Title
Interview with Mel Ames
Streaming Media
Date of Interview
7-2004
Duration of Audio File
1:20:59
Interviewee
Mel Ames
Gender
Male
Occupation/ Work History
Farmer and independent logger
Mill or Principal Employer
Ames Farm, Dover-Foxcroft, Maine
Keywords
Woodcutters Strike, Maine Labor History, Maine Paper Industry, logging industry
Abstract
Ames discusses his life as a logger and trained forester. He is a longtime proponent of sustainable harvesting methods since being trained as a forester in the 1940s. Ames became a leader of the MWA just before the 1975 statewide strike by logging contractors. He became President of the MWA in its last years (1978-early 1980s), and he wrote the state MWA newsletter
Document Type
Interview
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Mel Ames, interview by Michael Hillard, July, 2004, Stories of Maine's Paper Plantation, Digital Maine, Maine's Economic Improvement Fund, Digital Commons, University of Southern Maine
Comments
Detail recollections about the event during the dramatic MWA strike. Includes careful explanation of how Maine companies claimed that they would hire Maine loggers in remote areas, but that they could only find Canadian loggers who lived closer to these areas. The MWA had challenged the policy of Canadian guest loggers, and for years after the strike they "tested" the claims of the companies and repeatedly found that Maine citizen loggers were given the runaround by companies and by the Maine Department of Labor. Also has interesting and notable obersvations about the non-sustainable forestry practices of large landowners including paper companies