June 17th of that same year, the first strike was over as the last miner had returned to work. What a marvelous view! An essay on The Harlan County War : r/history Here, too, are some of the richest natural resources in the countryand some of the poorest people. On the way back to the Mount Aire at the end of the day, we pass back through Brookside with its deteriorating mining-camp houses along the stinking Clear Fork River. The mining company had ordered a motorcade to deliver food and supplies to the strikebreakers known as Scabs. Toilets are built out over the river, and the water has obviously been much higher in the recent past. 1931, only $13.5 million. Source for information on Harlan County: Encyclopedia of the Great Depression dictionary. No concessions or deals were made between the two factions and the membership of the United Mine Workers union plummeted. Harlan County Struggle Collection, 1931-1932 - LibraryHost "We've took about all we can take," he says. Past that, the other undulating ridges are blue and hazy. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. Miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, have drawn national attention with their direct action occupying a railroad track to halt a coal train . He tells me that the miners plan to picket on Wall Street, hoping to give Duke problems with its stock. Yarborough is tough and unyielding. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. Harlan, district mine inspector of the State Department of Mines and Minerals, and James Bryson, safety director, Harlan County Coal Operators Association. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Which Side are You on? The Brookside mine is capable of producing only about a half-million tons of the 15 million tons of coal Duke uses each year. Chicago citation style: Harris & Ewing, photographer. During the Great Depression of the 1930s coal miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, struck against the coal operators for better pay and better working conditio. It reports that "Piedmont" is an adjective derived.from Italian words that literally mean "formed at the foot of the mountains." Many of the houses have no running water, and these families have to carry all their water from a common outdoor spigot. After nearly 40 years of working in coalmines, David . This caused the clergy to denounce the union. The transcript will be published as a book. The accident was investigated by Rufus Bailey, Harlan, district mine inspector of the State Department of Mines and Minerals, and James Bryson, safety director, Harlan County Coal Operators Association. On top of that, we learn later, the union is spending $108,000 a year for medical and hospital coverage for the striking miners and their families. Harlan County War - Wikipedia There were shots exchanged and all three deputies and one striker were killed. We first hear from a number of the striking miners about safety conditions in the Brookside mine. Working barns of gray-black weathered wood. There was a scuffle when a state police captain tried to remove one of the women, she says, adding, "Captain Cromer did get hit several times; I hit him with a stick myself." In the face of what promised to be a lengthy struggle for the Harlan County coal miners of 1931, their wildcat strike had left thousands jobless and many homeless as well. The miners say that, somehow, management always knows when the government inspectors are coming. It will be a two-hour, winding drive through the Cumberland Mountains to the town of Harlan. ", "They've done discriminated me," Grover Jennings continues. Sadly, the state and federal troops would occupy the county several times. Get a Demo. Established in 1916, its membership consisted of nearly all the large mining companies, and it represented the major political force in the county. [6] Nearly four thousand miners working and living in Harlan County, Kentucky lost their jobs in the Great Depression. Its profits in 1973 were $90 million, up 14 percent from the year before. Attempts to organize led to the dismissal of employees who were suspected of having leanings toward the organization and having them evicted from their family homes. Grover Jennings says that six months ago he applied for a job at the Mary Helen mine and was apparently accepted, but that when he went back for his physical, Clyde Goitis, an official at the mine, said, "Buddy, there just ain't no way I can do anything for you. Bright yellow forsythia has begun to bloom in the yards of Harlan and Brookside and Evarts. Coal Strike May End, But Miners Still Fear Future With the passage of these acts, there was unrest in Harlan County. "Try walking out of there, carrying a man with a broken back," one of the miners says. The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 (Paperback) at the best online prices at eBay! There was no standard contract for the miners. Willard Wirtz says that it is important to remember that one side of the dispute felt confident enough about their case to arrange to spread it before the widest possible audience. In "Bloody Harlan" in the 1930s, miners and union organizers faced bayonets and many died fighting the coal bosses, helping to fuel a national wave of organizing. Kahn says that the miners were encouraged by Eastover's management, headed by Norman Yarborough, to join a small "company union," the Southern Labor Union. Bill Doan says, "When I got hurt, I couldn't find Jim Miller, the man who had charge of the sick fund." Five miles north of Harlan, we drive up Inspiration Mountain. The unemployment rate in the county is 7 percent; that doesn't count those who have long since given up looking for the scarce or nonexistent jobs. