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Lucidly written with equal attention to the big picture and the small, demographic/economic statistics and the diverse voices of workers recounting their experiences and what they make of them, Smokestacks in the Hills is both an elegy for a brief moment of rural industrial stability and a cogent analysis of the strengths and limits of a working-class culture of 'making do.' A wonderful book--a sad story that somehow heartens. --Jack Metzgar, author of Striking Steel: Solidarity Remembered Smokestacks in the Hills: Rural-Industrial Workers in West Virginia is excellent scholarship that will be of lasting value to labor historians as well as business leaders interested in how past entrepreneurs were able to develop, in rural settings, nationally prominent manufacturing facilities in the steel and pottery industries and to do so in a manner that allowed for more local control of both the marketplace and the communities surrounding the industrial development... Much more than just a traditional labor history tome. Although this is a scholarly work of considerable repute, it is easy to read and is worth the attention of business leaders interested in the development of a distinctive economy in West Virginia. --The State Journal, Charleston, WV Martin's wonderful book alerts all twentieth-century U.S. labor historians that we are telling only half the story if we ignore rural industrial workers and their local orientations forged through connections to land, place, family, and community.--Lisa M. Fine, author of The Story of Reo Joe: Work, Kin, and Community in Autotown, U.S.A. An interesting explanation for the conservatism and occasionally antiunion sentiments of a group of industrial workers that contrasts with the philosophies and sentiments most commonly chronicled among urban workers. --Brooks Blevins, author of Ghost of the Ozarks: Murder and Mayhem in the Upland South Lou Martin has produced a deeply researched and expertly crafted history of rural workers in an Appalachian county, a study that reveals how experiences on the countryside shaped class identities and social relations in industrial workplaces. Martin's sensitive portrait of West Virginia potters and steel workers goes a long way toward correcting the big city bias in our labor and industrial history, and it helps us understand why values like independence and self help shaped how rural folk asserted their own preferences when faced with national forces in the form of corporate welfare programs, CIO unions, New Deal programs, and the impacts of deindustrialization. Smokestacks in the Hills is a path breaking book. --James Green, author of The Devil is Here in These Hills: West Virginia's Coal Miners and Their Battle for Freedom

Lou Martin has produced a deeply researched and expertly crafted history of rural workers in an Appalachian county, a study that reveals how experiences on the countryside shaped class identities and social relations in industrial workplaces. Martin's sensitive portrait of West Virginia potters and steel workers goes a long way toward correcting the big city bias in our labor and industrial history, and it helps us understand why values like independence and self help shaped how rural folk asserted their own preferences when faced with national forces in the form of corporate welfare programs, CIO unions, New Deal programs, and the impacts of deindustrialization. Smokestacks in the Hills is a path breaking book. --James Green, author of The Devil is Here in These Hills: West Virginia's Coal Miners and Their Battle for Freedom

Lucidly written with equal attention to the big picture and the small, demographic/economic statistics and the diverse voices of workers recounting their experiences and what they make of them, Smokestacks in the Hills is both an elegy for a brief moment of rural industrial stability and a cogent analysis of the strengths and limits of a working-class culture of 'making do.' A wonderful book--a sad story that somehow heartens. --Jack Metzgar, author of Striking Steel: Solidarity Remembered Martin's wonderful book alerts all twentieth-century U.S. labor historians that we are telling only half the story if we ignore rural industrial workers and their local orientations forged through connections to land, place, family, and community.--Lisa M. Fine, author of The Story of Reo Joe: Work, Kin, and Community in Autotown, U.S.A. An interesting explanation for the conservatism and occasionally antiunion sentiments of a group of industrial workers that contrasts with the philosophies and sentiments most commonly chronicled among urban workers. --Brooks Blevins, author of Ghost of the Ozarks: Murder and Mayhem in the Upland South Lou Martin has produced a deeply researched and expertly crafted history of rural workers in an Appalachian county, a study that reveals how experiences on the countryside shaped class identities and social relations in industrial workplaces. Martin's sensitive portrait of West Virginia potters and steel workers goes a long way toward correcting the big city bias in our labor and industrial history, and it helps us understand why values like independence and self help shaped how rural folk asserted their own preferences when faced with national forces in the form of corporate welfare programs, CIO unions, New Deal programs, and the impacts of deindustrialization. Smokestacks in the Hills is a path breaking book. --James Green, author of The Devil is Here in These Hills: West Virginia's Coal Miners and Their Battle for Freedom

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Lou Martin is an assistant professor of history at Chatham University.

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