More Than Mines Industrial Decline, Gender, and the Iron Range's Cluett

MORE THAN MINES Industrial Decline, Gender, and the Iron Range’s Cluett, worst effects of deindustrialization confronted the Iron Range. Mines Peabody, and Company Arrow Factories, 1946–1979 shut down. Forty percent of the mining workforce lost their jobs. David LaVigne Out- migration swelled. Municipal governments struggled to function IN JANUARY 1962, an Iron Range sion reduced the mining workforce with dwindling tax revenues.1 newspaper— the Mesabi Daily from 12,000 to 4,500 employees over “Horizons Unlimited” was a News— published an annual feature the course of the 1920s and 1930s, rejoinder to these troubles. The news - entitled “Horizons Unlimited.” The when unemployment in all sectors paper proclaimed that “the future issue assessed the economic status across the region reached upwards of offers great potentialities,” and of northern Minnesota’s iron min- 10,000 people. Massive iron ore pro- cited two industries in particular ing district. While historically the duction during and immediately after as fulfilling that promise. One was nation’s most important producer of World War II temporarily restored taconite mining. Taconite was a iron ore, the region had fallen on hard jobs, but it also spurred a new crisis rock with a low iron content, but the times in recent decades. Laborsaving in the late 1950s. As high- grade ore Iron Range contained vast reserves technologies and the Great Depres- reserves neared exhaustion, the of it capable of sustaining mining 54 MINNESOTA HISTORY facing: Stitching room at the Virginia factory. This article reestablishes the importance of the Arrow factories for decades. “Horizons Unlimited” and traces their development on heralded modern technologies that the Iron Range after 1945. Three could extract the iron component biographical sketches recreate the and called taconite “a cheering omen” history. Frank Mancina, the subject of and “the principal hope of the area.” the first biography, served as Cluett, The second industry was apparel Peabody’s Minnesota divisional manufacturing. A leading national manager from 1949 to 1963. His producer of menswear, Cluett, story reveals how job opportunities Peabody, and Company, operated directed at women helped to revive factories in the Iron Range cities of the region’s economy. Emma Petrick, Eveleth, Virginia, and Gilbert. These the focus of the second account, plants made the company’s signature worked for 25 years as a sewing Arrow brand dress shirts and under- machine operator. Her experiences wear, and later added a pajamas line. provide a window into the impact of The newspaper described Cluett, factory work on gender roles. Cath- The manager: Frank Mancina Peabody as “an asset in the Range erine Rukavina, the final individual, economy” and pronounced that diver- packaged shirts from 1947 to 1979 When the United States entered sified industry helped “to sustain the and was president of a local branch World War II, Mancina became an lifeblood of the area.”2 of the clothing workers’ union. Her economist for the War Labor Board in “Horizons Unlimited” justifiably tale explains how women came Chicago. He returned to Minnesota linked taconite mining and apparel to form an active part of the labor in 1944 to fill a wartime position at manufacturing. Both engaged movement. Taken together, the three the A. O. Smith Corporation’s propel- ongoing problems associated with profiles highlight the ways in which ler plant in St. Paul. He and another industrial change during the second responses to deindustrialization were plant manager named L. J. Parrish half of the twentieth century. Yet deeply gendered. Iron Range men became friends at this time.4 even as the two industries inter- and women experienced industrial Mancina’s association with Cluett, sected in meaningful ways, they also change in different ways. Peabody began soon after the war. differed. Cluett, Peabody’s Arrow With the apparel industry experi- factories injected new energy into the encing rapid growth, the company Iron Range economy; the prolonged THE MANAGER: Frank Mancina sought to extend operations beyond decline of mining— the taconite No person played a larger role in the its bases in Troy, New York, and boom notwithstanding—bred Arrow factories’ history than Frank Atlanta, Georgia. L. J. Parrish, now sentiments of despair that overshad- Mancina, the “father and builder” of Cluett, Peabody’s vice president of owed “Rust Belt” towns across the the Iron Range plants. Mancina was manufacturing, led the initiative. Upper Midwest. The Arrow factories born in Eveleth on July 26, 1913, the Mancina suggested to Parrish the employed predominantly women son of Italian immigrants. His father potential of Minnesota’s iron min- and had an empowering impact on was a blast man at the mines. The ing district. Mancina admitted that gender dynamics; mining was an family were devout Roman Catholics, operating and transportation costs exclusively male domain, and job and, later in life, Frank became state might be lower in other parts