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Our Community at Winchester: The City and its Workers at New Haven’s Gun Factory is based on an exhibit produced by the Greater New Haven Labor History Association in 2013 about workers and the community they created at the Winchester Repeating Arms plant in New Haven, Connecticut, throughout the 20th century. Material has been added to the book based on new research. Some of the original information has been revised and/or expanded upon for clarity.
The book traces the workers’ long struggle to form a union as they were repeatedly met by powerful management intransigence and resistance. It follows the even greater challenges they faced as the company tried to break strikes, downsized, moved key operations out of New Haven, and repeatedly threatened to close if union members did not offer concessions. It examines the relationship between the City of New Haven and the changing corporate entities that operated the plant as loans and agreements based on guaranteed levels of employment repeatedly had to be amended or abrogated. Finally, it looks at the new face of New Haven in the 21st century as exemplified by Winchester Lofts and the companies now occupying Science Park where the factory buildings once stood. The book incorporates 18 interviews with former Winchester employees or their family members that reveal the mixed emotions that many had about their workplace.
