Streaming Media
Additional Streaming Media
Date of Interview
3-20-2003
Duration of Audio File
Audio file #1 1:11:15; Audio file #2 1:00:28
Interviewee
Karl Dornish
Age
Born September 1932, aged 70 at time of interview
Gender
Male
Residence
Waterville, Maine
Occupation/ Work History
Senior production manager.
Role
Management
Mill or Principal Employer
S. D. Warren
Mill Location
Westbrook, Maine 04092
Keywords
Paternalism, Paper mills - Maine, S.D.Warren - Maine, S.D. Warren - business history, S.D. Warren - labor relations history, paper mill - gender discrimination
Abstract
Dornish was senior production manager at S.D. Warren Westbrook, 1954-1970s, then at S.D. Warren-Somerset/Hinckley from late 1970s until around 1990. He spent a few years at S.D. Warren's Muskegon, Michigan mill before retiring in Waterville, Maine area, and is a graduate of Colby College.
Document Type
Interview
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Karl Dornish, interview by Michael Hillard, March 20, 2003, Stories of Maine's Paper Plantation, Digital Maine, Maine's Economic Improvement Fund, Digital Commons, University of Southern Maine
Included in
Labor History Commons, Oral History Commons, Social History Commons, Unions Commons, United States History Commons
Comments
A "gold mine" interview on business and labor history of S.D. Warren Westbrook from 1950s-1970s, and S.D. Warren-Somerset/Hinckley mill from 1970s to 1990s. Describes post-World War II workforce comprised of alcoholics with trauma disorders, extensive paternalism of mill, including running a "drunk tank" for alcoholics, tolerating workers who produced very little, antiquated management practices towards workers, and how much of this changed after the mill unionized in 1970s. Important story about Warren's explicit gender wage discrimination practices that still existed in the 1960s. Detailed information about business including paper grades, profitability, and S.D. Warren's premier status. Later worked at the new S.D.Warren mill Hinckley, Maine. Sharp criticisms of Scott Paper's "Jointness" initiative in the late 1980s.
Lengthy transcript attached.