KEN FONES-WOLF. Glass Towns: Industry, Labor, and Political Economy in Appalachia, 1890-1930s. (The Working Class in American History.) Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. 2007. Pp. xxviii, 236. Cloth $65.00, paper $25.00

Abstract

Appalachia's historical experience of industrialization in some ways has resembled that of third-world countries more than mainstream America's, and its people have suffered similar economic hardships. Despite its wealth of natural resources, Appalachia in the twentieth century became a poster child for poverty. Competing interpretations have generated controversy as to how that happened. Ken Fones-Wolf attempts to cut through the interpretive thicket by examining Appalachia's industrialization from the perspective of one of its sectors, glassmaking, as it developed in the northern panhandle of West Virginia. Fones-Wolf starts with two interpretations of Appalachian industrialization that he argues possess more explanatory power than others because they address the exploitative role of outsiders. One of those interpretations sees so many parallels between Appalachia's experience and that of modern colonial economies that it classifies Appalachia as an “internal colony,” both of and within the United States. The other adapts Immanuel Wallerstein's “world systems” theory, portraying Appalachia as a resource-rich “periphery” whose wealth has been exploited by more advanced “core” economies. But neither is fully persuasive to Fones-Wolf: they fail to recognize the diversity of the Appalachian experience, and they do not acknowledge the efforts some indigenous elites made to retain a larger share of wealth within the region by supplementing resource extraction with manufacturing. Accordingly, he examines industrial development in three West Virginia panhandle towns—Moundsville, Clarksburg, and Fairmont—with the intention of redressing those omissions. His case studies reveal certain similarities among the towns, especially the failure of various efforts that elites undertook in hopes of diversifying beyond King Coal. More importantly, the towns illustrate how local variation created different historical experiences of industrialization within Appalachia.