The Company Town: The Industrial Edens and Satanic Mills that Shaped the American Economy

Abstract

Hardy Green’s The Company Town takes an exhaustive look at the history of corporate-developed communities across the United States. In tracing the growth, heyday, and collapse of these towns, Green argues that they are paradoxically un-American in concept yet essential to the spirit of American business. As a survey work, Green does his best to describe a wide spectrum ranging from 1820s Lowell, Massachusetts, to more modern examples of Google’s work campuses in California (a descendent of the company town that gives employees all the amenities of the old cities in one location).