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    The Hamlet Fire: A Tragic Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap Lives
    Unavailable
    The Hamlet Fire: A Tragic Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap Lives
    Unavailable
    The Hamlet Fire: A Tragic Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap Lives
    Ebook451 pages5 hours

    The Hamlet Fire: A Tragic Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap Lives

    By Edith Szivas

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

  • Previous books have gained major review attention: Bryant Simon’s work has been featured in the New Yorker, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Boston Phoenix and AP. He has done dozens of national and local radio interviews, and appeared on BBC, CNN, HBO, Nightline, and Dateline NBC.
  • An engaged public intellectual who contributes to national media: His op-eds have appeared in the Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, New York Times (Room for Debate forum), Philadelphia Inquirer, The Root, and NewRepublic.com
  • Go-to-person: Reporters from around the world contact Simon to comment on casinos, urban development, branding, and coffee culture. This last year he fielded media inquiries about Donald Trump and Atlantic City. In fact his work was cited on Fresh Air this year. His research into the fire at Hamlet have already aroused the interest of the local media in North Carolina.
  • Speaking: Bryant Simon is a witty and charismatic public speaker who addresses academic conferences nationally and globally.
  • Affiliations: He is a member of the Southern Historical Association, Organization of American History Southern Labor History Association and Urban History Association. He has earned awards and honors from the Fulbright Commission, Humboldt Foundation, Urban History Association, Organization of American Historians, and the Smithsonian Institution.
    • LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe New Press
    Release dateSep 5, 2017
    ISBN9781620972397
    Unavailable
    The Hamlet Fire: A Tragic Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap Lives
    Author

    Edith Szivas

    Dr. Edith Szivas is a Lecturer in Tourism at the School of Management Studies for the Service Sector, University of Surrey, UK, where she is Course Leader for the Management and Tourism BSc (Hons) Degree. Her research interests and publications are in the field of labour economics, mobility, economic transition and tourism planning and development.

    Read more from Edith Szivas

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    Reviews for The Hamlet Fire

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    • 4/5
      The Hamlet Fire: A Tragic Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap Lives by Bryant Simon uses a fire which occurred in a chicken processing plant in Hamlet, North Carolina, as a case study of the effects of government labor policy in society today. A fire swept through the Imperial Food Products plant on September 3, 1991, the day after Labor Day, killing 25 people: 24 employees and a delivery man. These people included 18 women, 12 of whom were black. The plant was a safety hazard which was never inspected: the plant owner made extensive renovations without hiring any architect or securing any work permit; the employees worked in a plant with locked doors, slippery floors, no fire drills, doing repetitive work resulting in injuries under a white supervisor (the owner's son) who yelled at them and timed bathroom breaks. However, the employees were earning a dollar more than minimum wage, and had little access to better jobs. This is primarily a book about economics and society. Mr. Simon is most effective when he is telling the stories about the individual employees as in the last chapter, "Endings" and the Epilogue. Some of the middle chapters, especially the one on deregulation, dealing with economics tends to get bogged down. However, the whole book vividly displays the cost of cheapness in our society today. This cheapness includes the cheap food -- sugary, salty, and fatty food -- the only food the poor can afford to buy and its impact on obesity. It is also a study of race relations in the area around Hamlet. Many black employees felt racial discrimination. For example, although a fire department staffed by blacks was the closest fire department, it was ordered to be a back-up, and stay away even though it offered several times to help; the blacks used this in their argument about discrimination. The cheap lives are those of the employees in plants such as this one.Especially since the author emphasizes the human cost, I'm disappointed he did not include a list of the names and a bit of biographical information about each victim.