Parsons' Mill - Hardcover

Lewontin, Timothy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0874514797 ISBN 13: 9780874514797

Publisher: University Press of New England, 1989

Synopsis

The author describes his experiences learning the craft of a sawyer at a New England sawmill and shares his observations on the relationships of the workers

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

When Lewontin answered an ad for a sawyer's apprentice, he was transported from a comfortable, middle-class existence to that of the blue-collar laborer. Parsons' was a ramshackle sawmill that made ash dowels for furniture and ladder rungs; for Lewontin, the workplace was a culture shock--his co-workers ignored him, and his employer, Henry Parsons, was a character out of Dickens. But he accepted the challenge to prove that he "was capable of working long and hard at distasteful tasks for dubious reward." Lewontin presents a sharply detailed picture of the sawmill, its employees and their relationship to the irascible Mr. Parsons. It's an immensely entertaining story of psychological warfare on a personal level--with the boss, and among the workers. Lewontin shows us the machinery at the mill, how it is used and how workers adapt their rhythms to the machines. His close-up view of daily life at Parsons' Mill, located in an unidentified northern New England town, is a fine piece of Americana.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Chicago-bred, college-educated Lewontin answered a want ad for an apprentice sawyer at a small Vermont mill and thereby entered an unfamiliar world. Parsons' Mill operated virtually in the same way as a 19th-century mill, and so Lewontin had to learn procedures long since abandoned at other larger mills. These he describes in fascinating detail. He also describes those with whom he worked, men alien to Lewontin's world. But the focus of the book is the mill's septuagenarian owner, Henry Parsons: a cranky, opinionated skinflint, an arch-conservative, archetypal up-country Yankee. His efforts to dominate Lewontin provide the book with a crackling dramatic tension. Parsons' Mill has since been leveled, but it is preserved in this book, a superb piece of Americana.
- Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, Mass.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: University Press of New England
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0874514797
• ISBN 13: 9780874514797
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 184