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The article reviews the book, "Making Steel: Sparrows Point and the Rise and Ruin of American Industrial Might," by Mark Reutter.

The article reviews and comments on "I Was Content and Not Content: The Story of Linda Lord and the Closing of Penobscot Poultry" by Cedric Chatterley and Alicia J. Rouverol, "Capital Moves: RCA’s 70-Year Quest for Cheap Labor" by Jefferson Cowie, "Beyond the Ruins: The Meaning of Deindustrialization" edited by Jefferson Cowie and Joseph Heathcott, and "Steeltown U.S.A.: Work and Memory in Youngstown," by Sherry Lee Linkon and John Russo.

The article reviews the book, "Duquesne and the Rise of Steel Unionism," by James D. Rose.

Despite the inadequacies of the historiography, a growing number of anthropologists, economists, geographers, sociologists, and historians have taken an interest in native wage earners and independent producers since the publication of Rolf Knight's "Indians at Work" in 1978. This paper will discuss the existing literature (as it relates to our understanding of native labour history), the various methodological approaches involved, the changing nature of sources, and some of the opportunities for research. In doing so, I will demonstrate that there is an emerging consensus that aboriginal peoples not only participated in the capitalist economy during [the] so-called "era of irrelevance," [i.e., since the mid-19th century] but did so selectively in order to strengthen their traditional way of life. Native efforts to incorporate aspects of the capitalist economy into their seasonal round and their resistance to the government's assimilation policy laid the foundation for the future construction of the non-proletarian Amerindian worker. --From author's introduction

Working at the mill had been a family affair for generations of Sturgeon Falls’ mill workers, as young men followed their fathers, uncles, older brothers, and occasionally mothers, into the Northern Ontario mill – the town’s largest employer for more than a century. The mill’s workforce was overwhelmingly white and male, with a historic linguistic divide between largely English-speaking managers and mainly French-speaking production workers. This linguistic division of labour and the near total exclusion of Aboriginal people were remnants of industrial colonialism in the region. Within a year of the mill’s December 2002 closure, I began interviewing the former employees about their experiences and these interviews continued for the next two years. During that time, efforts to reopen the mill fizzled out and it was demolished by the departing company. Work-life oral histories offer us a way into the shifting sands of culture and economy in this former mill town. This article explores the shifting sense of temporal and spatial proximity or distance in the plant shutdown stories told by 37 former mill workers. Several dimensions of proximity are explored such as the temporal proximity of the interview to the events being recounted, the perceived social proximity that prevailed before the mill closing, the remembered physical proximity of the mill in the narrated lives of residents, and, now, after the mill’s closure, the spectre of forced relocation or distant daily commutes to new jobs in other towns and cities. For long-service workers, employment mobility or permanent relocation was understood to be a last resort. These interviews make clear that forced employment mobility was a core concern to everyone we interviewed, not just those who actually relocated or commuted to jobs found elsewhere.

Plant shutdowns in Canada and the United States from 1969 to 1984 led to an ongoing and ravaging industrial decline of the Great Lakes Region. [This book] offers a comparative regional analysis of the economic and cultural devastation caused by the shutdowns, and provides an insightful examination of how mill and factory workers on both sides of the border made sense of their own displacement. The history of deindustrialization rendered in cultural terms reveals the importance of community and national identifications in how North Americans responded to the problem. Based on the plant shutdown stories told by over 130 industrial workers, and drawing on extensive archival and published sources, and songs and poetry from the time period covered, Steve High explores the central issues in the history and contemporary politics of plant closings. In so doing, this study poses new questions about group identification and solidarity in the face of often dramatic industrial transformation. --Publisher's description. redesigning the factory for a post-industrial era --The deindustrializing heartland -- In defence of local community --'I'll wrap the f*#@ Canadian flag around me': A nationalist response to plant shutdowns.

The article reviews the book, "The Violence of Work: New Essays in Canadian and US Labour History," edited by Jeremy Milloy and Joan Sangster.

Deindustrialization became a pressing political issue and an object of research almost simultaneously in North America. This article inquires into the intellectual origins and radical roots of the deindustrialization thesis in Canada and the United States. Though the two countries share much in common, their distinctive formulations of the deindustrial problem in the 1970s and 1980s reflected key economic and political differences between them. Radical political economists in Canada and the United States turned to dependency theory and capital flight, respectively, in their theorization of deindustrialization. Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison’s 1982 book, The Deindustrialization of America, in particular, is a founding text for the burgeoning field of deindustrialization studies. We can learn much from re-engaging with this early scholarship. In doing so, however, we need to bridge the continuing analytical divide between micro-level labour histories of working-class communities and macro-level studies of political economy and the international division of labour.

