Reinventing Free Labor: Padrones and Immigrant Workers in the North American West, 1880 1930One of the most infamous villains in North America during the Progressive Era was the padrone, a mafia like immigrant boss who allegedly enslaved his compatriots and kept them uncivilized, unmanly, and unfree. In this first ever history of the padrone, Gunther Peck argues that they were not primitive men but rather thoroughly modern entrepreneurs who used corporations, the labor contract, and the right to quit to create far flung coercive networks.