Workers and Dissent in the Redwood Empire
Author | : Daniel A. Cornford |
Publisher | : |
Total Pages | : 296 |
Release | : 1987 |
ISBN-10 | : UOM:39015013010346 |
ISBN-13 | : |
Rating | : 4/5 (46 Downloads) |
Book excerpt: This excellent community history of the lumber region around Eureka, California, deserves a wide readership. Cornford (San Francisco State) takes on a big question: How did the radical "republican" tradition of the American Revolution lead to the conservative corporate hierarchy of the 20th century? His case study looks at how timber and sawmill workers' attitudes toward work and politics changed from the Civil War to World War I. The author sees 19th-century America's stress on equality as double-edged: critical of the corporate enterprise, yet accommodating to paternalistic capitalism. Nineteen hundred divides US history between republic and empire; in Eureka, workers briefly developed a sense of class struggle before the mill owners permanently defeated them. Highly recommended. James W. Oberly, Univ. Of Wisconsin-Eau Claire