Boom Town

Boom Town: How Wal-Mart Transformed an All-American Town into an International Community is a 2009 nonfiction book by Marjorie Rosen, a journalist and professor at Lehman College–City University of New York. The book explores the population growth and demographic transformation of Bentonville (Benton County), and some other nearby communities, due to the presence of the headquarters of Walmart, which had become the world’s largest retailer.  

Rosen opens her book by recounting the experience of Coleman Peterson, an African American man hired as the head of human resources by Walmart in 1994. He arrived in Bentonville in time to witness a rally of the Ku Klux Klan. This experience provides a narrative hook whereby Rosen can begin to outline the racial history of Bentonville, which diverged from certain neighboring cities by not becoming a “sundown town.” This historical background includes an interview with Carl Stewart, the man who desegregated Bentonville schools in 1955, and other Black residents. Rosen then explores the lives of local Muslims, Jews, and Hindus, detailing the challenges these groups faced in establishing themselves in northwestern Arkansas, as well as Walmart’s attempts to accommodate an increasingly diverse staff. Among the local longtime residents interviewed are Terry Coberly, mayor of Bentonville from 1994 to 2006 (a period when the population nearly doubled), who was also a local shopkeeper who lost his business due to the presence of Walmart stores.  

Although the title of the book indicates a focus upon Bentonville, Rosen also explores the nearby communities of Springdale (Washington and Benton counties) and Rogers (Benton County), which had also greatly expanded and diversified, in part due to immigrant labor (especially Latinos and Marshall Islanders) recruited by Tyson Foods for the poultry industry. This led to a growing backlash on the part of local authorities, the most visible of whom was Steve Womack, mayor of Rogers at the time (and later a U.S. representative).   

Reviews of Boom Town were somewhat mixed upon release. Publishers Weekly complained that “Rosen glosses over employee complaints, lawsuits and informed critiques of Wal-Mart’s operation and conservative brand of Christian entrepreneurialism with the savvy of a public relations pro in this laudatory and utterly unbalanced portrait.” Jay P. Greene of the Wall Street Journal described the book as an “engaging if sometimes distorted community portrait” that does not support the “storyline of white Christians resenting the influx of diverse newcomers.” However, Scott Larson, writing for Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, called the book a “prescient and timely read,” specifically putting it into the context of contemporaneous “rolling debates over immigration and cultural change” that produced such laws as Arizona’s SB1070, which permitted local police officers to detain suspected undocumented immigrants. The book does contain a few errors, most notably a conflation of the cause of the second Harrison Race Riot (1909) with that of the 1901 lynching of Peter Berryman in Mena (Polk County). 

Rosen was scheduled to speak at libraries in Springdale and Rogers following the release of her book, but those events were canceled, with many in the media speculating that the cancellations were due to pressure from Walmart. However, she did later speak at the Fayetteville Public Library in Fayetteville (Washington County). 

For additional information:
Greene, Jay P. “A World Inside the Bible Belt.” Wall Street Journal, December 14, 2009. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704240504574586414177614976 (accessed October 3, 2024). 

Rosen, Marjorie. Boom Town: How Wal-Mart Transformed an All-American Town into an International Community. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2009. 

Staff of the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas