Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission,
Date of Publication
1984.
Physical Description
vi, 123 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
Notes
Interviews with Robert Arnold, Sr., and others.
Summary
" The changing impact of industrialization on American society has been a favorite problem for discussion and debate in the academic world. Rarely, however, have the actors of that controversial drama-the workers themselves - been given the opportunity to tell the tale from the uninhibited perspective of personal experience. The candid recollections contained in Cornwall effectively answer that need and, in the process, reveal some provocative and surprising conclusions about working-class response and behavior. Like other industrial ventures of the nineteenth century, the Cornwall Ore Bank Company in Lebanon County generated its share of unskilled and semi-skilled immigrant labor from eastern and southern Europe. Unlike other growing industrial giants, however, the family-operated mining enterprise skillfully constructed a sense of paternalism which engendered a climate of harmony and cooperation. Although basically a periodic treatment of workers' experiences in the twentieth century, the interviews collected here reflect the subtle confrontation between that nineteenth century legacy and the reality of the monopoly capitalism initiated by Bethlehem Steel with its takeover in 1921. A number of events, especially the depression of the 1930s, the CIO unionization drive in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and the mine closings in 1973, would provide a serious challenge to management's hold on the community, and underscore workers' desperate struggle to come to grips with capitalism's unpleasant side effects. Cornwall is an interesting and important contribution to the literature of this complex period of American social and economic history." [from Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine]
