’t really think like this, however, so the company towns became dying emblems of a dying culture.
Today, the high-tech campuses built in California provide everything but housing. Buildings will have multiple cafeterias and laundry services available for their employees, in the hopes they will spend more time working. What this book makes clear is that even those corporations with good intentions still have to strive for corporate profits, so there’s only so much they will set aside for employees. Since this was published before the massive changes wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s interesting to see how companies have promised employees the right to work from home, only to start reeling those promises back once the vaccinations started.
I like the way the book was put together, providing a chronological expedition through the beginning of the Industrial Age. Reading about the way some of the early tycoons operated was enlightening and learning about these various company towns was new to me, as I wasn’t aware of many of them. It’s a good history to have not only for its explanation of assembly lines and factory improvements but also as a reminder that all glory is, essentially, fleeting.
Book Season = Winter (little responsibility)
June 5, 2016
The History of Company Towns is the History of American Capitalism
History is depressing.
The thing about history is that, with the right vantage, patterns become readily, painfully evident. Socially and culturally self-defeating patterns. It’s not too surprising — history is a chronicle of human behaviors condensed, distilled and funneled into a never-ending, disheartening paean of our own glorious shortcomings.
Reading The Company Town definitely put me in a mood. It’s a fascinating, well-researched and well-written story about a seemingly innocuous topic — the history of American company towns, those urban centers built to provide housing and basic supports for workers at various industries. It was a new model that looked to England for inspiration; as the country moved from agriculture to industry, there simply wasn’t housing for laborers needed to turn the wheels of industry.
Chronologically, it begins in textile towns and ends in Silicon Valley (though, not necessarily a town, employers like Google provide all the accouterments an automotively-mobile society needs to drive in and stay at work all day and beyond). In between, there are coal and copper mines, logging camps, glass manufacturers, automobile manufacturing, shipbuilders and even the Manhattan project (near and dear to me after a recent tour of the Hanford site). With the exception of the latter (a government war effort) all of the towns fall along a spectrum — at least according to the author — between utopias and exploitation-villes. The utopian, paternalistic bent — characterized by, say, Corning — are the towns in which employees had hospitals and parks and schools as well as decent housing; the employers made an honest effort to lure folks in and convince them to stay and work, thus treating them fairly well. The exploitation bent — characterized by coal country — was more about trapping people far from other opportunities and using them up in horrible, dangerous jobs, featured clapboard shacks, no amenities, the threat of violence and salaries in scrip so they, as the song goes, would owe their souls to the company store.
The pattern that gets me down is how, in almost every case, even following the best of intentions, every one them eventually gave way to softening markets, increased demands on the work force for lower wages, which sparked attempts to unionize — usually met with violence, horrific strikebreaking activities, all leading to corporate plundering followed by massive layoffs and ultimately, towns abandoned and left to the rot.
The book opens in Butte, Montana, a city with which I have some experience, growing up thirty miles away. And mentions a town in Oregon, where I now live — Valsetz — that I need to visit. I was also pleased to learn what Permanente, in Kaiser Permanente means (it’s a California creek near where Kaiser opened a field hospital for those laboring in the shipbuilding yards).
All in all, a great, depressing read and good reminder of what unions accomplished, even as we see a system wide return to corporations limiting the rights of workers — and demanding more for less — and state governments, especially, ending the power of collective bargaining as jobs, opportunities and futures dry up.
As I mentioned, history is depressing. The history of capitalism is twice as depressing.
History is depressing.
The thing about history is that, with the right vantage, patterns become readily, painfully evident. Socially and culturally self-defeating patterns. It’s not too surprising — history is a chronicle of human behaviors condensed, distilled and funneled into a never-ending, disheartening paean of our own glorious shortcomings.
Reading The Company Town definitely put me in a mood. It’s a fascinating, well-researched and well-written story about a seemingly innocuous topic — the history of American company towns, those urban centers built to provide housing and basic supports for workers at various industries. It was a new model that looked to England for inspiration; as the country moved from agriculture to industry, there simply wasn’t housing for laborers needed to turn the wheels of industry.
