Company Towns in Latin America and the Caribbean

by

Ángela Vergara

• LAST MODIFIED: 19 February 2025
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780190922481-0083

Introduction

Like in other parts of the world, employers in Latin America planned and built company towns and villages to develop extractive industries, make production possible in isolated places, and shape and control the workforce. Company towns contributed to expanding the capitalist and industrial frontier, becoming a common sight from the Andes to the Caribbean coast of Central America. Early studies defined company towns as foreign enclaves and examined the unique characteristics of isolated mining camps and agricultural states. Multinational companies used camps to attract and settle a diverse workforce, and housing, company stores, and social and recreational services were standard, although their quality varied. Companies enforced a strict separation between foreign managers and local workers, a practice that increased tensions and conflicts and undermined the influence of their paternalist agenda. Throughout the twentieth century, large-scale mining and petroleum exploitations radically transformed the local ecology, and the camps and the plants became symbols of modernity but also environmental destruction. Violence also defined the history of export and resource company towns, and many of these places became sites of state and company repression, such as the case of the banana strikes. Recent studies have moved away from a strict definition of enclave, arguing that workers developed many social, cultural, and political connections with the outside world. Except for textile mills and their vilas opérarias in Brazil, classic factory towns, such as the ones that characterized the industrial landscape of the United States, Canada, and western Europe, were less common in Latin America. Instead, large factories built or subsidized neighborhoods and offered some social and recreational services. In some cases, such as the cement, steel, or meatpacking industry, companies were the most important employers. While they did not officially own the town, they exerted a strong influence outside the factory walls. A rich labor historiography has explored the experience of industrial workers, including the impact of company housing and other paternalistic practices. Local history, oral interviews, and a bottom-up approach have contributed to documenting the complexity of workers’ identity, the role of women and families, and the many forms of resistance and adaption. Company towns were also built around railroads, ports, military bases, and construction sites. While these villages varied in size, they usually shared a common discourse and were made not just to house people but to create a modern and loyal workforce. By the end of the twentieth century, neoliberal reforms, industrial restructuring, and privatization of large state companies made company towns obsolete. Processes of closure have been marked by unemployment, displacement, and dispossession, which have had long-term consequences for workers, families, and local communities.

General Overviews and Comparative Studies

General and comparative studies have demonstrated that company towns in Latin America were used by employers to control, settle, and transform the workforce. In the case of the export sector, various works have shown that multinational businesses built company towns to guarantee production in remote regions to exploit mining and agricultural resources. These camps shared a similar layout and included institutions such as company stores and hospitals, while they also maintained exclusive neighborhoods for foreign employees. O’Brien 1999 demonstrates that company towns were essential to the US presence in Latin America and became sites of cultural influence. Comparative studies have explored the similarities between Latin America and other parts of the world, the adaptation of foreign ideas of urban planning and social engineering, and the many kinds of company towns. Dinius and Vergara 2011 looks at company towns in the Americas (Latin America, Canada, and the United States), and Borges and Torres 2012 offers a worldview. Correa 2016 highlights the concept of “extraction” to show how mining and other extractive industries have pushed the urban frontier and created unique cities and camps. Works have also looked at a single multinational company, showing how the company model was adapted and replicated all over the world. Balaban, et al. 2023 studies the case of Bata, a Czech shoemaker enterprise with plants in Europe, India, and the Americas. Others have explored the similarities within a nation, comparing different industries. For example, Piquet 1998 offers an overview of company towns and villages in Brazil. An important part of the scholarship on company towns has focused on industrial paternalism and welfare capitalism and the impact of these policies on workers’ identity and consciousness. Leite Lopes 1996 argues that Brazilian workers’ villages were a form of domination, Lupano 2009 mentions housing and urban planning as one of the elements of industrial discourses and labor policies in Argentina, and Fuentealba Romero 2021 discusses historiographical debates on paternalism (including housing and camps).

• Balaban, Milan, Lukáš Perutka, Simon Paye, Dalibor Savić, and Jan Herman. “The Social Welfare System in Bata Company Towns (1920s–1950s): Between Transnational Vision and Local Settings.” International Review of Social History 68.1 (April 2023): 13–40.

  DOI: 10.1017/S0020859022000402

  A study of the transnational dimension of the iconic Czech shoe manufacturer and its company towns around the world.

• Borges, Marcelo J., and Susana B. Torres, eds. Company Towns: Labor, Space, and Power Relations across Time and Continents. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

  A comparative history of company towns, with examples from different countries and industries, and an introduction summarizing the main historiographical debates.

• Correa, Felipe. Beyond the City: Resource Extraction Urbanism in South America. 1st ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016.

  A comparative urban history of how extractive industries, from nitrate to petroleum, created unique forms of living and occupying the territory.

• Dinius, Oliver J., and Angela Vergara, eds. Company Towns in the Americas: Landscape, Power, and Working-Class Communities. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2011.

  A history of company towns and labor and social engineering policies in the Americas. It includes a theoretical chapter by Andrew Herod and case studies about Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Mexico, and the United States.

• Fuentealba Romero, Nicole. “Paternalismo industrial en Chile: Una recopilación historiográfica.” Tiempo Histórico 21 (21 January 2021): 77–100.

  DOI: 10.25074/th.v0i21.1912

  A historiographical article on industrial paternalism in Chile, bringing together discussion about mining and manufacturing sectors.

• Leite Lopes, José-Sergio. “Formas comparadas de imobilização da força de trabalho: Fábricas com vila operária tradicionais e grandes projetos.” Lusotopie 3 (1996): 285–298.

  A reflection of how Brazilian employers used vilas operárias and temporary camps to control and retain the workforce.

• Lupano, María Marta. La gran familia industrial: Espacio urbano, prácticas sociales e ideología, 1870–1945. Buenos Aires: Santiago Arcos Editor, 2009.

  A study of industrial paternalism in Argentina from the late nineteenth century into the 1940s, showing the interplay of labor, social, and housing programs in four industrial communities.

• O’Brien, Thomas F. The Revolutionary Mission: American Enterprise in Latin America, 1900–1945. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

  An overview of the influence of US capital and businesses in Latin America, with a particular focus on social, cultural, and labor relations in company towns and foreign enclaves throughout the mining and agricultural sectors.

• Piquet, Rosélia. Cidade-Empresa: Presença na paisagem urbana brasileira. Rio de Janeiro: J. Zahar Editor, 1998.

  A comparative study of company towns in Brazil and their impact on the urban landscape, demographics, and economic growth.