Canning Gold is a meticulously researched examination of how sweet corn canning helped shape the economy, landscape and people of rural Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont during the "corn shop century," 1860-1960's. Paul Frederic powerfully demonstrates the strong community bond essential for the industry's initial success. Interviews with farmers, factory owners and cannery workers who raised and packed the corn, combined with the written record, and Frederic's insight derived from growing up in the shadow of a corn shop, enrich the work and trace various threads linking local patterns to regional, national and global forces.