 GROVETON, N.H. (From news reports) -- Ten years ago, the Groveton, N.H. paper mill, which had been in existence since 1889, shut its doors for good, devastating the local economy and community.
Groveton, in northern Coos County, is just one of many New England towns that, in the early- to mid-20th century, bet its future on the paper industry, only to see the industry collapse.
The mill's closure can be seen as a microcosm of what's happened across the country in the past 30 years, where the disappearance of manufacturing jobs in smaller towns and cities has had catastrophic results. In Groveton, the hole left by the mill's shutdown still hasn't been filled, although not for lack of trying.
The rise and fall of Groveton's paper mill is told by writer and former reporter Jamie Sayen (rhymes with Ryan) in his just released book You Had a Job for Life (University Press of New England).
"Groveton is kind of a stand-in for the betrayal of the American working class," Sayen said. "Whatever their strengths and weaknesses individually and on the whole, they've gotten the shaft."
Sayen began the project in 2009 as part of a required oral history project for a graduate ethnography class at Plymouth State University. Almost immediately, Sayen realized that this would be an all-consuming endeavor, he said in a phone interview from his home in Stratford, N.H.
"By the third or fourth interview I was hooked, and I knew I had the material for a really worthwhile book," Sayen said.
Sayen, 69, moved to northern New Hampshire 30 years ago. A New Jersey native, he was raised in Princeton and grew up next door to the house where Albert Einstein lived when he taught at the university. Einstein died in 1955. At the age of 25, Sayen befriended both Einstein's stepdaughter Margot Einstein and his longtime secretary Helen Dukas. Those friendships were the kernel for Sayen's 1985 book Einstein in America.
As a child of suburbia, Sayen was drawn to the wilder places. In his 20s, Sayen considered whether to move to the Rockies, Southern Appalachia or Northern New England. The latter won out, partially because it was closer to his family in New Jersey. He was a reporter for the Coos County Democrat from 1987 to 1988.
You Had a Job for Life brings together Sayen's interest in environmentalism, the legacy of the paper mill and his regard for the people of Groveton, who, he said, fought in this country's wars, had a ferocious work ethic and took pay cuts to keep the mill going.
"They were really ingenious in making it more productive, and less wasteful," Sayen said. But that wasn't enough, in the end, to stave off forces beyond the mill workers' control: a global market, skyrocketing energy costs, an offsite corporate owner and cheaper labor costs elsewhere.
Sayen interviewed 55 people, 20 of whom are now deceased. Many of them were already in their 70s, 80s and 90s when they spoke with him.
When he began searching out anyone who had worked at, or was associated with the mill, including Jim Wemyss Jr., the man who was for three decades the owner and operator, he expected to have doors slammed in his face because of his outspoken reputation as an environmentalist, he said.
That didn't happen. Instead, out of 60 people, only four turned him down.
"It began to dawn on me that maybe I had stumbled onto something that was helpful to them. Closing the mill down was like a bomb going off, and there hadn't been any way for them to mourn and work out their feelings," Sayen said.
From 1940 to 1983 the paper mill, and much of the town and surrounding timberland, was in the hands of James Wemyss Sr. and James Wemyss Jr. The family, originally from Pennsylvania, also bought small mills in their home state and in New York. When the Wemyss (pronounced Weems) family bought the Groveton mill it was in urgent need of repairs, modernization and expansion.
Depending on who he talked to, Sayen said, the Wemysses were sometimes despised, sometimes admired, sometimes feared. They drove the workers very hard and resisted all concessions to the union. But because they lived and invested in Groveton, they earned the respect of the town.
"They could be very difficult customers but they cared about the community," Sayen said.
When something went wrong with one of the machines, Wemyss Jr. would be on hand to try to figure it out. Recently, Wemyss Jr., who is now 92, called Sayen prior to a presentation to ask him to tell the audience how much he still cared about the town. He also told Sayen that if he still owned the mill, it would still be open.
Given the forces arrayed against smaller independent mills, that assertion is arguable, Sayen said, but what he doesn't doubt is that if the Wemyss family had continued to own the mill, the "captain would have gone down with the ship."
As it was, the Wemysses sold the mill in 1983 to James River Corp., which in turn sold the mill to the Wisconsin-based Wausau Paper in 1991.
"Absentee owners took a very different approach than local owners," Sayen said.
Under Wausau, the mill switched from making tissue to making high-end paper, but, Sayen said, "even though the paper it produced was of higher quality, and the mill was profitable, the company was in trouble. They had to close down a mill that was out of sight, out of mind."
Shutting a New England mill was easier than going after Midwestern ones, Sayen said. It was part of a trend in which Fortune 500 companies that owned paper mills shut down New England operations and moved them to the Southeast, where timber grew faster, unions weren't as powerful and environmental regulations were more relaxed, Sayen said.
In Maine, which had the highest number of paper mills and the most closures, that workforce has been cut by 30 to 40 percent, Sayen said.
You Had a Job for Life, Sayen said, "has a message that could really resonate with rural resource communities, not because we've solved all problems but because we've gone through similar events and been buffeted by global forces."
Groveton has been "battered but it's survived," he added.
That said, the toll has been significant.
As with other shuttered mill towns, storefronts are empty, the workforce has been hollowed out, the school population has declined, the tax burden has increased and younger residents have left in search of work. Opioids have cut a swath through town, not necessarily because of the high school population but because of the adults: "Parents are hooked on this stuff," Sayen said.
In the 2016 presidential election Groveton voted for Hillary Clinton, rather than President Trump, which could be a holdover from its union days, Sayen said, or perhaps a vote for what he called common sense.
In any case, he said, political allegiances and beliefs are often more complex than the national media's depiction of what drives people to vote in a certain way. "We're looking at things a little too simplistically. ... There's a lot more complexity and nuance there."
He is skeptical that a so-called magic bullet, in the form of a new industry swooping in to save the town, is desirable, or likely to happen.
"I think we've got a very misguided economic approach. Why is the default position always to lure or bribe more absentee capital?" Sayen said.
He would rather see local capital invested in small local businesses and a value-added economy.
"Why don't we look for ways to revitalize without degrading natural communities? Why don't we encourage low-impact, responsible forestry?"
The town could be making canoes, musical instruments or bridges or promoting such recreational activities as snow-shoeing, rather than all-terrain vehicle use, he said.
But, the mill is still missed -- and not only because it was the town's largest employer. Sayen recalled asking a female worker whether she would go back to work there if, miraculously, the mill reopened and she was asked to return. The woman said, "I'd take it in a heartbeat." She paused, and repeated, "In a heartbeat."
What Sayen took from that, and his other interviews, was that the mill workers took enormous satisfaction in their diligence, adaptability and skill.
"They can look themselves in the mirror and say with pride, I did a job and I did it well," Sayen said. |
