In remote locations such as railroad construction sites, lumber camps, turpentine camps, or coal mines, jobs often existed far from established towns. As a pragmatic solution, the employer sometimes ...

Mills and smokestacks in Lowell, Massachusetts, considered by some historians to be the first real company town in the U.S. CORBIS During the Industrial Revolution, company towns—communities built by ...

The sad tale of a firetruck plant shutting down in Nesquehoning, Pennsylvania — taking hundreds of jobs and the town's identity with it — illustrates the painful truth of company towns: Being so ...

Saint Peter, don’t you call me, ’cause I can’t go, I owe my soul to the company store. A THOUSAND times a day. U.S. jukeboxes moaned out Sixteen Tons, a Tin Pan Alley folk song about a coal miner who ...

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. Company Towns — wherein a single firm provides most or all necessary services, from housing and employment to commerce and amenities to a ...

“Harlan County U.S.A.” depicts a labor dispute in a coal town with a violent history, where organized workers waged a 13-month strike to check the power of an industry in which employers have long had ...

This month, the sprawling Ineos plastics factory along the Ohio River in Addyston will begin a months-long process of shutting down and laying off its workers. It won’t be coming back. “The plant ...

Tech billionaires are no longer satisfied with sprawling corporate campuses or virtual town squares. Now they want to start their own cities in the physical world. Most recently, Starbase, Texas, has ...