In the 1890s the Apollo Iron and Steel Company was in a dramatic round of industrial restructuring and labor tension, ending a bitterly contested labor dispute at its Apollo, Pennsylvania, steelworks by hiring replacement workers from the surrounding countryside. To avoid future unrest, the company sought tighter control over its workers, not only at the factory, but also in their homes. Drawing upon a philosophy of reform movements in Europe and the United States, the company's leader, George McMurtry, adopted what was later known as welfare capitalism, with the company going beyond paychecks to provide for the social needs of the workers, and providing a benign physical environment and good housing, to make for happier and more productive workers. Wanting a loyal workforce, McMurtry developed a town agenda that drew upon environmentalism as well as popular attitudes toward capital's treatment of labor.
In the 1890s the Apollo Iron and Steel Company was in a dramatic round of industrial restructuring and labor tension, ending a bitterly contested labor dispute at its Apollo, Pennsylvania, steelworks by hiring replacement workers from the surrounding countryside. To avoid future unrest, the company sought tighter control ,over its wo?rkers not only at the factory, but also in their homes. Drawing upon a philosophy of reform movements in Europe and the United States, the company's leader, George McMurtry, adopted what was later known as welfare capitalism, with the company going beyond paychecks to provide for the social needs of the workers, and providing a ben?ign physical environment and good housing, to make for happier and more productive workers. Wanting a loyal workforce, McMurtry developed a town agenda that drew upon environmentalism as well as popular attitudes toward capital's treatment of labor.