of the losses threatened masculine roles head of the Knights of Columbus. country, but he believed that the and identities. In those areas where After graduating from Eveleth Junior industry “would be helpful to the the two industries diverged, histori- College in 1934, Mancina earned BA economy of an area which had known ans have focused almost entirely on and MBA degrees at the University of ups and downs.” To sell the region, variations of the mining narrative. Chicago, which subsequently hired he promised minimal startup costs. The significance that “Horizons him as a professor of economics and Cluett, Peabody would not have to Unlimited” attributed to Cluett, Pea- director of the Institute of Statistics. build new factories; instead it could body’s operations does not figure In 1940, Mancina married fellow busi- repurpose a vacant school building into historical understandings of the ness school graduate Alexia Harter. and community recreational centers region or era.3 The couple would have five children. that had fallen out of use. Municipal SUMMER 2018 55 governments agreed to bear the workforce than in returning profits what was already a problem with costs to refurbish the facilities and to its New York headquarters. In 1957, high employee turnover. He warned extended lease agreements with low for example, Mancina lobbied against lawmakers: “Enactment of this legis- rental rates. (See sidebar, page 60.) a state proposal extending unemploy- lation will force us to leave the state.” A state government agency provided ment benefits to women who took On other occasions, company execu- funds for vocational training.5 leave for a pregnancy or to attend to tives sought property tax reductions or allowances to pay new employees below the state’s minimum wage What made the factories truly novel was that rate. During periods of low consumer they created jobs primarily for women. demand, factories were subject to shutdowns or workweeks reduced to four days.7 Four Arrow factories opened on household duties. Speaking as man- The focus on employing women the Iron Range between 1946 and ager of Cluett, Peabody’s Minnesota raised concerns as well, for it did not 1947, bringing new life and new ways Division— a post that he assumed address the region’s most pressing of thinking to the region. The fac- in 1949— Mancina argued that loop- problem— a lack of jobs in the min- tories notably reduced dependence holes in the measure exacerbated ing industry. Men filled almost all on mining. A Chisholm newspaper described the operations as “the realization of a dream . to add to the payroll of the mines which up to this time has been the only industry here.” Mancina supervised a plant in Eveleth making men’s underwear. Facilities in Virginia, Gilbert, and Chisholm produced men’s dress shirts. What made the factories truly novel, though, was that they created jobs primarily for women. While Iron Range women had always per- formed unpaid labor in the home, they rarely had worked for wages. Elmi Gozdanovich, an employee at the Gilbert plant, remarked, “there were no jobs [for women] until the shirt factory.” Mancina identified “an untapped reservoir of female . help.” Cluett, Peabody, for its part, preferred locating in areas without alternative employment options. The labor surplus allowed it to pay lower starting wages.6 For some Iron Range residents, the prospective value of such changes merited skepticism. Economic diver- sification benefited the region, but there also was evidence that Cluett, Peabody had less interest in the local 2,000 Women Wanted! ad from Eveleth News-Clarion, May 16, 1946. 56 MINNESOTA HISTORY Cluett, Peabody promotional advertisement from the Mesabi Daily News's annual industrial issue, January 22, 1963. community choice of occupation, makes for better working conditions all around, and gives the community the additional economic security and economic freedom that makes for a free people.” Recognition of the factories’ impact reached the level of state politics. During a tour of the Arrow plants in 1955, Minnesota governor Orville Freeman cast them as an embodiment of new invest- ments in the region. “I like to come to the Range,” he declared, affirming, “In this area is development which augurs well for the future.” Mancina welcomed three Minnesota governors to the Arrow factories, and two others visited after his tenure.9 Mancina could point to two primary benefits created by the factories. First, women’s wages became an important source of household income. As an active Republican Party member, Mancina believed that economic growth occurred through job creation by private industry rather than by government spending. The Committee for Bigger and Better Virginia, a group of local businesspeople, in fact directly of Cluett, Peabody’s management prosperity depended on attracting asked, “Do we want payrolls or relief positions and most of the jobs in the additional industries, such as iron ore rolls?” During labor strikes or sea- factories’ cutting and mechanical smelting.

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