Race and Labor in Western Copper

This is the story of immigrant copper workers and their attempts to organize at the turn of the century in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and El Paso, Texas. These Mexican and European laborers of widely varying backgrounds and languages had little social, economic, or political power. Yet they achieved some surprising successes in their struggles - all in the face of a racist society and the unbridled power of the mine owners. Mellinger discusses towns, mines, camps, companies, and labor unions, but this book is largely about people. In order to reconstruct the lives of those in mining communities, Mellinger has used little-known union and company records, personal interviews with old-time workers and their families, and a variety of regional sources that together have enabled him to reveal a complex and significant pattern of social, economic, and political change in the American West.