Labor History Commons^™

Bending Rules And Breaking Hearts: The Postville Raid And Its Constitutional Shortcomings, Raeann Swanson

Graduate Student Work

Prior to May 2008, Postville, like many other small towns in Iowa, was relatively obscure. The town's claim to fame had been Stephen Bloom's Postville: A Clash of Culture in the Heartland published in 2000 and the corresponding PBS documentary "Postville: When Cultures Collide. Both highlighted the growing diversity as Hasidic Jews made Postville their home, a shtetl in rural Iowa. The Rubashkin family brought rabbis and their families to Postville in 1987 in order to reopen the defunct Hygrade building as a kosher slaughterhouse and meatpacking plant. As the newly named Agriprocessors grew, managers sought employees who were willing …