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". Frame houses with rusty tin roofs. They are neatly and attractively dressed. Done. Visit us and take a step back in time to learn more about how Harlan County helped build a nation at Portal 31 Exhibition Mine tour or come experience the delight of . Wanted to be able to spend their money at a store of their choice besides the Black Mountain Coal Company store. Two hundred people crowd. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. Horn's letter questions the fair-mindedness of the inquiry members. [citation needed] On February 16, 1931, in order to prevent operating at a loss, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association cut miners' wages by 10%. On Friday, October 3, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt called a precedent-shattering meeting at the temporary White House at 22 Lafayette Place, Washington, D.C. A . Harlan County Revisited - Memory of a Miner Big Boy. Up at seven on a Monday morning, I walk out onto the balcony of my motel room. Benham Coal Company Records - University of Kentucky National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions Jul 5, 1938. Dateline Newport News, Virginia, November 12, 1931: Dreiser denies the charge and says he wants people to concentrate on the facts of the labor dispute and "get the American mind off sex for a moment." With this Supreme Court ruling, all but one of the open shops in Harlan County went back to the previous mine operations. We hope that you have enjoyed our stop in Bloody Harlan and the history of the longest and still ongoing coal struggles of the United States. Leroy Helton says miners often have to splice electrical cable, even though they're not qualified to do so. And always there is a murky roadside stream, beech and sycamore trees lining its banks. They want the terms of the standard UMW contract or better. Afterwards, they gathered near the picket line at the Eastover property in Brookside. Background to the 1931-32 Strike - University of Kentucky Unlike the previous Coal Wars that took place in West Virginia with the Paint-Creek Strike of 1912 and Matewan that lasted for a year or two. She talks about the women being armed with sticks, mace . In the year of "the energy crisis," Coal is King again at $30 a ton. I look at the government statistics once more. Harlan County, Kentucky is known for two things: bituminous coal and Bloody Harlan. A thousand feet below me lies a small, green valley, partly shrouded by the morning mist. The AFSC fed almost 1500 children in Harlan by the end of the 1931-2 schoolyear, as well as about a hundred nursing and expectant mothers. The National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP) was of the American Communist Party. (This . This was not just a flashy slogan, and the truth of it is . The company will probably demand a new election. The next morning the toothpicks were still in place, it was said. While their main objectives were a steady job, a decent wage and a program of safety checks . Figure 2: Harlan County Coal Mine Employment, 2000-2016, (KYEEC, 2017) In 1942, shortly after Harlan County experienced record high coal mine employment, the county experienced is highest production levels with 15.6 million tons of coal being produced in this year (KYEEC, 2017). It is also women's day before the Citizens In-quiry. That commitment has never waivered, and has grown . It was [and still is] used to signify that what happened in the realm of politics, a field largely controlled by men, affect women's everyday lives. the foreman would just say, "We gotta run coal. And you wondr why I keep running my mouth . Why haven't the car bodies been removed from the highway and the streets? The Kentucky Coal Association is an IRS designated 501 (c) (6) nonprofit organization that aims to educate its members and the public of coal production and safety in the state of Kentucky. What did the foremen say on those occasions? Eastover agreed to sign the 1971 wage pact of the Bituminous Coal Operators Association which is in force at 1,200 mines. But Barbara Bode has arranged for eleven of them to come up onto the stage at the same time, and they seem to take strength from their numbers. How does the Harlan County Coal Operators Association fit into the picture? Daniels was one of the most hated deputies in the county due to his anti-union views. