Overview

Women, Power, and Dissent in the Hills of Carolina is a unique and impassioned exploration of gender, labor, and resistance in western North Carolina. Based on eight months of field research in a mica manufacturing plant and the surrounding rural community, as well as oral histories of women who worked in mica houses in the early twentieth century, this landmark study canvasses the history of the mica industry and the ways it came to be organized around women's labor. Mary K. Anglin's investigation of working women's lives in the plant she calls ""Moth Hill Mica Company"" reveals the ways women have contributed to household and regional economies for more than a century. Without union support or recognition as skilled laborers, these women developed alternate strategies for challenging the poor working conditions, paltry wages, and corporate rhetoric of Moth Hill. Utilizing the power of memory and strong family and community ties, as well as their own interpretations of gender and culture, the women have found ways to ""boss themselves.""

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9780252070525

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A fascinating and important study of the women of the Mica industry in Western North Carolina. It begins with an impressive run-down of the context for the industry, then gets into some concrete life histories and ends with a section putting it all in the context of academic anthropology. -- George Brosi, Appalachian Heritage ADVANCE PRAISE There is no comparable work on the mica industry in Appalachian studies... Anglin breaks new ground in exploring how gender, kinship, and social class interact to specify women's political experience, action, and consciousness. -- Stephen Lynn Fisher, editor of Fighting Back in Appalachia: Traditions of Resistance and Change Unlike other Appalachian ethnographies, Anglin's book focuses on an industry rather than a community and closely follows the lives of specific individuals, rather than creating global characterizations of lifeways. -- Jane H. Adams, author of The Transformation of Rural Life: Southern Illinois, 1890-1990

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