Farms, Mines, and Main Streets

Links between the global and the local economy secure the chain of events in this ethnographic study of Mercer County, North Dakota, an agricultural and mining district that embraced "progress" when faced with economic decline. Caroline S. Tauxe explores social, political, and economic transformations and tradeoffs that occurred during an industrial boom and its aftermath between 1978 and 1991. Although they gained new businesses, increased population, and a modernized infrastructure, Mercer County residents relinquished local control and autonomy. It includes an author note: Caroline S. Tauxe is a visiting scholar in the Department of Anthropology at Cornell University.