Comment by ubernostrum

This article seems to paint an awfully rosy picture of what were, on the whole, pretty awful places. In particular it's nice to talk about all the "ideals" of raising people up into the middle class, etc., when the reality was that company towns were explicitly used to impose and perpetuate debt slavery: you'd be paid only in the company's scrip, which was what you had to use to pay rent on your company home and buy things in the company store, and of course the prices were set to ensure you'd never quite be able to live on it, despite being required to live in the company town and shop at the company store. That meant you went into debt to the company and worked more to pay it off, but could never earn enough to clear the debt, and would recruit your children from a young age (remember when we didn't have those awful child-labor laws meddling in the "free market"?) to work for the company, too, carrying it on to the next generation.

This is the source of the chorus in the song "Sixteen Tons":

You load sixteen tons, and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. St. Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go; I owe my soul to the company store.