Holding the Line

Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983

Author: Barbara Kingsolver
ISBN: 9780801483899

Holding the Line, Barbara Kingsolver's first non-fiction book, is the story of women's lives transformed by an a signal event. Set in the small mining towns of Arizona, it is part oral history and part social criticism, exploring the process of empowerment which occurs when people work together as a community. Like Kingsolver's award-winning novels, Holding the Line is a beautifully written book grounded on the strength of its characters.Hundreds of families held the line in the 1983 strike against Phelps Dodge Copper in Arizona. After more than a year the strikers lost their union certification, but the battle permanently altered the social order in these small, predominantly Hispanic mining towns. At the time the strike began, many women said they couldn't leave the house without their husband's permission. Yet, when injunctions barred union men from picketing, their wives and daughters turned out for the daily picket lines. When the strike dragged on and men left to seek jobs elsewh

Publisher: Cornell University Press
Publish Date: 1996

Subjects: History / United States / State & Local / General, Political Science / Labor & Industrial Relations, Social Science / Women's Studies

This book is available in the following Community Centers: Women's Center (Location: History)