Morgan Park Duluth, U.S. Steel, and the Forging of a Company Town Arnold R. Alanen Photography by Chris Faust Table of Contents PRESS Rochester Post-Bulletin review		$24.95 paper ISBN: 978-0-8166-4137-6 ISBN-10: 0-8166-4137-4 $75.00 cloth ISBN: 978-0-8166-4136-9 ISBN-10: 0-8166-4136-6
Winner of the Friends of the Duluth Public Library and University of Minnesota Duluth Northeastern Book Award A fascinating tour through the signature community of Duluth’s industrial past. From 1915 to 1971 the large U.S. Steel plant was a major part of Duluth’s landscape and life. Just as important was Morgan Park—an innovatively planned and close-knit community constructed for the plant’s employees and their families. In this book Arnold R. Alanen presents vivid portraits of Morgan Park, the formerly company-controlled town that now stands as a city neighborhood, and the U.S. Steel plant for which it was built. Planned by renowned landscape architects, architects, and engineers, and provided with schools, churches, and recreational and medical services by U.S. Steel, Morgan Park is an iconic example—like Lowell, Massachusetts, and Pullman, Illinois—of a twentieth-century company town, as well as a window into northeastern Minnesota’s industrial roots. Starting with the intense political debates that preceded U.S. Steel’s decision to build a plant in Duluth, Morgan Park follows the town and its residents through the boom years to the closing of the outmoded facility—an event that foreshadowed industrial shutdowns elsewhere in the United States—and up to today, as current residents work to preserve the community’s historic character. Through compelling archival and contemporary photographs and vibrant stories of a community built of concrete and strong as steel, Alanen shows the impact both the plant and Morgan Park have had on Duluth. “Even readers with little interest in Duluth history will find Morgan Park an absorbing look at how a great American company provided for its workers, back in the day; how civic values were reflected in the design of model towns; and how, over time, those vales a dreams tend to degrade and must be rediscovered.” —Rochester Post-Bulletin “Morgan Park is both academically rich and highly accessible for a designer audience. Alanen has unearthed fascinating political, architectural, and personal stories about the history and endurance of this company town.” —Architecture Minnesota “Alanen writes in an easy style and never gets bogged down in academic jargon. There are lots of interesting historic pictures of the community through the years, as well as contemporary photos by St. Paulite Chris Faust.” —Pioneer Press Arnold R. Alanen is professor of landscape architecture at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His previous books include Main Street Ready-Made: The New Deal Community of Greendale, Wisconsin and Preserving Cultural Landscapes in America. 320 pages | 160 b&w photos | 7 x 10 | 2008   TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments Preface Introduction: Model Company Towns in America, 1800–1914 I. A Steel Plant and a Company Town, 1907–1915 1. The Economics and Politics of Iron Ore and Big Steel 2. Building a Steel Plant: Recession, Indecision, and War 3. Neighborhood Housing from Gary to Oliver 4. The Emergence of a Model Company Town II. Working and Living in Morgan Park, 1916–1929 5. Stability and Prosperity for U.S. Steel 6. The Complete Company Town 7. Engineering the Good Life III. From Despair to Prosperity, 1930–1945 8. Struggling for Work during the 1930s 9. Getting By and Making Do 10. More Steel for Another War 11. No More Company Housing IV. Closing a Steel Plant but Preserving a Community, 1946–2006 12. Six Strikes to Shutdown 13. Preserving the Model Town Notes Index