Building the Workingman’s Paradise: The Design of American Company Towns by Margaret Crawford

Abstract

988 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE contributors to Under the Stars relied heavily on interviews with indus­ try leaders and workers. Yet these thirty-seven interviews, conducted between 1989 and 1991, are simply listed in the bibliography, with no further guidance for the reader. I would hope the editors make them available. I suggest they do so via the Internet. Douglas Gomery Dr. Gomery is professor in the College ofJournalism at University of Maryland. His column, “The Economics of Television,’’ appears in American Journalism Review. Building the Workingman’s Paradise: The Design of American Company Towns. By Margaret Crawford. London: Verso, 1995. Pp. viii+248; illustrations, plans, notes, index. $19.95 (paper). Building the Workingman’s Paradise is a welcome addition to indus­ trial history. Fitting neatly into the niche defined by writings on wel­ fare capitalism, it fills a big hole in that literature. Anyone who has read about early American industry knows that company towns were important, but, except for early textile towns, we know surprisingly little about the planning of those towns. This is the case, I would suggest, because social and industrial historians have, for the most part, overlooked the important role of the built environment. Margaret Crawford has written her book in two parts. Part 1 pro­ vides a survey of the company town from late-18th-century textile towns to the towns built in the first two and a half decades of the 20th century. To write this survey, Crawford has unearthed many towns that will be unknown to most readers. In the first half of her book, Crawford strives to explain changes in designing and thinking about company towns that correspond to changing managerial prac­ tices. Not surprisingly, she finds that 19th-century paternalist com­ pany towns were planned to impose order and control over the work­ force and that the more professional practices of welfare capitalism led to plans that sought to improve the worker through wholesome living. It is remarkable to read about the effort and expense that some companies devoted to their ideal towns. This first (or paternalistic) stage in the development of the com­ pany town ended with the devastating Pullman strike in 1894, which began in part as a response to the strict rules imposed on workers living in the company town. Crawford parts company with some his­ torians in her analysis of the strike. She suggests that the strike, rather than ending the experiment with the company town, initiated a new chapter in its development. The “new” company town aban­ doned old-fashioned paternalism for modern managerial practices and sought to attract workers and improve their lives through re­ TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 989 form of their physical environment. Many of these towns were de­ signed by the best designers of the period, such as Frederick Law OlmstedJr., Grosvenor Atterbury, Bertram Goodhue, andJohn No­ lan, all ofwhom designed high-quality housing and romantic towns for workers. Despite a heavy reliance on secondary sources, these five chapters have a fresh feel. Crawford has read broadly to write them and has succeeded in pulling together small pieces of information from many sources to make up her story. This part of the book is well written and provides new insights and observations, even to one fa­ miliar with the literature on welfare capitalism, urban history, and urban planning. Part 2 of Buildingthe Workingman’sParadise departs from the narra­ tive, survey style of Part 1. Each of the four chapters in this section offers a case study of a “new” company town—either of a specific town, a town type (e.g., mining towns or southern textile towns), or a town designer. While quite obviously a major part of the story, these chapters do not blend well with the rest of the book. They read as independent papers or articles rather than integrated parts of the whole. Nevertheless, each provides new and fascinating mate­ rial on towns not generally well known to the modern industrial his­ torian. While I like this book and strongly recommend it for general read­ ing or classroom use, I think readers of Y’GVwill find it falls short in some areas. Crawford is an architectural...