There's a pervasive sense of betrayal in areas scarred by mine, mill and factory closures. [This book] delves into the long history of deindustrialization in the paper-making town of Sturgeon Falls, Ontario, located on Canada's resource periphery. Much like hundreds of other towns and cities across North America and Europe, Sturgeon Falls has lost their primary source of industry, resulting in the displacement of workers and their families. One Job Town takes us into the making of a culture of industrialism and the significance of industrial work for mill-working families. One Job Town approaches deindustrialization as a long term, economic, political, and cultural process, which did not begin and simply end with the closure of the local mill in 2002. High examines the work-life histories of fifty paper mill workers and managers, as well as city officials, to gain an in-depth understanding of the impact of the formation and dissolution of a culture of industrialism. Oral history and memory are at the heart of One Job Town, challenging us to rethink the relationship between the past and the present in what was formerly known as the industrialized world. --Publisher's description.

Point Saint-Charles, a historically white working-class neighbourhood with a strong Irish and French presence, and Little Burgundy, a multiracial neighbourhood that is home to the city's English-speaking Black community, face each other across Montreal's Lachine Canal, once an artery around which work and industry in Montreal were clustered and by which these two communities were formed and divided. Deindustrializing Montreal challenges the deepening divergence of class and race analysis by recognizing the intimate relationship between capitalism, class struggles, and racial inequality. Fundamentally, deindustrialization is a process of physical and social ruination as well as part of a wider political project that leaves working-class communities impoverished and demoralized. The structural violence of capitalism occurs gradually and out of sight, but it doesn't play out the same for everyone. Point Saint-Charles was left to rot until it was revalorized by gentrification, whereas Little Burgundy was torn apart by urban renewal and highway construction. This historical divergence had profound consequences in how urban change has been experienced, understood, and remembered. Drawing extensive interviews, a massive and varied archive of imagery, and original photography by David Lewis into a complex chorus, Steven High brings these communities to life, tracing their history from their earliest years to their decline and their current reality. He extends the analysis of deindustrialization, often focused on single-industry towns, to cities that have seemingly made the post-industrial transition. The urban neighbourhood has never been a settled concept, and its apparent innocence masks considerable contestation, divergence, and change over time. Deindustrializing Montreal thinks critically about locality, revealing how heritage becomes an agent of gentrification, investigating how places like Little Burgundy and the Point acquire race and class identities, and questioning what is preserved and for whom. -- Publisher's description

Deindustrialization is not simply an economic process; it is also a social and cultural phenomenon. The rusting detritus of our industrial past — the wrecked halls of factories, abandoned machinery too large to remove, and now useless infrastructures — has for decades been a part of the North American landscape. Through a unique blend of oral history, photographs, and interpretive essays, [this book] investigates this fascinating terrain and the phenomenon of its loss and rediscovery. --Publisher's description. Includes bibliographical references (p. [157]-163) and index. "Oral history interviews cited": p. 164. Contents: Industrial demolition and the meaning of economic change in North America -- "Take only pictures and leave only footprints": urban exploration and the aesthetics of deindustrialization -- From cradle to grave: the politics of memory in Youngstown, Ohio -- Out of place: the plant shutdown stories of Sturgeon Falls (Ontario) paperworkers -- Gabriel's Detroit -- Deindustrial fragments -- King coal : the coal counties of West Virginia -- A vanishing landmark: Allied Paper in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Introduces the theme of deindustrialization in Canada including history, gender, regions, technology, and resistance Summarizes the various contributions to this special issue of the journal.

Job security has always been a paramount concern for the trade union movement. This article explores the ways that unions used collective bargaining to gain a measure of job security for their members in the face of deindustrialization as unionized factories in North America began to close in large numbers after the 1970s. These new measures included advance notice, severance pay, plant closing moratoria, restrictions placed on plant movements, transfer rights, and expanding the scope of collective ‘social’ bargaining to cover training and adjustment. In some sectors, such as automotive, collective bargaining has also been extended into areas normally left to management. The price was often high. Eventually some unions, notably the Canadian Auto Workers (established 1985; part of Unifor after 2013), prioritized winning new capital investments and product lines for unionized plants in their negotiations, though often at the cost of jobs, wage freezes or reductions, and other concessions. By focusing upon auto sector deindustrialization in Canada since the 1980s, we draw lessons from more recent union bargaining strategies, and how they constitute an important element of worker responses to industrial job loss and manufacturing closure.

Since the 1970s, the closure of mines, mills, and factories has marked a rupture in working-class lives. The Deindustrialized World interrogates the process of industrial ruination, from the first impact of layoffs in metropolitan cities, suburban areas, and single-industry towns to the shock waves that rippled outward, affecting entire regions, countries, and beyond. Seeking to hear the “roar ... on the other side of the silence,” scholars from France, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States share their own stories of ruin and ruination and ask others what it means to be working class in a postindustrial world. In Part 1, they explore the ruination of former workplaces and the damaged health and injured bodies of industrial workers. Part 2 brings to light disparities of experiences between rural resource towns and cities, where hipster revitalization often overshadows industrial loss. Part 3 reveals the ongoing impact of deindustrialization on working people and their place in the new global economy. Together, the chapters open a window on the lived experiences of people living at ground zero of deindustrialization, revealing its layered impacts and examining how workers, environmentalists, activists, and the state have responded to its challenges. --Publisher's description