The Company Town
The Industrial Edens and Satanic Mills that Shaped the American Economy
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Narrated by:
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L J Ganser
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By:
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Hardy Green
About this listen
Company town: 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 todays major tech companies, 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 Americas 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, 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.
©2010 Hardy Green (P)2010 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Excellent history!
- By L. Maranto on 10-14-17
By: Bhu Srinivasan
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Fordlandia
- The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City
- By: Greg Grandin
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 15 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Fordlandia by National Book Award finalist Greg Grandin tells the enthralling tale of Henry Ford’s failed attempts to transform a Connecticut-sized chunk of Brazilian rainforest into a homespun slice of American utopia.
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An eye-opening account of an arrogant man's folly
- By Melissa on 09-17-13
By: Greg Grandin
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Hershey
- Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams
- By: Michael D'Antonio
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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In this compelling biography, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael D'Antonio gives us the real-life rags-to-riches story of Milton S. Hershey, a largely uneducated businessman whose idealistic sense of purpose created an immense financial empire, a town, and a legacy that lasts to this day.
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The Benchmark for Chartiable, Rich Men
- By Boyd Tschaggeny on 01-30-19
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China, Inc.
- By: Ted C. Fishman
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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China today is visible everywhere: In the news, in the economic pressures battering America, in the workplace, and in every trip to the store. Provocative, timely, and essential, this dramatic account of China's growing dominance as an industrial super-power by journalist Ted C. Fishman explains how the profound shift in the global economic order has occurred, and why it already affects us all.
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Just read the Amazon reviews befor buying it ...
- By Dan on 08-10-05
By: Ted C. Fishman
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Triumph of the City
- How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier
- By: Edward Glaeser
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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America is an urban nation. More than two thirds of us live on the three percent of land that contains our cities. Yet cities get a bad rap: they're dirty, poor, unhealthy, crime ridden, expensive, environmentally unfriendly. Or are they? As Edward Glaeser proves in this myth-shattering book, cities are actually the healthiest, greenest, and richest (in cultural and economic terms) places to live.
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Urbanophile Brain Candy
- By Clay Downing on 12-18-15
By: Edward Glaeser
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Boom, Bust, Exodus
- The Rust Belt, the Maquilas, and a Tale of Two Cities
- By: Chad Broughton
- Narrated by: Stephen McLaughlin
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2002, the town of Galesburg, a slowly declining Rustbelt city of 33,000 in western Illinois, learned that it would soon lose its largest factory, a Maytag refrigerator plant that had anchored Galesburg's social and economic life for decades. Workers at the plant earned $15.14 an hour, had good insurance, and were assured a solid retirement. In 2004, the plant was relocated to Reynosa, Mexico, where workers sometimes spent 13-hour days assembling refrigerators for $1.10 an hour.
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A Story I thought I Knew
- By Meek84 on 07-08-18
By: Chad Broughton
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The Big Roads
- The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways
- By: Earl Swift
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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From author Earl Swift comes the surprising history of the U.S. interstate system, a fascinating route through the dreams, discoveries, and protests that shaped these mighty roads.
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Lessons from The Big Roads
- By Joshua Kim on 05-06-12
By: Earl Swift
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California
- A History
- By: Kevin Starr
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Acclaimed author, historian, and Guggenheim Fellow Kevin Starr is a professor at the University of Southern California. His extensive knowledge shines through this concise, yet comprehensive, depiction of the most fascinating aspects in California's history. From its colonial beginnings through Governor Schwarzenegger's administration, the Golden State has become a uniquely American phenomenon that has enchanted people with the possibility of a better life.
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Interesting read, until it's not
- By MiamiMe on 03-27-18
By: Kevin Starr
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How the Post Office Created America
- A History
- By: Winifred Gallagher
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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The founders established the Post Office before they had even signed the Declaration of Independence, and for a very long time it was the US government's largest and most important endeavor - indeed, it was the government for most citizens. This was no conventional mail network but the central nervous system of the new body politic, designed to bind 13 quarrelsome colonies into the United States by delivering news about public affairs to every citizen - a radical idea that appalled Europe's great powers.
