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Author: David Alan Corbin Publisher: PM Press ISBN: 1604866462 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 357
Book Description
Strikes and union battles occurred throughout American industry during the early part of the twentieth century, but none of these stories compare to the West Virginia Mine Wars of 1912 and 1921. These two workers’ rebellions quickly drew national attention to an area known principally for its “black gold,” the coal that was vital for U.S. factories, power plants, and warships of that age. In 1912, miners struck against the harsh conditions in the work camps of Paint and Cabin Creeks and coal operators responded with force. The ensuing battles caused the West Virginia governor to declare martial law, prompting Samuel Gompers to dub the state “Russianized West Virginia [where] the people can be naught but serfs.” There was little improvement in working conditions by 1921, when another army—thousands of union miners—went up against similar numbers of state police, local deputies, and paid company guards. The weeklong Battle of Blair Mountain ended only after President Warren Harding sent 2,000 U.S. troops and a small unit of bombers to pacify the region Gun Thugs, Rednecks, and Radicals tells the story of these union battles as seen by the leaders, rank-and-file participants, and the journalists who came to West Virginia to cover them for papers including The Nation and the New York Times. Union leaders like Gompers, Frank Keeney, Fred Mooney, Bill Blizzard, and Mother Jones discuss the lives and struggles of the miners for their union. The book also contains articles, speeches, and personal testimony heard by two U.S. Senate committees sent to investigate West Virginia’s labor problems. In this testimony, miners and their family members describe life and work in the coal camps, telling why they participated in these violent episodes in West Virginia history. Special attention is given to the role of Huntington’s own radical newspaper, The Socialist and Labor Star, a forgotten monument in the history of American heresy and radicalism.
Author: David Alan Corbin Publisher: PM Press ISBN: 1604866462 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 357
Book Description
Strikes and union battles occurred throughout American industry during the early part of the twentieth century, but none of these stories compare to the West Virginia Mine Wars of 1912 and 1921. These two workers’ rebellions quickly drew national attention to an area known principally for its “black gold,” the coal that was vital for U.S. factories, power plants, and warships of that age. In 1912, miners struck against the harsh conditions in the work camps of Paint and Cabin Creeks and coal operators responded with force. The ensuing battles caused the West Virginia governor to declare martial law, prompting Samuel Gompers to dub the state “Russianized West Virginia [where] the people can be naught but serfs.” There was little improvement in working conditions by 1921, when another army—thousands of union miners—went up against similar numbers of state police, local deputies, and paid company guards. The weeklong Battle of Blair Mountain ended only after President Warren Harding sent 2,000 U.S. troops and a small unit of bombers to pacify the region Gun Thugs, Rednecks, and Radicals tells the story of these union battles as seen by the leaders, rank-and-file participants, and the journalists who came to West Virginia to cover them for papers including The Nation and the New York Times. Union leaders like Gompers, Frank Keeney, Fred Mooney, Bill Blizzard, and Mother Jones discuss the lives and struggles of the miners for their union. The book also contains articles, speeches, and personal testimony heard by two U.S. Senate committees sent to investigate West Virginia’s labor problems. In this testimony, miners and their family members describe life and work in the coal camps, telling why they participated in these violent episodes in West Virginia history. Special attention is given to the role of Huntington’s own radical newspaper, The Socialist and Labor Star, a forgotten monument in the history of American heresy and radicalism.