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. It is home to lawyers, doctors and coal operators; it has a hospital, several banks and a few fast-food . On May 5, 1931, the Battle of Evarts began. (Brookside) were the only two mines of the Harlan County owner/operators association who rejected a 10% pay increase in 1933. "We took the sticks with us," she says. Even pop culture cannot ignore its impact with such shows as Justified. Interview with B. W. Whitfield, Jr., February 9, 1989 SPOKEdb I glance at the new Piedmont magazine, Pace. : The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 (Paperback) at the best online prices at eBay! If any attractive woman became interested in me, I'd think it was a very lovely thing. knee-deep in water, he has experienced many electrical shocks. The miners charge that the Harlan County Coal Operators Association is behind Eastover's refusal to sign a contract. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. Office files covering topics such as "accounts receivable," "baseball club," "coal production," "garnishment orders," "Harlan Coal Operator's Association," "labor conditions," "medical conditions . Wirtz says that his arbitration experience tells him that if Eastover really wants to negotiate in good faith, the remaining issues, tough as they are, can probably be worked out. Some of the women went to jail with the men, and some took their children with them. They had no safety committee, the miners say, and the federal reports bear them out. HARLAN COUNTY: Women - The Cinessential On September 9, 1935, for the first time since the beginning of the war, troops were dispatched to Harlan County on behalf of the miners by the Governor of the State of Kentucky. Now, along a cloudy green stream, or through deep cuts in the mountains, or high atop a timbered ridge, looking down on green quilt-patch valleys, we wind our way toward Harlan. "We want safety all the time, not just when the inspector comes," Jerry Johnson says. Harlan County in eastern Kentucky, which has been brought out into the spotlight this summer by the violence with which the local Coal Operators' Association has carried on this attack, is, as far as I can find out, a pretty good medium exhibit of the entire industry: living conditions are better than in Alabama and perhaps a little worse . The prospects for settlement do not look good unless Duke begins to feel public pressure. Yarborough tells us that the company does not now object to paying the miners for portal-to-portal time for inside mine work, but that the union wants comparability for outside workers too, in effect requiring the company to pay outside workers overtime for all work in excess of a seven and-a-quarter-hour regular day. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. On Jan. 25, 1890, a new union, the United Mine Workers of America, was formed, and in 1903 its young president, John Mitchell, led the union on a successful 24-week strike. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. The Sheriff reportedly got rich on payoffs from the companies, and he used 181 mine company gunmen as special deputies. That year, annual wages dropped from $1,235 to $749. Following this episode, the women say, Norman Yarborough asked Judge Hogg to hold the UMW and a number of miners and women in contempt of the Judge's order limiting the number of picketers to six. I've got five living children and four dead. Louis Stacy that he has several times been running a defective roofbolting machine when word came that inspector was on his way. Ky., told the Senate Civil Liberties Committee as it resumed its investigation of alleged terrorism in connection with Harlan County Coal Operators' efforts to resist union organization drives. ", Bill McQueen says that when the shuttle's lights and brakes were not working and the inspector was coming, the foreman would say, "Park it." The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". He does say, I think primarily for the record, that he would like to see negotiations begin again. Why couldn't Eastover live with the same national UMW contract that so many other companies have accepted? "Boss walks up and says, 'We've got to make this mine look good now, boys; the inspector's comin','" Jerry Johnson says. Violence erupted that would periodically repeat itself for the next eight years. The miners express extreme dissatisfaction with Eastover's medical and retirement benefits. No Neutrals: The Harlan County Miner's Strike of 1931 The group included John Dos Passos, Sherwood Anderson, and a number of other writers and artists. "The way I figured it, they done that because it was just a faster, way of getting coal." He said that when the coal industry was at its height in 1928, the peak of . Perched atop Inspiration Mountain is the modern Mount Aire Motel. "Dreiser, Woman Indicted," one headline reads. "I don't try to blacklist anybody," he says. Under this Act, the right to organize in ones workplace was granted as well as it outlawed any discrimination whether employed or seeking employment based on union membership. the meeting room. The unrest continues in Harlan and surrounding counties as there have been many strikes. Which Side are You on?: The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 Lois Scott explains that during the first confrontation at the mine, she saw a pistol in the front seat