Chronologically, it begins in textile towns and ends in Silicon Valley (though, not necessarily a town, employers like Google provide all the accouterments an automotively-mobile society needs to drive in and stay at work all day and beyond). In between, there are coal and copper mines, logging camps, glass manufacturers, automobile manufacturing, shipbuilders and even the Manhattan project (near and dear to me after a recent tour of the Hanford site). With the exception of the latter (a government war effort) all of the towns fall along a spectrum — at least according to the author — between utopias and exploitation-villes. The utopian, paternalistic bent — characterized by, say, Corning — are the towns in which employees had hospitals and parks and schools as well as decent housing; the employers made an honest effort to lure folks in and convince them to stay and work, thus treating them fairly well. The exploitation bent — characterized by coal country — was more about trapping people far from other opportunities and using them up in horrible, dangerous jobs, featured clapboard shacks, no amenities, the threat of violence and salaries in scrip so they, as the song goes, would owe their souls to the company store.
The pattern that gets me down is how, in almost every case, even following the best of intentions, every one them eventually gave way to softening markets, increased demands on the work force for lower wages, which sparked attempts to unionize — usually met with violence, horrific strikebreaking activities, all leading to corporate plundering followed by massive layoffs and ultimately, towns abandoned and left to the rot.
The book opens in Butte, Montana, a city with which I have some experience, growing up thirty miles away. And mentions a town in Oregon, where I now live — Valsetz — that I need to visit. I was also pleased to learn what Permanente, in Kaiser Permanente means (it’s a California creek near where Kaiser opened a field hospital for those laboring in the shipbuilding yards).
All in all, a great, depressing read and good reminder of what unions accomplished, even as we see a system wide return to corporations limiting the rights of workers — and demanding more for less — and state governments, especially, ending the power of collective bargaining as jobs, opportunities and futures dry up.
As I mentioned, history is depressing. The history of capitalism is twice as depressing.
January 6, 2014
After moving to Manchester, New Hampshire, and learning about its origins as a company town, I wanted to learn more about the way such areas came into existence and how they developed. Green’s book attempts to offer a history of company towns and a myriad of aspects about them since they began to be constructed. Some of the towns dealt with in the book are: Lowell, Pullman, Gary, and Kannapolis.
In all, my expectations for this work were not completely met. I felt that many of the book’s pages were devoted to information that wasn’t quite about the main subjects and limited actual information on company towns. For example, much of the actual information in the book consists of labor disputes, strikes, factory outputs, and not much on the way towns operated.
In all, my expectations for this work were not completely met. I felt that many of the book’s pages were devoted to information that wasn’t quite about the main subjects and limited actual information on company towns. For example, much of the actual information in the book consists of labor disputes, strikes, factory outputs, and not much on the way towns operated.
March 6, 2011
Intriguing history of company towns and how they have shaped the U.S. From the Lowell, MA mills to Google's data centers, Green contrasts exploitative communities with paternalistic utopias, offering a lesson in corporate and labor union development along the way. Each chapter contains real-town examples and two of my favorites were (no surprise if you know my WWII interests) Oak Ridge, TN and the Kaiser shipyards.
Nice addition of photos, including a priceless one of Frank Phillips, Phillips Petroleum.
Nice addition of photos, including a priceless one of Frank Phillips, Phillips Petroleum.
March 27, 2011
Survey of towns in the US created by companies, some utopian, some exploitative, all ultimately negative for the employees. The book talks more about the companies than the towns but ultimately becomes a critique of raw capitalism. In some sense, the entire US today is a company town with the proprietors immensely wealthy and the workers exploited at every turn. A good argument for unions and regulations to rein in the worst of capitalism.
April 17, 2015
Very dry. somehow manages to seem perfunctory yet also has too many dull details ..
January 13, 2021
Tedious read but so glad to have a history of the industrial development of the U.S. through this history of a select group of company town’s labor relations, moguls, the changes industrial mindset depending on labor availability and resultant labor relations, the fight against unions, the political environment impacted by conservative politics of the time, e.g. Reagan and Freidman. A final chapter distinguishing capitalistic greed, versus liberal leaning toward benevolence including not just labor but also the community/town. Most interesting was the difference in the types of towns that developed, including the company store, resulting from some form of the above environments the industries found themselves in after their initial needs of water and labor were met.
June 7, 2018
The history of U.S. towns formed around businesses by the often-paternalistic tycoons who owned them. The usual suspects – textile mills, steel mills, coal mines, agriculture, and auto production – are covered, along with others such as Corning, Hershey, and Kohler. Present-day data centers, which wouldn’t have occurred to me, are also mentioned. Although each story was interesting on its own, the cumulative effect was repetitive. The conclusion, as you might suspect, was that workers are historically treated better when the labor market favors workers, and treated less well when the market favors owners.
