The company town: the industrial Edens and satanic mills that shaped the American economy

Abstract

This is a history of the company town in America and how it reflects the best and worst of American capitalism. Ranging from Hershey, Pennsylvania to Alcoa, Tennessee, to Google's Project 02, American Capitalism and the concept of the company town have been inextricably linked throughout the history of the nation. With vast expanses of resource rich land, and a strong historical support of the free-market, America has proven uniquely open to the development of the single-company town. In The Company Town, Hardy Green details this unique relationship across the historical and geographic landscape of the United States. Green explores the primary tension faced by corporations in single -industry towns: should the company town be a model community-a utopian ideal where a paternalistic company tries to improve not only the economic, but also the moral standing of its employees? Or Exploitationville, where the company owns and governs its town with regard only for profit, at the expense of the well-being of its workers? Through the framework of this struggle, Green provides a compelling analysis of the effect of the company town on the development of American capitalism, and through the story of these discrete company towns tells the overarching tale of how the American economy has developed. At the same time, Green shows us how the American economy has grown and changed, moving from manufacturing to knowledge, from the looms at Lowell to the open office filled with workers moving bits and paper.