of every "scab" car she looked into and that a company "gun thug" pointed a submachine gun at the women from the porch of the Eastover office. They point out that most of the big coal companies, such as U.S. Steel and others, have signed UMW contracts, but that the smaller companies of eastern Kentucky have held out. With the added protection for workers and the addition of collective bargaining between the workers and their employers. A shoulder blade and five of his ribs were broken. After the Battle of Evarts, the Red Cross and the United Mine Workers Union refused to help the striking men on the basis that it was now an industrial conflict that needed to be resolved internally. Harry Caudill, attorney and author of Night Comes to the Cumberlands, will not be able to join us in Harlan because of legal business. 2011: $1,161,330. Even though things were doing better for the unions in Harlan County, there was still civil unrest. In 1970, Joseph Yablonski had led a rank-and-file revolt against Boyle, and Yablonski and his wife and daughter had been brutally murdered by killers hired with union funds. It was the most violent attack of the Harlan County Coal wars and the most violence would only last fifteen minutes in total but would forever change the name to Bloody Harlan. The roof is approximately forty-eight inches high in the mine. The Seco Train Accident September 20, 1917, New Bank in the Coal Country Installed in 1911, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Evarts, https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/new-deal/national-industrial-recovery-act-of-1933/, https://pipiwiki.com/wiki/Battle_of_Evarts, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_County_War, https://labornotes.org/blogs/2019/08/brief-history-harlan-county-usa, https://www.thebalancecareers.com/the-wagner-act-of-1935-national-labor-relations-act-2060509#:~:text=%20The%20Wagner%20Act%20defines%20and%20prohibits%20five,or%20administration%20of%20a%20labor%20organization.%20More%20, https://www.nytimes.com/1935/09/05/archives/bomb-in-auto-kills-kentucky-official-harlan-county-attorney.html#:~:text=HARLAN%2C%20Ky.%2C%20Sept.%204%20%28AP%29.%20%20The%20death,his%20automobile.%20View%20Full%20Article%20in%20Timesmachine%20%C2%BB, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/70804679/elmon-clay-middleton, https://www.nytimes.com/1935/09/06/archives/kentucky-holds-four-in-auto-bomb-killing-harlan-prosecutors-death.html, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/?fbclid=IwAR21nYphw4Dul-_EwuAmSWgzsvPLNwsMM0FtV75j0y-mGUHq-lCZjJxZot8, The Flatwoods Monster: Weird Appalachia Cases, Rotherwood Mansion: Weird Appalachia Cases, The Brown Mountain Ghostly Lights: Weird Appalachia Cases. With unprecedented access, Kopple and her crew captured the miners' sometimes violent struggles with strikebreakers, local police, and company thugs. Source Citation [ }] Descriptive Note Contributors from initial SNAC EAC-CPF ingest. Mr. "We could lay down, fight the police, or let them scabs go to work. And I can't get you off of that couch. Harlan County. The records show that Beach was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in 1954 and sentenced to ten years in the penitentiary, that he was later charged with carrying a concealed pistol (no disposition shown), and that in 1966 he was tried and acquitted on a murder charge. "Yarborough says he just don't want nobody tellin' him how to run his mine," Deaton says. Crossing the Clinch River, we turn onto Highway 421 and leave the modern world. Since the county began mining, over one billion tons of coal have When fuses blow, they are not immediately replaced; the cable is spliced or "hot-wired" around the fuse. They exercised their powers with impunity and operated under Sheriff J.H. Typical of counties with low income, counties where the mine companies own everything and pay low taxes, our UMW driver says. So we lay down in the road." Other times, he says, "Roof was workin', rock was a-hangin', and it sounded like thunder. As discussed in a previous video. However, they did make a greater effort than the United Mine Workers with relief as they opened soup kitchens around the county. ", We break for lunch, prepared by the women of the Evarts Community Center. The United Mine Workers of America represented 400,000 miners at that point and promised miners safer work conditions and higher wages. Resources | Harlan Coal Scrip 4 . Why wasn't the fuse replaced at once? This Day in Labor History: February 16, 1931 The UMW union called in the National Guard to help them. All too many Americans are under the naive belief that, while unions may have been necessary in the 30's, they are no longer needed in the United States today. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. (The union has told us that they are quite willing to limit the contract to the Brookside mine.) The committee has invited owners as well as workers to participate in the hearings, but the impression we get is that management will not appear. We gather back in Evarts and announce that our report will be ready in two or three weeks.
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