The United Mine Workers of America is a North American labor union best known for representing coal miners. Today, the Union also represents health care workers, truck drivers, manufacturing workers and public employees in the United States and Canada. Although its main focus has always been on workers and their rights, the UMW of today also advocates for better roads, schools, and universal health care. By 2014, coal mining had largely shifted to open pit mines in Wyoming, and there were only 60,000 active coal miners. The UMW was left with 35,000 members, of whom 20,000 were coal miners, chiefly in underground mines in Kentucky and West Virginia. However it was responsible for pensions and medical benefits for 40,000 retired miners, and for 50,000 spouses and dependents.
The Ludlow Massacre was a mass killing perpetrated by anti-striker militia during the Colorado Coalfield War. Soldiers from the Colorado National Guard and private guards employed by Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) attacked a tent colony of roughly 1,200 striking coal miners and their families in Ludlow, Colorado, on April 20, 1914. Approximately 21 people, including miners' wives and children, were killed. John D. Rockefeller Jr., a part-owner of CF&I who had recently appeared before a United States congressional hearing on the strikes, was widely blamed for having orchestrated the massacre.
The Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency was a private detective agency in the United States from the early 1890s to 1937. The agency's members played a key role in the events that led to the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921 and violent repression of labor union members. Significant incidents, later collectively known as the Coal Wars, occurred in various locations. The Pocahontas Coalfield region of West Virginia witnessed some of these events. Among these incidents are the Paint Creek–Cabin Creek strike of 1912 in West Virginia, 1913–1914 Colorado Coalfield War, and the Battle of Matewan in 1920.
The Battle of Matewan was a shootout in the town of Matewan in Mingo County and the Pocahontas Coalfield mining district, in southern West Virginia. It occurred on May 19, 1920 between local coal miners and their allies and the Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency. The dead included two brothers of the detective agency's founder and Matewan's mayor Cabell Testerman, who supported the union.
The Battle of Blair Mountain was the largest labor uprising in United States history and is the largest armed uprising since the American Civil War. The conflict occurred in Logan County, West Virginia, as part of the Coal Wars, a series of early-20th-century labor disputes in Appalachia.
Denise Giardina is an American novelist. Her book Storming Heaven was a Discovery Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and received the 1987 W. D. Weatherford Award for the best published work about the Appalachian South. The Unquiet Earth received an American Book Award and the Lillian Smith Book Award for fiction. Her 1998 novel Saints and Villains was awarded the Boston Book Review fiction prize and was semifinalist for the International Dublin Literary Award. Giardina is an ordained Episcopal Church deacon, a community activist, and a former candidate for governor of West Virginia.
The Rock Springs massacre, also known as the Rock Springs riot, occurred on September 2, 1885, in the present-day United States city of Rock Springs in Sweetwater County, Wyoming. The riot, and resulting massacre of immigrant Chinese miners by European immigrant miners, was the result of racial prejudice toward the Chinese miners, who were perceived to be taking jobs from the existing miners. The Union Pacific Coal Department found it economically beneficial to give preference in hiring to Chinese miners, who were willing to work for lower wages than their European counterparts, which angered the existing miners. When the rioting ended, at least 28 Chinese miners were dead and 15 were injured. Rioters burned 78 Chinese homes, resulting in approximately $150,000 in property damage. Despite the identification of the perpetrators, no individuals were prosecuted for the murders or property destruction.
The Paint Creek–Cabin Creek Strike, or the Paint Creek Mine War, was a confrontation between striking coal miners and coal operators in Kanawha County, West Virginia, centered on the area enclosed by two streams, Paint Creek and Cabin Creek.
The West Virginia coal wars (1912–1921), also known as the mine wars, arose out of a dispute between coal companies and miners.
James Robert Green was an American historian, author, and labor activist. He was Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
The Bituminous coal strike of 1977–1978 was a 110-day national coal strike in the United States led by the United Mine Workers of America. It began December 6, 1977, and ended on March 19, 1978. It is generally considered a successful union strike, although the contract was not beneficial to union members.
Arnold Ray Miller was a miner and labor activist who served as president of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), AFL–CIO, from 1972 to 1979. Winning as a reform candidate, he gained positive changes for the miners, including compensation for black lung disease. He had difficulty dealing with growing internal union opposition. His last two years as president were particularly tumultuous and he suffered two heart attacks, finally resigning in November 1979 with the title of "president emeritus for life".
Charles Miner was an anti-slavery advocate and politician who served in the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives from 1807 to 1808 and the United States House of Representatives from 1825 to 1829. He was a member of the Federalist Party. During his terms in Congress, he proposed to end the slave trade in the District of Columbia and gradually abolish slavery across the city.
Powers Hapgood (1899–1949) was an American trade union organizer and Socialist Party leader known for his involvement with the United Mine Workers in the 1920s.
Peter P. Jurchak was a well-known and respected Slovak attorney who made great strides in the equal representation of Slovak immigrants and coal miners in Northeastern Pennsylvania during the first half of the twentieth century, as well as wrote several books on the advancement of the Slovak people in America.
The history of coal mining in the United States starts with the first commercial use in 1701, within the Manakin-Sabot area of Richmond, Virginia. Coal was the dominant power source in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and although in rapid decline it remains a significant source of energy in 2023.
The Pittston Coal strike was a United States strike action led by the United Mine Workers Union (UMWA) against the Pittston Coal Company, nationally headquartered in Pittston, Pennsylvania. The strike, which lasted from April 5, 1989 to February 20, 1990, resulted from Pittston's termination of health care benefits for approximately 1,500 retirees, widows, and disabled miners. The strikers also cited the refusal of the company to contribute to the benefit trust established in 1950 for miners who retired before 1974 and the refusal of the company to bargain in good faith as grounds for their action. The company cited declining coal prices, decreasing demand, and recession as its reason for limiting health care benefits.
Fall of Giants is a 2010 historical novel by Welsh author Ken Follett. It is the first part of the Century Trilogy which follows five interrelated families throughout the course of the 20th century. The first book covers notable events such as World War I, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women's suffrage. The sequel Winter of the World covers World War II and was published on September 18, 2012. The third book, Edge of Eternity, covers the Cold War and was published in 2014.
Slavery in Virginia began with the capture and enslavement of Native Americans during the early days of the English Colony of Virginia and through the late eighteenth century. They primarily worked in tobacco fields. Africans were first brought to colonial Virginia in 1619, when 20 Africans from present-day Angola arrived in Virginia aboard the ship The White Lion.
The Colorado Coalfield War was a major labor uprising in the southern and central Colorado Front Range between September 1913 and December 1914. Striking began in late summer 1913, organized by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) against the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel and Iron (CF&I) after years of deadly working conditions and low pay. The strike was marred by targeted and indiscriminate attacks from both strikers and individuals hired by CF&I to defend its property. Fighting was focused in the southern coal-mining counties of Las Animas and Huerfano, where the Colorado and Southern railroad passed through Trinidad and Walsenburg. It followed the 1912 Northern Colorado Coalfield Strikes.
