You Had a Job for Life: Story of a Company Town
Written by Jamie Sayen
Republished by Brandeis University Press, 2023
Reviewed by David Foster
Knowing that the author, Jamie Sayen, has devoted much of his life to environmental activism, one might expect this book to take a narrow approach railing against the timber industry and the ecological and social devastation that it has wrought through the north woods of New England. Doing so would greatly underestimate the remarkable historical, reporting, and interviewing skills of this accomplished writer and the depth of his understanding and empathy for the small-town citizens and manufacturers in the heavily wooded region. A glowing review in the Concord (New Hampshire) Monitor put it succinctly:
“If you’re looking for an anti-corporate screed or a rose-colored-glasses view of small-town life, You Had a Job for Life is not for you. But if you’re interested in a multi-faceted look at an important aspect of New Hampshire’s personality, shown through the people who lived it, and reported at unusual depth, you might want to give it a shot.”
Job for Life is a heartbreaking story of the decimation of industrial America resulting from an economic model that champions absentee investor-owners who seize and disaggregate well-integrated and effectively operated local enterprises. Based on years of interviews of the company’s employees and former owners along with dozens of residents of Groveton, New Hampshire, Sayen tells the story of a small paper mill with a diversified product line, and the forces that doomed it after 11 decades of operation. The community’s mill had been its economic engine since the early twentieth century but fell victim to Anglo-French financier James Goldsmith’s hostile takeover in 1982. The subsequent multinational owners lacked commitment to the community and region and ultimately decided to close the mill in 2007, without consultation of local residents and leaders, or even the local mill management.
"The mill was the life of the town." Its demise devastated many lives and the community, which has still not recovered sixteen years later. Through this remarkably engaging oral history and its many colorful stories of characters, pranks, and conflicts, the reader comes to know the people whose lives were dominated by the mill, and the devastating impact upon them and the town when the mill ceased to operate.
The lessons from this volume resonate extremely well with this issue’s opening contribution by Brian Donahue and are critical to apply for the future of our environment, natural resources, food systems, and social well-being. Today, the global market in commodities such as food and wood are reinforced by political clout that defers to wealth and drives decisions that affect every life and landscape. That power to shape the market very clearly needs to be dispersed to those whose livelihoods and communities are at stake.
To order You Had a Job for Life, click here.
David Foster is an ecologist, Director Emeritus of the Harvard Forest, and President Emeritus of the Highstead Foundation. He co-founded the Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands & Communities initiative in 2010 and was lead writer of Wildlands in New England: Past, Present, and Future in 2023. David has written and edited books including Thoreau’s Country: Journey Through a Transformed Landscape; Forests in Time: The Environmental Consequences of 1000 Years of Change in New England; Hemlock: A Forest Giant on the Edge; and A Meeting of Land and Sea: The Nature and Future of Martha’s Vineyard.