Parsons Mill - Softcover

Lewontin, Timothy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0452264200 ISBN 13: 9780452264205

Publisher: Plume, 1990

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 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.

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. PW called this close-up view of daily life at Parsons' mill, a ramshackle New England sawmill that makes ash dowels for furniture and ladder rungs, "a fine piece of Americana."
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Plume
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0452264200
• ISBN 13: 9780452264205
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 192