Oysters, Macaroni, and Beer: Thurber, Texas, and the Company Store

From 1894 to 1934, a span of forty years that saw its parent company go from coal mining to oil drilling, the Texas Pacific Mercantile and Manufacturing Company operated and managed the various commercial and service enterprises essential to life in Thurber, Texas. Thurber was a company town, wholly owned by the Texas and Pacific Coal Company, and the inhabitants viewed the "company store" with suspicion before and after unionization in 1903, believing it monopolistic and exploitative. But to call the mercantile a monopoly, or a mere contrivance to exploit laborers, paints an incomplete portrait of the company store as it existed in Thurber and elsewhere. With a keen eye for context--honed by a career in banking--Tucker reads the pages of ledgers in the same way most historians read diaries or newspapers. In this thoroughgoing study he examines a wealth of company records, interviews, and newspaper accounts, presenting a case study not only of the microcosm of Thurber and TPM&M but of relations between labor and management in industrializing Texas, and a larger story of the complex role of the company store and company town in America. Also 04 Activeable in e-book formats, 978-0-89672-773-1, $24.95

Author: Gene Rhea Tucker
Publisher: Texas Tech University Press
Published: 09/20/2012
Pages: 216
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780896727687

About the Author
Gene Rhea Tucker, originally from Killeen, Texas, earned his BA and MA degrees in history from Tarleton State University and the PhD in Translatoratlantic history from the University of Texas at Arlington. While at Tarleton he was a graduate assistant at the W. K. Gordon Center for Industrial History of Texas, a museum documenting the boomtown-turned-ghost town of Thurber. He is a professor at various institutions in Texas.Richard Francaviglia, professor emeritus of history at The University of Texas at Arlington, is the author of numerous books no American history, including Hard Places: Reading the Landscape of America's Historic Mining Districts.