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Super interesting. I'm so disappointed.
- By william kearns on 07-21-16
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A History of Future Cities
- By: Daniel Brook
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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A pioneering exploration of four cities where East meets West and past becomes future: St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Dubai. Every month, five million people move from the past to the future. Pouring into developing-world “instant cities” like Dubai and Shenzhen, these urban newcomers confront a modern world cobbled together from fragments of a West they have never seen. Do these fantastical boomtowns, where blueprints spring to life overnight on virgin land, represent the dawning of a brave new world? Or is their vaunted newness a mirage?
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Engaging and Memorable
- By Marcus Vorwaller on 04-15-14
By: Daniel Brook
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Fulfillment
- Winning and Losing in One-Click America
- By: Alec MacGillis
- Narrated by: Danny Gavigan
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Alec MacGillis’ Fulfillment is not another inside account or exposé of our most conspicuously dominant company. Rather, it is a literary investigation of the America that falls within that company’s growing shadow. As MacGillis shows, Amazon’s sprawling network of delivery hubs, data centers, and corporate campuses epitomizes a land where winner and loser cities and regions are drifting steadily apart, the civic fabric is unraveling, and work has become increasingly rudimentary and isolated.
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Missing some important angles
- By D. Zimmerle on 08-19-21
By: Alec MacGillis
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Nature's Metropolis
- Chicago and the Great West
- By: William Cronon
- Narrated by: Jonah Cummings
- Length: 18 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In this groundbreaking work, William Cronon gives us an environmental perspective on the history of nineteenth-century America. By exploring the ecological and economic changes that made Chicago America's most dynamic city and the Great West its hinterland, Mr. Cronon opens a new window onto our national past. This is the story of city and country becoming ever more tightly bound in a system so powerful that it reshaped the American landscape and transformed American culture. The world that emerged is our own.
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Moving
- By JB on 02-09-18
By: William Cronon
What listeners say about The Company Town
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Joshua Kim
- 06-10-12
Living In 'The Company Town'
I live in a company town. Wouldn't have it any other way. Hardy Green misses the college town in his tour of the history and workings of the company town, an oversight in an otherwise excellent book.
Understanding the company town is an important part of making sense of how employment and living standards have evolved in the U.S. since the Industrial Revolution. The original company town was located in Lowell Massachusetts, which in the early 19th century became America's largest textile manufacturer. Lowell set the model, in which the company owns all the land and building around the factory (or mine), and where owners and management occupy roles usually reserved for government.
From the earliest days in Lowell, to the failed company towns of Gary, Indiana (steel) and Newton, Iowa (Maytag), to the near utopias of Hershey, Pennsylvania or Corning, New York, the company town loomed large in our collective economic imagination.
In the past, images of the "company town" might have included the Appalachian mining towns, places that Hardy labels "exploitationville's". Today, we are more likely to think of the new corporate campuses such as the Googleplex, utopias in the mold of Hershey PA in which all worker needs are met so as to best keep everyone coding (or making chocolate)..
If you live in a college town, you will find the stories of The Company Town perhaps a little too familiar. If you are interested in economic history (or maybe teach something that touches on the corporation, the worker, and the changing economic basis of private life), this would be a good book to add to your library.
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Overall
- Roy
- 11-29-10
Cotton Mills of Lowell, MA to Google in Oregon
Hardy Green in "The Company Town" has brought together an era in US industrial history which has long been forgotten. Company owned towns associated with such as Hershey, Pullman, U.S. Steel, Corning, Kaiser are all here. The history of their origin, intent, and ultimate outcomes are most informative. This is a story of utopian ideals, labor/management conflict, economics and the industrialization of the country. An entire book could have been written about each company town, but Green has aptly chosen to compile the basic stories here. What emerges is a macro perspective of the era both informative and entertaining. Well written and expertly ready by L J Ganser.
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