On Strike and on Film
Mexican American Families and Blacklisted Filmmakers in Cold War America
By Ellen R. Baker
368 pp., 6 x 9, 20 illus., 2 tables, 2 maps, notes, bibl., index
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Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8078-5791-5
Published: March 2007 -
E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-1-4696-0654-5
Published: September 2012 -
E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-7975-2
Published: September 2012
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Baker also explores the collaboration between mining families and blacklisted Hollywood filmmakers that resulted in the controversial 1954 film Salt of the Earth. She shows how this worker-artist alliance gave the mining families a unique chance to clarify the meanings of the strike in their own lives and allowed the filmmakers to create a progressive alternative to Hollywood productions. An inspiring story of working-class solidarity, Mexican American dignity, and women's liberation, Salt of the Earth was itself blacklisted by powerful anticommunists, yet the movie has endured as a vital contribution to American cinema.
About the Author
Ellen R. Baker is associate professor of history at Columbia University.
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Reviews
"The book reflects [Baker's] research into published sources, but she also interviewed a number of the key participants and used numerous archives, government records, and unpublished materials."--The Journal of American History
"An innovative treatment of the strike’s ethnic roots and gendered character that provides a valuable addition to the fields of labor, ethnic, and women’s history."--Journal of American Ethnic History
"Baker has written an excellent, refreshingly cross-disciplinary study of Mexican American families involved in the 1950 Empire Zinc strike . . . and the making of the 1954 film Salt of the Earth by blacklisted Hollywood artists. . . . Highly recommended."--CHOICE
"Several researchers have approached this subject, but Baker's perspective is unique."--Western Historical Quarterly
"Remarkable! . . . A solid example of what a community study should do: it should place the local in the context of the national in order to properly contextualize the analytical conclusions of the author."--Labor History
"A thoroughly researched study."--Journal of the West