In this interesting book Colleen O'Neill addresses a question that has received surprisingly little attention: how did Indians adjust to economic changes in the twentieth century? Her subject is the Navajo tribe in the southwest. Too often studies ignore “Indian agency”—that is the active choices made by Indians. Indians are too often treated either as members of a traditional society to be studied before it disappeared through death or assimilation or as victims of the modern world. The author sums this up with a quote from a young Navajo woman who, on learning about her project, said “… that's an important story to tell. Most people think we are silversmiths and drunks.”

The author begins by discussing related literature in labor history and ethnic studies. A number of studies look at the formation of class consciousness as part of the evolution of the labor market, with special attention to the efforts to form unions. Indians receive little attention in this literature because they are seen as traditional and not a part the modern labor market. Ethnic historians are often concerned with how native peoples define themselves in relationship to the majority culture, usually without reference to the labor market. O'Neill wants to bridge the gap between the two fields in this book by looking at how the Navajo maintained their cultural identity in the paid labor market. Not surprisingly (but unfortunately) neither literature is informed by research done by labor economists or economic history of the sort familiar to readers of this JOURNAL. Readers interested in applying economics to these events can easily do so for themselves, however.

Prior to the 1840s, Navajos had a well-deserved reputation as fierce warriors who raided other Indians and the Spanish. In 1863 the tribe was defeated by federal troops led by Kit Carson. The tribe was forced to move to a dismal reserve at Fort Sumner in New Mexico. When the Navajo returned to their original territory, members of the tribe adapted a peaceful way of life, and the tribe thrived and became more numerous. Families made a living by tending small herds of sheep and growing some crops. They also sold blankets and other hand made items to local trading posts, and a few men worked for wages with the railroad or as paid laborers in agriculture.

The 1930s brought a major shock to the Navajo economy. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), working with the newly formed Navajo tribal council, implemented a mandatory program to reduce the number of Navajo sheep. Some families with small herds suffered the most from the proportional reduction in the number of sheep and had a hard time making a living. The program generated serious resentment by many Navajos towards the newly created tribal government and the BIA. O'Neill (and others) is undoubtedly correct in criticizing the way it was carried out. But she does not suggest what might have been done instead. It appears that the tribe was headed to a crisis due to over grazing and ecological destruction as a result of rapid population growth in human and animal population and a “tragedy of the commons.”

Navajo families responded in several ways. Some gathered coal that lay near the surface to provide a new source of revenue, much the same way as they herded sheep. BIA officials saw these open pit “mines” as wasteful and inefficient, but it appears to O'Neill that the Navajo worked their mines with a keen eye to market conditions. Some worked in corporate mines, as well, doing lower paid “Indian” work above ground.

Another important household activity was weaving. The hourly earnings were low, but Navajo women could combine this with other household activities and they were comfortable with the work. The sale of the blankets (a skill originally learned from the Spanish) was handled by trading posts, which the author criticizes for low payments, but which offered a familiar setting. Other household activities included making jewelry, growing crops, and maintaining herds of cattle and sheep. Families did not rely on one source of income, mixing farming, weaving, and wage work.

Navajo men contributed by working for wages on and off the reservation. The biggest sources of employment were the Union Pacific Railroad or working on Mormon farms as laborers. In the 1950s the BIA tried to solve the problem of few jobs near reservations by urging Indians to move to cities. The stated goal was a permanent migration and assimilation of Indians into white culture. Navajo workers, of course, made their own choices, and many returned periodically to the reservation to participate in the household economy and more traditional cultural activities. According to O'Neill, “… To pull them into the labor market, commercial farmers, mining companies, and other western industrialists had to adjust to Navajos' demands and figure out ways to accommodate culturally defined work practices” (p. 108).

Another topic of interest to O'Neill is the relationship of Navajo workers to formal unions. In the labor history literature, unions are typically seen as a positive force for workers. In the 1930s there were two miners unions, the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), which represented the traditional (largely white) miners, and the National Mine Workers, which had ties to radical unions in Mexico and represented largely Hispanic miners. To both groups the Navajo were low-wage competition. Usually Indians were relegated to the lower wage, above ground jobs. John Collier and the BIA opposed unions in the 1930s, as did the Navajo Tribal council. O'Neill is “perplexed” by Collier's opposition to the union, given previous statements in favor of unions, although she admits that “Perhaps he recognized that the UMWA was not, at that time, interested in the welfare of Navajo workers” (p. 121).

In the 1950s and later, some white workers in nearby towns saw Indians as even “lower” than blacks or Hispanics, and Indians were at times victims of what today would be called hate crimes. Unions remained problematic for Navajos, at times not operating in the best interests of Indians. More positively, in the 1960s there was a successful Indian led unionization effort among Navajo construction workers.

In the end, Professor O'Neill argues against a simple dichotomy between traditional and modern. She also addresses issues in dependency theory and other debates in labor history and ethno history. Most importantly, the larger question addressed in this book—how Navajo people combined elements of both tradition and modernism in ways that made sense to them—stands on its own, and in this the author makes a useful contribution.