Title
Interview with Bill Butler
Streaming Media
Date of Interview
7-27-2004
Duration of Audio File
1:20:54
Interviewee
William "Bill" Butler
Age
Born July 31, 1920; aged 83 at time of interview, and died February 18, 2008.
Gender
Male
Birth Place
Terra Haute, Indiana
Residence
Aurora, Maine
Occupation/ Work History
He was trained as a metallurgical engineer (B.S. in Metallurgy from the Polytechnic Institute in Brooklyn, NY) and worked for the Curtis-Wright Corporation and as a technical writer for the Manhattan Project at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee during the 1940s. He moved to Maine and became a woodcutter in the 1950s. Was a leader of the Maine Woodsman’s Association and forestry conservation activist.
Mill or Principal Employer
Self-employed logging contractor
Mill Location
State of Maine
Keywords
Woodcutters Strike, Maine Labor History, Maine Paper Industry
Abstract
Butler was a key leader and founder of the Maine Woodmen's Association (MWA). The interview includes a description of working conditions for small logging contractors from the 1950s through the time of the 1975 strike. Butler also provides a detailed account of the 1975 strike itself.
Document Type
Interview
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Interview with Bill Butler by Michael Hillard, July 27, 2004, Stories of Maine's Paper Plantation, Digital Maine, Maine's Economic Improvement Fund, Digital Commons, University of Southern Maine.
Comments
Butler was perhaps the strike's most colorful leader, and he provides a potent, blow by blow, account of the strike, especially dealings with the courts and many meetings with Maine Governor James Longley. He was an ardent advocate of the view that the key problem facing Maine loggers was the presence of a large number of French Canadian guest workers hired by paper companies. Also was a critic of the clear cutting of huge swaths of forest by Maine paper companies.