One of the central questions facing scholars of Appalachia concerns how a region so rich in natural resources could end up a symbol of poverty. Typical culprits include absentee landowners, reactionary coal operators, stubborn mountaineers, and greedy politicians. In a deft combination of labor and business history, Glass Towns complicates these answers by examining the glass industry s potential to improve West Virginia s political economy by establishing a base of value-added manufacturing to complement the state s abundance of coal, oil, timber, and natural gas. Through case studies of glass production hubs in Clarksburg, Moundsville, and Fairmont (producing window, tableware, and bottle glass, respectively), Ken Fones-Wolf looks closely at the impact of industry on local populations and immigrant craftsmen. He also examines patterns of global industrial restructuring, the ways workers reshaped workplace culture and political action, and employer strategies for responding to global competition, unreliable markets, and growing labor costs at the end of the nineteenth century. "

Representing over 20 years of research, West Virginia Glass Towns documents 460 hot glass manufacturers in the Mountain State, and spanning about 200 years of historic glass production. From bottles to window glass, art glass to practical tableware, it was all made here. Using hundreds of photographs, fire insurance maps, period archival material, advertisements, catalogs and much more, West Virginia Glass Towns tells the rich legacy of West Virginia glass in images and pictures. Here are the faces of men and women who made the glass, the factories, site maps, and a wide variety of other illustrations. Included are small one-person art glass studios and massive international corporations like Owens-Illinois and Corning. If hot glass was made in West Virginia it is represented here. Arranged alphabetically by city, each town begins with a short introductory overview, followed by a chronological listing of factories, dates and products produced, and then a rich diversity of images. It is a priceless tool for students of history and glass, as well as those desiring to understand the complex tapestry of the states past.

Situated where the West Fork and the Tygart Valley Rivers converged to form the Monongahela River, Fairmont was an attractive location for early settlers. In 1820, Fairmont, then named Middletown, was officially established as a town by the Virginia Assembly and was renamed Fairmont in 1843. The 1800s witnessed significant advancement in community formation, commerce, transportation, and education. Coal and natural gas extraction as well as the transportation sector would fuel an increasing demand for skilled and unskilled laborers. This resulted in an influx of European workers who would further enrich the culture of Fairmont. The 1900s saw the emergence of a variety of glass manufacturing companies, a packaging plant, flour mills, and an electrical service company. Fairmont became the most diversified and plentiful city in the region.

Long considered an urban phenomenon, industrialization also transformed the American countryside. Lou Martin weaves the narrative of how the relocation of steel and pottery factories to Hancock County, West Virginia, created a rural and small-town working class--and what that meant for communities and for labor. As Martin shows, access to land in and around steel and pottery towns allowed residents to preserve rural habits and culture. Workers in these places valued place and local community. Because of their belief in localism, an individualistic ethic of "making do," and company loyalty, they often worked to place limits on union influence. At the same time, this localism allowed workers to adapt to the dictates of industrial capitalism and a continually changing world on their own terms--and retain rural ways to a degree unknown among their urbanized peers. Throughout, Martin ties these themes to illuminating discussions of capital mobility, the ways in which changing work experiences defined gender roles, and the persistent myth that modernizing forces bulldozed docile local cultures. Revealing and incisive, Smokestacks in the Hills reappraises an overlooked stratum of American labor history and contributes to the ongoing dialogue on shifts in national politics in the postwar era.