Description
Book SynopsisRagged Coast, Rugged Coves explores the untold story of cannery workers in Southeast Alaska from 1878 through the Cold War, particularly how making a living was pitted against the economic realities of the day.
Trade Review"An essential addition to historical studies of Alaska, this well-researched work explores how Alaska Natives have been conspicuously disadvantaged in the fishing industry, notably the fish cannery business. . . . Purvis (formerly, Alaska Pacific Univ.) pays close and sympathetic attention to the rising voices of the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Alaska Native Sisterhood. Attention to women's activities is refreshing and important. This well-written book is an eye-opening look into a multiethnic world hitherto imagined but insufficiently described."—B. M. Gough,
Choice“
Ragged Coast, Rugged Coves demonstrates that indigenous peoples in Alaska engaged capitalism and colonialism on several levels and were not simply overwhelmed by them. Alaskan workers built alliances that had an important impact on and legacy for Southeast Alaska—a history that deserves to be remembered.”—Chris Friday, author of
Organizing Asian-American Labor: The Pacific Coast Canned-Salmon Industry, 1870–1942“
Ragged Coast, Rugged Coves paints a picture of an Alaska with a racially diversified population . . . and offers a refreshing view of women in the workplace and in labor organizing. This book is really a fascinating narrative, and it fills an important niche in the history of Alaska, the fishing and canning industries in the West, and the labor movement.”—Roberta Ulrich, author of
Empty Nets: Indians, Dams, and the Columbia RiverTable of ContentsList of Illustrations
Introduction
1. A Time before the Salmon Cans
2. The Tin Can Men
3. Metlakatla and the Tsimshian
4. From Norwegian Fjords to Alaskan Glaciers
5. Salmon and the Politics of Corporate Capitalism
6. The Immigrants Are Necessary but Unwelcome
7. The Rising Voices of Alaska Natives
8. The Alaskeros
9. Fighting Back with Unions in the 1930s
10. A Union of Their Own
11. The Inequities of War
12. The Hanna Hearings and Hydaburg
13. The Cannery Period Heyday Wanes
14. When Cannery Children Remember
Notes
Bibliography
Index
