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OverviewA local story with profound national implications, now available as a paperback with a new preface by the author. Absentee owners. Single-minded concern for the bottom line. Friction between workers and management. Hostile takeovers at the hands of avaricious and unaccountable multinational interests. The story of America’s industrial decline is all too familiar—and yet, somehow, still hard to fathom. Jamie Sayen spent years interviewing residents of Groveton, New Hampshire, about the century-long saga of their company town. The community’s paper mill had been its economic engine since the early twentieth century. Purchased and revived by local owners in the postwar decades, the mill merged with Diamond International in 1968. It fell victim to Anglo-French financier James Goldsmith’s hostile takeover in 1982, then suffered through a series of owners with no roots in the community until its eventual demise in 2007. Drawing on conversations with scores of former mill workers, Sayen reconstructs the mill’s human history: the smells of pulp and wood, the injuries and deaths, the struggles of women for equal pay and fair treatment, and the devastating impact of global capitalism on a small New England town. This is a heartbreaking story of the decimation of industrial America. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Jamie SayenPublisher: Brandeis University Press Imprint: Brandeis University Press ISBN: 9781684581849ISBN 10: 1684581842 Pages: 304 Publication Date: 05 November 2023 Audience: Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Out of stock  The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available. Table of ContentsIntroduction: Builders and Destroyers Chapter One: The Life Of The Town Chapter Two: Feeding The Mill Chapter Three: Making Paper Chapter Four: Prosperous Plant Chapter Five: Ratville, NH Chapter Six: Three Generations of Wemysses Chapter Seven: Crown Prince Chapter Eight: The Perfect Balance Chapter Nine: The Dark Side Chapter Ten: A Fateful Decision Chapter Eleven: End of An Era Chapter Twelve: The Worst Years Chapter Thirteen: The Best Years Chapter Fourteen: A Battle We Couldn’t Win Chapter Fifteen: Controllables and Uncontrollables Chapter Sixteen: F This Epilogue: They Ruined This Town Postscript: The Day When Corporate America Doesn’t Run Us Acknowledgments Notes IndexReviews“[A] heartbreaking history.” * Wall Street Journal * “It includes labor disputes and the women's struggle for equal pay, the financial machinations that passed ownership through multiple hands over its century in operation, and the bare hands of workers building it all from the ground up. It is all so vivid you can almost smell the sulfur on their skins.” * 800-CEO-Read * “This remarkable account made me think of Studs Terkel and his classic oral histories—but it also made me think of all the blather about working-class communities in the wake of the Trump election. Sayen has replaced the blather with fact, and it’s a powerful portrait.” -- Bill McKibben, author of Radio Free Vermont “Sayen captures brilliantly how the closing of paper mills impacted not just jobs, but people’s sense of community, of hope, and of belief in the American dream. He offers also a path forward for economic revitalization. This is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand what happened in many rural and factory towns and what we should do about it as a nation.” -- Ro Khanna, US representative from California’s 17th congressional district [A] heartbreaking history. * Wall Street Journal * It includes labor disputes and the women's struggle for equal pay, the financial machinations that passed ownership through multiple hands over its century in operation, and the bare hands of workers building it all from the ground up. It is all so vivid you can almost smell the sulfur on their skins. * 800-CEO-Read * This remarkable account made me think of Studs Terkel and his classic oral histories-but it also made me think of all the blather about working-class communities in the wake of the Trump election. Sayen has replaced the blather with fact, and it's a powerful portrait. -- Bill McKibben, author of Radio Free Vermont Author InformationJamie Sayen is a writer and environmental activist living in New Hampshire. He is the author of Einstein in America: The Scientist’s Conscience in the Age of Hitler and Hiroshima. His new book, Children of the New Forest, will be published this fall. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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