Author: Raymond Tyler Publisher: PM Press ISBN: Category : Comics & Graphic Novels Languages : en Pages : 138
Book Description
In the early-20th century, strikes and union battles were common in industrial centers throughout the US. But nothing compared to the class warfare of the West Virginia Mine Wars. The origins of this protracted rebellion were in the dictatorial rule of the coal companies over the proud, multi-racial, immigrant and native-born miners of Appalachia. Our illustrated history begins with Mary Harris “Mother” Jones's arrival at the turn of the century. White-haired, matronly, and fiercely socialist, Jones became known as the “miners’ angel,” and helped turn the fledgling United Mine Workers into the nation’s most powerful labor union. “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living,” was her famous battle cry. In 1912, miners led by stubborn Frank Keeney struck against harsh conditions in the work camps of Paint and Cabin Creeks. Coal operators responded by enlisting violent Baldwin-Felts guards. The ensuing battles and murderous events caused the governor to declare and execute martial law on a scale unprecedented in the US. On May 19, 1920, in response to evictions by coal company agents, gunshots rang through the streets of a small-town in “Bloody Mingo” county. In an event soon known as the “Matewan Massacre”; the pro-union, quick-draw chief of police Smilin’ Sid Hatfield became an unexpected celebrity—but also a marked man. Events climax with the dramatic Battle of Blair Mountain that pitched the spontaneous Red Neck Army of 10,000 armed strikers against a paid army of gun thugs in the largest labor uprising in US history and the largest armed uprising since the American Civil War. This graphic interpretation of people’s history features unforgettable main characters while also displaying the diverse rank and file workers who stood in solidarity during this struggle.
Author: James Green Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic ISBN: 0802192092 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 447
Book Description
“The most comprehensive and comprehendible history of the West Virginia Coal War I’ve ever read.” —John Sayles, writer and director of Matewan On September 1, 1912, the largest, most protracted, and deadliest working-class uprising in American history was waged in West Virginia. On one side were powerful corporations whose millions bought armed guards and political influence. On the other side were fifty thousand mine workers, the nation’s largest labor union, and the legendary “miners’ angel,” Mother Jones. The fight for unionization and civil rights sparked a political crisis that verged on civil war, stretching from the creeks and hollows of the Appalachians to the US Senate. Attempts to unionize were met with stiff resistance. Fundamental rights were bent—then broken. The violence evolved from bloody skirmishes to open armed conflict, as an army of more than fifty thousand miners finally marched to an explosive showdown. Extensively researched and vividly told, this definitive book about an often-overlooked chapter of American history, “gives this backwoods struggle between capital and labor the due it deserves. [Green] tells a dark, often despairing story from a century ago that rings true today” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).
Author: Anne T. Lawrence Publisher: ISBN: 9781952271083 Category : Coal miners Languages : en Pages : 176
Book Description
"Oral histories with participants in and observers of the Battle of Blair Mountain and other Appalachian mine wars of the 1920s and 1930s, supplemented with introductory material, maps, and photographs"--
Author: Wess Harris Publisher: PM Press ISBN: 1629634530 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 279
Book Description
Written in Blood features the work of Appalachia’s leading scholars and activists making available an accurate, ungilded, and uncensored understanding of our history. Combining new revelations from the past with sketches of a sane path forward, this is a deliberate collection looking at our past, present, and future. Sociologist Wess Harris (When Miners March) further documents the infamous Esau scrip system for women, suggesting an institutionalized practice of forced sexual servitude that was part of coal company policy. In a conversation with award-winning oral historian Michael Kline, federal mine inspector Larry Layne explains corporate complicity in the 1968 Farmington Mine disaster which killed seventy-eight men and became the catalyst for the passage of major changes in U.S. mine safety laws. Mine safety expert and whistleblower Jack Spadaro speaks candidly of years of attempts to silence his courageous voice and recalls government and university collaboration in covering up details of the 1972 Buffalo Creek flooding disaster, which killed over a hundred people and left four thousand homeless. Moving to the next generation of thinkers and activists, attorney Nathan Fetty examines current events in Appalachia and musician Carrie Kline suggests paths forward for people wishing to set their own course rather than depend on the kindness of corporations.
