Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
A Workplace of Their Own: Rockefeller, Roche, and Labor's Battle Over Industrial Democracy

A Workplace of Their Own: Rockefeller, Roche, and Labor's Battle Over Industrial Democracy

Montoya, María E.

Hardcover

20th Century United States HistorySocial Movements

ISBN10: 0197551696
ISBN13: 9780197551691
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: Mar 18 2026
Pages: 304
Weight: 1.34
Height: 1.02 Width: 6.50 Depth: 9.39
Language: English
At the turn of the twentieth century Colorado's coalfields were the site of the nation's most violent labor conflicts. The remote mountains were home to mining companies that provided workers and their families with supervised housing, education, health care, and stores. Resisting corporate control, workers deployed armed bands against their employers, leading to a pitched battle between the groups for control over the workplace. Efforts to defuse the situation, including strategies that had worked in other industries, all failed.

In this book, Maria E. Montoya examines two key figures who practiced rival Progressive reforms for resolving these industrial conflicts. John D. Rockefeller Jr. used paternalism and philanthropy to promote the scientific management of his workers' professional and personal lives. Josephine Roche advocated for worker autonomy, collective bargaining, and government-backed labor protections. Both honed their Progressive ideals in New York City and transported these ideas to manage their businesses in Colorado. Their reform efforts played out and eventually failed against the backdrop of the deadliest mining conflicts of the early twentieth century, the 1914 Ludlow Massacre and the 1927 Columbine Massacre. Rockefeller's Industrial Relations Plan did not satisfy his workers and could not prevent strikes. Roche's vision of expert-supervised collective bargaining collapsed under the political and economic pressures brought on by the Depression.

Presenting both the capitalists and the men and women who worked and lived in their mining towns,

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