Laurie Mercier's hard-hitting study of "community unionism" examines the tenacity of union loyalty and communal values within the confines of a one-industry town: Anaconda, Montana, home to the world's largest copper smelter and the namesake of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company. Mercier depicts the vibrant life of the smelter city at full steam, incorporating the candid, sometimes wry commentary of the locals ("the company furnished three pair of leather gloves ...and all the arsenic (dust) you could eat"). She documents the early history of the town and the distinctive culture of cooperation and activism that residents fostered in the 1930s and 1940s. Ultimately, their solidarity and discontent with the company converged in the successful 1934 strike and sustained five decades of devoted unionism.During the cold war years, Anacondans held to their communal values and to unions in the face of antilabor and anticommunist pressures, embracing an "alternative Americanism" that championed improved living standards for working people, rather than unlimited corporate power, as the best defense against communism.Mercier chronicles the bitter struggle between two rival unions - the anticommunist United Steelworkers of America and the red-tainted International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers - that undercut the town's labor solidarity in the postwar years. She also explores how gender definitions - especially the male breadwinner ideology and the limits placed on women's political, economic, and social roles - shaped the nature and outcome of labor struggles. Mercier carries her investigation through the closing of the smelter in 1980, covering debates over the environment and the community's transformation into a deindustrialized, nonunion town. Underscoring the role of the community in molding working-class consciousness, Anaconda offers important insights about the changing nature of working-class culture and the real potential for collective action under the midday sun of American industrial capitalism.

Anaconda: Labor, Community, and Culture in Montana's Smelter City (Working Class in American History)

Business & Money

Mercier, Laurie

Industries

University of Illinois Press

Mercier depicts the vibrant life of the smelter city at full steam, incorporating the candid, sometimes wry commentary of the locals ("the company furnished three pair of leather gloves . . . and all the arsenic [dust] you could eat"). She documents the early history of the town and the distinctive culture of cooperation and activism that residents fostered in the 1930s and 1940s. Ultimately, their solidarity and discontent with the company converged in the successful 1934 strike and sustained five decades of devoted unionism. During the cold war years, Anacondans held to their communal values and to unions in the face of antilabor and anticommunist pressures, embracing an "alternative Americanism" that championed improved living standards for working people, rather than unlimited corporate power, as the best defense against communism. Mercier chronicles the bitter struggle between two rival unions--the anticommunist United Steelworkers of America and the red-tainted International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers--that undercut the town's labor solidarity in the postwar years. She also explores how gender definitions--especially the male breadwinner ideology and the limits placed on women's political, economic, and social roles--shaped the nature and outcome of labor struggles. Mercier carries her investigation through the closing of the smelter in 1980, covering debates over the environment and the community's transformation into a deindustrialized, nonunion town. Underscoring the role of the community in molding working-class consciousness, Anaconda offers important insights about the changing nature of working-class culture and the real potential for collective action under the midday sun of American industrial capitalism.

This publication offers concrete suggestions for planning, organizing, and undertaking oral history in community settings. Provides a step-by-step guide to project planning and establishing project objectives, with suggestions for identifying resources and securing funding.

Using Oral History in Community History Projects

Biographies & Memoirs

Buckendorf, Madeline

Community & Culture

Oral History Association

This ten-volume encyclopedia explores the social history of 20th-century America in rich, authoritative detail, decade by decade, through the eyes of its everyday citizens.
Social History of the United States is a cornerstone reference that tells the story of 20th-century America, examining the interplay of policies, events, and everyday life in each decade of the 1900s with unmatched authority, clarity, and insight.
Spanning ten volumes and featuring the work of some of the foremost social historians working today, Social History of the United States bridges the gap between 20th-century history as it played out on the grand stage and history as it affected―and was affected by―citizens at the grassroots level. Covering each decade in a separate volume, this exhaustive work draws on the most compelling scholarship to identify important themes and institutions, explore daily life and working conditions across the economic spectrum, and examine all aspects of the American experience from a citizen's-eye view. Casting the spotlight on those whom history often leaves in the dark, Social History of the United States is an essential addition to any library collection.
 • Entries covering the lives and contributions of ordinary citizens, social movements, religion, culture, the arts, economic and labor issues, and other aspects of American life across the 20th century
• Contributions by accomplished researchers in the field of American social history
• Sidebars providing additional emphasis on important issues and less well-known personalities
• Detailed timelines for every decade, incorporating famous events with pivotal moments that changed the lives of everyday citizens
• A thematically organized index for each of the encyclopedia's ten volumes

Social History of the United States (10 Vol. Set )

History

George, Alice L.

Greenberg, Brian

Watts, Linda S.

Beekman, Scott

Ciabattari, Mark

Cohen, Nancy

Hunt,Andrew

Bucki, Cecelia

Greenwald, Richard A.

Reavley, Gordon

Stoner, John C.

Paino, Troy D.

Holloran, Peter C.

Americas

ABC-CLIO

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