Author: Taylor Brown Publisher: St. Martin's Press ISBN: 1250329345 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 293
Book Description
A historical drama based on the Battle of Blair Mountain, pitting a multi-ethnic army of 10,000 coal miners against mine owners, state militia, and the United States government in the largest labor uprising in American history. Rednecks is a tour de force, big canvas historical novel that dramatizes the 1920 to 1921 events of the West Virginia Mine Wars—from the Matewan Massacre through the Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest armed conflict on American soil since the Civil War, when some one million rounds were fired, bombs were dropped on Appalachia, and the term “redneck” would come to have an unexpected origin story. Brimming with the high stakes drama of America’s buried history, Rednecks tells a powerful story of rebellion against oppression. In a land where the coal companies use violence and intimidation to keep miners from organizing, “Doc Moo" Muhanna, a Lebanese-American doctor (inspired by the author’s own great-grandfather), toils amid the blood and injustice of the mining camps. When Frank Hugham, a Black World War One veteran and coal miner, takes dramatic steps to lead a miners' revolt with a band of fellow veterans, Doc Moo risks his life and career to treat sick and wounded miners, while Frank's grandmother, Beulah, fights her own battle to save her home and grandson. Real-life historical figures burn bright among the hills: the fiery Mother Jones, an Irish-born labor organizer once known as "The Most Dangerous Woman in America," struggles to maintain the ear of the miners ("her boys") amid the tide of rebellion, while the sharp-shooting police chief "Smilin" Sid Hatfield dares to stand up to the "gun thugs" of the coal companies, becoming a folk hero of the mine wars. Award-winning novelist Taylor Brown brings to life one of the most compelling events in 20th century American history, reminding us of the hard-won origins of today's unions. Rednecks is a propulsive, character-driven tale that’s both a century old and blisteringly contemporary: a story of unexpected friendship, heroism in the face of injustice, and the power of love and community against all odds.
Author: Trish Kahle Publisher: Columbia University Press ISBN: 0231560796 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 273
Book Description
The history of the modern United States is the history of coal—and of coal miners. Trish Kahle reveals miners as forgers of a coal-fired social contract that was contested throughout the twentieth century as Americans sought to define the meaning of citizenship in an energy-intensive democracy. Energy Citizenship traces the uncertain relationship between coal and democracy from the Progressive Era to the election of Ronald Reagan, examining how miners’ democratic aspirations confronted the deadly record of the country’s coal mines. Miners and their communities bore the burdens of energy production while reaping far fewer of the benefits of energy consumption. But they insisted that death in the mines, far from being inevitable, was a political choice. Kahle demonstrates that coal miners’ struggles to democratize the workplace, secure civil and social rights, and obtain restitution for the human toll of progress reshaped U.S. laws, regulatory administrations, and political imaginaries. Energy policy in the twentieth century was about not only managing fuels but also negotiating the relationship between coal miners and the rest of the country, which depended on the electric power and steel produced with the coal they mined. Placing coal miners at the center of a sweeping new history of the United States, this book unmasks the violence of energy systems and shows how energy governance cuts to the heart of persistent questions about democracy, justice, and equality.
Author: Steve Watkins Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: 1547612193 Category : Juvenile Nonfiction Languages : en Pages : 258
Book Description
For fans of Steve Sheinkin and Deb Heiligman, a riveting true story of the West Virginia coal miners who ignited the largest labor uprising in American history. In May of 1920, in a small town in the mountains of West Virginia, a dozen coal miners took a stand. They were sick of the low pay in the mines. The unsafe conditions. The brutal treatment they endured from mine owners and operators. The scrip they were paid-instead of cash-that could only be used at the company store. They had tried to unionize, but the mine owners dug in. On that fateful day in May 1920, tensions boiled over and a gunfight erupted-beginning a yearlong standoff between workers and owners. The miners pleaded, then protested, then went on strike; the owners retaliated with spying, bribery, and threats. Violence escalated on both sides, culminating in the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest labor uprising in United States history. In this gripping narrative nonfiction book, meet the resolute and spirited people who fought for the rights of coal miners, and discover how the West Virginia Mine Wars paved the way for vital worker protections nationwide. More than a century later, this overlooked story of the labor movement remains urgently relevant.
Author: David Alan Corbin
Author: David Alan Corbin
Author: Ken Sullivan
Author: Howard Burton Lee
Author: Raymond Tyler
Author: James Green
Author: Anne T. Lawrence
Author: Wess Harris
Author: Taylor Brown
Author: Trish Kahle
Author: Steve Watkins