technology and culture Book Reviews—Labor and Technology 925 working-class existence “back of the yards,” but it did not always do so as the packers would have wanted. An arbitrary hiring (and firing) system, below-subsistence wages, and casual labor forced workers and their families to rely on their own resources, such as boarding, scrounging, and child labor, for survival. But the “industrial slum” that was Packingtown, where most laborers lived, and the equally poor working conditions they shared, proved the bases for solidarity. At the turn of the century, and again during World War I, workers overcame gender, ethnic, and racial differences to organize shop-floor resistance to the packers’ work and wage policies. Packers responded by crushing major strikes, setting up company unions, and establishing an elaborate network of social welfare policies. Their overwhelming responses reflected the extent of working-class discontent over con ditions of life and labor in Packingtown. Barrett mines several rich sources for his information and data, most notably the unique household survey of Packingtown, the Stew art Manuscript Census of 1905; University of Chicago sociological studies; and mediation records in the National Archives. The overall quality of the analysis is enhanced by his attention to relevant histo riographical issues and debates, such as those surrounding skill and labor migration, standard of living, race relations, and unionization among blacks and new immigrants. His contribution promises to as sume its own place within these discussions. Richard O’Connor Mr. O’Connor is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Pittsburgh. His dissertation examines the social context of industrial relations in the window-glass industry between 1870 and 1940. Women’s Work and Chicano Families: Cannery Workers of the Santa Clara Valley. By Patricia Zavella. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987. Pp. vii+ 191; tables, notes, bibliography, index. $35.00 (cloth); $10.95 (paper). Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women, Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930—1950. By Vicki L. Ruiz. Al buquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987. Pp. xviii+ 194; illustrations, tables, notes, appendixes, bibliography, index. $22.50 (cloth); $10.95 (paper). Vicki Ruiz and Patricia Zavella have given us books that clearly and critically address two topics generally ignored in contemporary labor history: cannery work and Chicana workers. Ruiz, a historian, focuses on Chicanas’ participation in the United Cannery, Agricultural, Pack ing and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA) and their all-toobriefly successful efforts to organize California canneries in the late 926 Book Reviews—Labor and Technology TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE 1930s and 1940s. Zavella, an anthropologist, analyzes the problematic relationships between work and family as experienced by her Chicana cannery worker informants in the 1970s. Both accurately describe the sloppy, boring, and exhausting nature of work in the food-processing industry; both render Chicana workers as actively shaping their per sonal and political lives within deeply constraining circumstances. Zavella’s work is likely to be of greater interest to readers of this journal. She analyzes how technological developments and the policies of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (which pushed UCAPAWA out of the canneries in the 1940s) combined with tradi tional notions of gender and ethnicity to create a deeply segmented labor force within the canneries. For Chicanas, who have worked in the industry since the late 19th century, this has meant marginalization in the most labor-intensive, poorly paid, seasonal, and dead-end jobs. Thus technology and its effect on the workplace are presented as embedded in complex social processes. Central to both works is the notion of “the cannery culture” or informal system of social relations on the job. This culture has de veloped directly out of occupational segmentation within the canner ies as similar kinds of people find themselves working together, sharing on-the-job experiences, and often involved in each other’s lives outside of work. Or, as Ruiz puts it: “Extended family networks, assembly line segmentation, and common interest, as well as harsh working con ditions, nurtured the development of a distinctive work life inside cannery gates” (p. 37). For Ruiz the cannery culture was a key factor— admittedly along with oppressive working conditions, the Wagner Act, World War II labor shortages...