September 8, 2022
A fascinating look at towns that grew around the companies that provided employment for the workers. A variety of different towns are discussed from textile mills, chocolate, glassware, industries such as coal, oil, and copper mining, steel, auto manufacturing, and uranium for nuclear bomb making, this book has it all. Unions, strikes, and disgruntled and abused workers are also important issues addressed in this book. Employer benefits for the workers is also an interesting subject addressed in the book. The subject matter may have been easier to follow if each chapter focused on just one type of industry or one particular town.
March 13, 2019
This book laid out the history and mostly failed attempts at company towns from early Massachusetts to the modern day. I was aware of textiles, steel, mining, and oil company towns but was surprised to learn of other industries like meat packing, plumbing fixtures, candy making, home appliances, and the Manhattan project as other examples. Light reading but very informative.
November 6, 2023
One of the best history books I have read recently
Everyone should read this book, because this subject is still important today. The writing is absolutely solid. It doesn't stray too far into speculation, while still being incredibly interesting and engaging to read.
Everyone should read this book, because this subject is still important today. The writing is absolutely solid. It doesn't stray too far into speculation, while still being incredibly interesting and engaging to read.
January 4, 2023
Slow read. I was hoping for a depiction of what towns run by companies would be like and while there was some, it seemed there was more about the conflict unions and unionization had with the companies. A bit of a disappointment.
November 1, 2011
The book is a bit of dry reading at times. However, if you get past that, you get a good history of the various company towns in the U.S. and their history. Some of the major players, names we have often heard of such as Hershey and Corning are present as well as other names that may not be as well known today such as Pullman (the railroad car company) and various coal towns. Well, there were a bit less known to me. I am sure the locals in their respective areas would know. Anyhow, what is fascinating about the book is the broad range of developments and experiences in the company towns. Some bosses were very patriarchal and tried to build utopias with some degree of success. Others built hells on earth for their workers. The book also brings in labor and organized union history as well and gives a look at American history from the late 19th century to the modern era.
The author does a pretty good job of summarizing the main points of the book, tying the patterns nicely of why some company towns were more like utopian communities and why others were hellish holes of exploitation. And we also get a glimpse at the modern incarnation of company towns such as the Googleplex, places that are not so much real "towns" as places where employees don't really have to go home.
Overall, this is a book worth reading as it gives a good picture of a very important part of American history. Readers interested in labor history as well will want to read this book.
The author does a pretty good job of summarizing the main points of the book, tying the patterns nicely of why some company towns were more like utopian communities and why others were hellish holes of exploitation. And we also get a glimpse at the modern incarnation of company towns such as the Googleplex, places that are not so much real "towns" as places where employees don't really have to go home.
Overall, this is a book worth reading as it gives a good picture of a very important part of American history. Readers interested in labor history as well will want to read this book.
February 16, 2017
Written in a breezy style, the text fills a gap in the literature on company towns by discussing both the exploitative and utopian capitalist communities.
October 12, 2012
Parts of this book are absolutely sickening... Things which happened in American that sound like incidents from the Holocaust or Tzarist Russia. Did you know there was an air drop of gas on American mine strikers? I did not. I will certainly be more appreciative on Labor Day of the suffering and progress of the American Worker.
The "town" part was secondary to the tale of the people, though it did give the author something around which to form these stories, though as others have noted there are still some issues with the organization and the book does have some repetition.
The book serves as a warning about company towns currently forming and which will perhaps always be a part of the economy- given how far from our democratic ideal they can go, they need to be watched very closely.
The "town" part was secondary to the tale of the people, though it did give the author something around which to form these stories, though as others have noted there are still some issues with the organization and the book does have some repetition.
The book serves as a warning about company towns currently forming and which will perhaps always be a part of the economy- given how far from our democratic ideal they can go, they need to be watched very closely.
June 10, 2011
Very few books show the impact of the company towns on the local peasantry. And the behavior and style of management are often very similar. How company towns shaped the individual also had far reaching effects for the world.
Another book that does this is "American Wop."
Additional books about industrial history are badly needed so we will never forget the tribulations faced by our forefathers and so we can learn to prevent history from repeating itself.
What the technological age and the gilded age gave us is evident in the drastic environmental debacles of Chernobyl and Japanese reactor failures whose long term effects and pain we really have no understanding of.
Goodreads! Good-reading!
Another book that does this is "American Wop."
Additional books about industrial history are badly needed so we will never forget the tribulations faced by our forefathers and so we can learn to prevent history from repeating itself.
What the technological age and the gilded age gave us is evident in the drastic environmental debacles of Chernobyl and Japanese reactor failures whose long term effects and pain we really have no understanding of.
Goodreads! Good-reading!
