In 1897 the Berwind-White Coal Mining Company founded Windber as a company town for its miners in the bituminous coal country of Pennsylvania. The Miners of Windber chronicles the coming of unionization to Windber; from the 1890s; when thousands of new immigrants flooded Pennsylvania in search of work; through the New Deal era of the 1930s; when the miners' rights to organize; join the United Mine Workers of America; and bargain collectively were recognized after years of bitter struggle.Mildred Allen Beik; a Windber native whose father entered the coal mines at age eleven in 1914; explores the struggle of miners and their families against the company; whose repressive policies encroached on every part of their lives. That Windber's population represented twenty-five different nationalities; including Slovaks; Hungarians; Poles; Italians; and Carpatho-Russians; was a potential obstacle to the solidarity of miners. Beik; however; shows how the immigrants overcame ethnic fragmentation by banding together as a class to unionize the mines. Work; family; church; fraternal societies; and civic institutions all proved critical as men and women alike adapted to new working conditions and to a new culture. Circumstance; if not principle; forced miners to embrace cultural pluralism in their fight for greater democracy; reforms of capitalism; and an inclusive; working-class; definition of what it meant to be an American.Beik draws on a wide variety of sources; including oral histories gathered from thirty-five of the oldest living immigrants in Windber; foreign-language newspapers; fraternal society collections; church manuscripts; public documents; union records; and census materials. The struggles of Windber's diverse working class undeniably mirror the efforts of working people everywhere to democratize the undemocratic America they knew. Their history suggests some of the possibilities and limitations; strengths and weaknesses; of worker protest in the early twentieth century.
#1566206 in Books 2000-10-23Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.70 x .60 x 9.80l; 2.21 #File Name: 0262550350208 pages
Review
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. It's a beautiful book and distills nicely what makes this design philosophy ...By John Huan VuThe late Ekuan is responsible for some of the most iconic industrial designs ever; including the Kikkoman soy sauce bottle. Here he shows how the aesthetics of the Japanese lunchbox manifest in other products. It's a beautiful book and distills nicely what makes this design philosophy so enduring.0 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Five StarsBy Dean InmanGreat product!17 of 17 people found the following review helpful. Essays on the root of Japanese Aesthetic ThoughtBy Michael CuthbertKenji Ekuan's book suffers from a title which inadequately expresses its content. He uses a brief examination of the lunchbox--its contents; history; and organizing principles--to ask what the larger aesthetic principles are of a society which holds this item as an ideal. Among the topics he examines are art; urban planning; and (foremost) industrial design. Though many of his design examples are taken from the late 70s and early 80s; they reveal how little the guiding aesthetic principles have changed (indeed; when it comes to stereo design; today it's hard to imagine [or buy] a form not influenced by lunchbox stacking aesthetics.)It is a difficult read; and I agree with a previous reviewer that a more light-hearted treatment of the lunchbox and food culture alone would be an excellent study. But that's not the intention of this book (though I have seen it shelved in the cooking section of some bookstores). What that reviewer considers a flaw--the 4x4 photographs in a 10x10 page--I view as an aesthetic judgement in line with the lunchbox principle of understatement. Witness the photos of single flower arrangment in the book (e.g.; p. 174). A word of caution: I returned my paperback copy because the binding was flimsy and pages seemed ready to fall out within hours of buying it. I exchanged it for the hardcover and have had no problems; nor have I generally had a problem with MIT press books.
