The nostalgic vision of a rural Midwest populated by independent
family farmers hides the reality that rural wage labor has been
integral to the region's development, says Deborah Fink. Focusing
on the porkpacking industry in Iowa, Fink investigates the
experience of the rural working class and highlights its
significance in shaping the state's economic, political, and social
contours.
Fink draws both on interviews and on her own firsthand experience
working on the production floor of a pork-processing plant. She
weaves a fascinating account of the meatpacking industry's history
in Iowa--a history, she notes, that has been experienced
differently by male and female, immigrant and native-born, white
and black workers. Indeed, argues Fink, these differences are a key
factor in the ongoing creation of the rural working class.
Other writers have denounced the new meatpacking companies for
their ruthless destruction of both workers and communities. Fink
sustains this criticism, which she augments with a discussion of
union action, but also goes beyond it. She looks within rural
midwestern culture itself to examine the class, gender, and ethnic
contradictions that allowed--indeed welcomed--the meatpacking
industry's development.