November 12, 2012
This was a very enjoyable read. Green provides a good survey of company towns in America. Encompassing the period from the rise of New England textile mills in the 1840's to the high-tech corporate campuses of today, the author explores the rise and fall of these towns, profiling both the company developers and workers. The variety of company towns are grouped into two archetypes: "Utopia" and "Exploitationville", and as such tracks the development of both the labor movement and "corporate welfare" programs, such as the Kaiser health plan. A useful summary is provided outlining the key factors determining whether corporate towns were run progressively or repressively. A useful addition to our understanding of the American social landscape.
November 13, 2013
Many of the "Industrial Edens" occurred because business conditions required them. Labor was needed and when trained as skilled labor needed to be kept relatively happy. However, the 'founders' of these towns often tried to control the personal lives of the worker and his family. When times got a little hard the towns had issues and stockholders profits came before workers. Some company towns, especially in the extractive industries, became virtual prisons. In fact, some coal mining companies hired prison labor to replace striking workers. One major take away from this book is how how and how strongly the government has come down on the side of business and profits against workers and society in general.
January 5, 2011
Interesting no doubt but repetitive. If you are interested in labor movements/history and union formation and the historic good and bad developments therein it's probably worth a read. I was hoping for more on the experience at the individual level in these towns which was hinted at but not truly described, perhaps for the author to be able to maintain a labor nuetraL pov? Either way I did not persist more than 3/4 of the way through because it became chronologically illogical at places and simply was no longer competing with the other books on my shelf waiting to be read.
April 17, 2013
A seemingly well- researched book on the dark underbelly of American capitalism. The author's hard-fought credibility wavers at times, however, when his personal opinions enter too strongly into material presented as purely factual. Perhaps he did not trust his readers to come to their own conclusions about the heinous accounts he shares of workers' plights? Also, the book's lapses of language style are jarring and suggest the book was poorly edited.
August 20, 2013
An enjoyable book about the creation of company towns and the strategy (or lack of) the corporation implemented. I would have liked to have seen just a few case studies with more depth here as opposed to the variety with little depth. However, the trend of the company town was clear throughout the book: companies created these towns to exploit the worker. I enjoyed the last chapter and its analogy that the corporate campus is now the company town.
April 13, 2016
Very informative. It is interesting to see that the cycle of Company Towns is starting again with rumors of Google looking to create a new one in 2017.
Most interesting part is that everyone has the image of a company town as being an evil exploitive place, when in reality some were and others were designed and (initially) run for the benefit of the employees.
Seems the Tennessee Ernie Ford song only describes the first kind.
Most interesting part is that everyone has the image of a company town as being an evil exploitive place, when in reality some were and others were designed and (initially) run for the benefit of the employees.
Seems the Tennessee Ernie Ford song only describes the first kind.
September 6, 2016
This was an interesting book that I read while cycling across America.
September 5, 2010
Pretty fascinating stuff. A history of the single-industry town. Don't read this if you're a fan of Ayn Rand. The author is decidedly pro-union, but I'd say the historical evidence bears out that in many industries, that was a good idea. The prose is tedious at times and the book wanders, but you can leave this one feeling genuinely educated.
March 5, 2011
Living in a small town myself, this book had a particular interest for me. Corning is mentioned briefly and positively in the book, but for the most part company towns where unionizationation was a key theme or necessity were highlighted. Places like Pullman, Illinois and Gary, Indiana are two prime examples. As someone who enjoys reading about historical events, I found the book enjoyable.
November 10, 2010
While filled with some very interesting stories about company towns in the U.S. (and the labor issues that went with them), the book suffers from a lack of narrative. Of course, that's by design, so I feel a little weird being frustrated by that.
January 23, 2011
It was OK. But I sure wanted to know more about each company town. I have thought that this would be a great research paper for one of my students. But he just hits them in such a perfunctory manner. This book should be twice as long, and a bit more interesting. What a great topic.
December 30, 2010
My father's side of the family lived in and owned a company town. The book is interesting, though a bit on the academic side. I would have liked to know more about the actual residents of the towns vs. the various labor and political disputes.
February 3, 2011
Green delivers what was promised, I suppose. But in my imagination, there was going to be more here. Not really the writer's fault; this company town thing is almost a fetish of mine, so I was bound to be disappointed.
Solid research, though. Not a bad read at all.
Solid research, though. Not a bad read at all.
July 27, 2011
This could have been a very interesting book. Could have been. Unfortunately, it was dry, repetitive and well, boring. I am unsure why Green would tackle this topic without including some first-hand narrative. Had he done so, it would have been worth another star at least.
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