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Several other electrical industries followed RCA to Bloomington. A former engineer for RCA, Sarkes Tarzian, went into business for himself after the war, manufacturing television tuners to supply to the large receiver producers, and eventually he moved into a variety of consumer electronics product…

In Bloomington, where work for anybody was scarce, underpaid women workers were in abundance. The top of the pay scale for women in Monroe County was $7 .SO a week. When RCA opened, it paid 17.5 cents to 19.5 cents an hour, or $7.00 to $7.80 for a forty-hour week. This scale placed entry-level pay …

Management's only reservation about the formula they had found in Bloomington was the possible influence of the coal miners in the region and their deep commitment to unionization. "Well, for years," reported the personnel manager, "we did not hire in that area where you would have the coal miner's…

The limited industrial culture, low levels of unionization, and, most important, the destruction of the local economy made Bloomington a dream town for a capitalist in search of workers for labor-intensive electronics production. The local population's desperation for work and deference to anyone w…

Bob Doty looked as though he had just fallen in a flour bin. Stationed above the pulverizing jaws on the big crusher, he picked out the mud, lost drill heads, and other articles that would destroy the machine if they got caught in the mechanical jaws that converted rock into marketable lime dust. L…