Friday, July 15, 2011
Company town system: Fair or Unfair?
The company town system refers to a town built and controlled by a company or a town that depends on a single company for most of its jobs. The system had its pros and its cons, but overall, the cons out-weighed the pros leaving it unfair. It was convenient for workers to not have to live in crowded areas and with the filth of slums. On the contrary, it left the company with the power to control where and at what price a person could buy food, to control schools, and hire police. Some of the most violent strikes occurred in these towns resulting in fatalities.
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This is an interesting concept. I would posit that the company town in northern textile towns (and other industries), the Kentucky coal mining towns, and even the southerns share cropping system were all variations of the same idea/system. Control of every aspect of workers lives in order to entrap them in a life they could not extract themselves from.
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