Manufacturing Mennonites

Janis Thiessen is an assistant professor in the Department of History at the University of Winnipeg.

• Introduction1. The Mennonite Intellectual Elite: Yieldedness, Non-resistance, and Neighbourly Love2. The Mennonite Workplace: Loewen Windows, Friesen Printers, and Palliser Furniture3. Mennonite Corporate Mythology: The ‘Reflections’ Campaign4. ‘You Had to Know Everything; Otherwise, You Weren’t Fit’: Worker Experience and Identity5. Unequally Yoked: Manitoba Mennonites and the Schreyer Government6. ‘No One Is Always Happy with His Environment’: Union Drives and Corporate ResponsesConclusion

‘This is a pioneering work in a new area of study for Mennonites… It has an urban, industrial focus and draws for theoretical and comparative purposes on the scholarly literature of business and labor history applied in new and interesting ways.’ - James Urry (Mennonite Quarterly Review, January 2014) ‘Manufacturing Mennonites could prove to be a model for other scholars examining the relationship between religion and corporate culture.’ - Stephanie Kreihbiel (Oral History Review, April 2014) ‘This is an important and suggestive study that should put to rest tendencies either to ignore religion, or to assume that it has an autonomous power outside of the nexus of capitalist social relations.’ - James Naylor (Oral History Forum, vol 33:2013) ‘Compelling study… Manufacturing Mennonites could prove to be a model for other scholars examining the relationships between religion and corporate culture.’ - Stephanie Krehbiel (Oral History Review, vol 41:01:2014) ‘A finely nuanced study of the ways in which Mennonites experience social class relations.’- Alvin Finkel (Journal of Mennonite Studies, vol 32:2014) ‘This monograph is a welcome contribution to the social history of religion in Canada… It contributes to our understanding of the complex ways in which religious faith can impact workers’ class consciousness and activism.’- Lynne Marks (Labour/le Travail vol 75:2015)