"O'Neill chronicles a history of Navajo labor that illuminates how cultural practices and values influenced what it meant to work for wages or to produce commodities for the marketplace. Through accounts of Navajo coal miners, weavers, and those who left the reservation in search of wage work, she explores the tension between making a living the Navajo way and "working elsewhere.""--BOOK JACKET.

Studies the growth of Indian populations since 1900, showing why and how American Indian populations recovered in the 20th century.

Debunks the romanticist stereotyping of Navajo weavers and Reservation traders and situates weavers within the economic history of the southwest.