A01=Michael Roller
An Archaeology of Structural Violence: Life in a Twentieth-Century Coal Town
Anthracite
anthropology
Author_Michael Roller
Category=JHMC
Category=NHK
Category=NK
coal industry
coal town
cultural heritage studies
Deindustrialization
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
history
Industrial Archaeology
Industrial Capitalism
labor
labor history
Lattimer Massacre
Michael Roller
migration
Neo-Marxist
Pennsylvania
political economy
social
society
Violence against
violence against coal miners
Working Class
Product details
- ISBN 9780813056081
- Weight: 538g
- Dimensions: 151 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 06 Nov 2018
- Publisher: University Press of Florida
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Drawing on material evidence from daily life in a coal-mining town, this book offers an up-close view of the political economy of the United States over the course of the twentieth century. This community's story illustrates the great ironies of this era, showing how modernist progress and plenty were inseparable from the destructive cycles of capitalism.
At the heart of this book is one of the bloodiest yet least-known acts of labor violence in American history, the 1897 Lattimer Massacre, in which 19 striking immigrant mineworkers were killed and 40 more were injured. Michael Roller looks beneath this moment of outright violence at the everyday material and spatial conditions that supported it, pointing to the growth of shanty enclaves on the periphery of the town that reveal the reliance of coal companies on immigrant surplus labor. Roller then documents the changing landscape of the region after the event as the anthracite coal industry declined, as well as community redevelopment efforts in the late twentieth century.
This rare sustained geographical focus and long historical view illuminates the rise of soft forms of power and violence over workers, citizens, and consumers between the late 1800s and the present day. Roller expertly blends archaeology, labor history, ethnography, and critical social theory to demonstrate how the archaeology of the recent past can uncover the deep foundations of today’s social troubles.
A volume in the series Cultural Heritage Studies, edited by Paul A. Shackel.
At the heart of this book is one of the bloodiest yet least-known acts of labor violence in American history, the 1897 Lattimer Massacre, in which 19 striking immigrant mineworkers were killed and 40 more were injured. Michael Roller looks beneath this moment of outright violence at the everyday material and spatial conditions that supported it, pointing to the growth of shanty enclaves on the periphery of the town that reveal the reliance of coal companies on immigrant surplus labor. Roller then documents the changing landscape of the region after the event as the anthracite coal industry declined, as well as community redevelopment efforts in the late twentieth century.
This rare sustained geographical focus and long historical view illuminates the rise of soft forms of power and violence over workers, citizens, and consumers between the late 1800s and the present day. Roller expertly blends archaeology, labor history, ethnography, and critical social theory to demonstrate how the archaeology of the recent past can uncover the deep foundations of today’s social troubles.
A volume in the series Cultural Heritage Studies, edited by Paul A. Shackel.
Michael P. Roller is a research affiliate of the Anthropology Department of the University of Maryland. Currently, he is employed as an archaeologist for the National Park Service.
