 | |
| Author | J. Anthony Lukas |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Assassination of Frank Steunenberg |
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
Publication date | 1997 |
| ISBN | 978-0-684-80858-1 |
| LC Class | F746 .L84 |
Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets Off a Struggle for the Soul of America is a 1997 non-fiction book by J. Anthony Lukas, published by Simon & Schuster. The book discusses the assassination of Frank Steunenberg in 1905 and the resulting trial.
As part of his research Lukas used historical documents with the total number of pages numbering in the thousands. [1]
Lukas committed suicide while in the process of finishing the last revision. Clyde Haberman of The New York Times reported that "several friends" stated he felt severe depression, with his agent Amanda Urban stating that Lukas believed the book was inadequate, even though Urban felt this was not the case. [2]
The book, with about 875 pages, [1] discusses private detective organizations like the Pinkertons who worked against organized labor as well as the livelihood of Steunenberg. [3] Dan Nailen of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News described the murder trial as the work's "centerpiece" and that other stories have "incredible detail and research". [4]
It was a finalist for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for History. [5]
Richard Lingeman in The New York Times wrote that the author "excavated a stratum of American history, tracing the fault line of class that sundered society in another time, and persists in our own." [3] Lingeman stated that the ending portion is "more problematic" compared to the rest of the book due to presenting "tenuous" evidence that William D. Haywood had committed the crime. [3]
Nailen wrote that the book had "richly detailed history" and highlighted "Lukas' ability to act as detective and editor in putting the tale together in an accurate and compelling way." [1] Nailen also stated that the "best and worst part" of the work is the author having an "obsession with telling the whole story". [4] Kirkus Reviews wrote that the book was "a fitting epitaph for" the deceased author and that it is "Provocative, maddening, deeply disturbing", but that there is "excessive detail" due to a lack of a "coherent story line". [6]
The Western Federation of Miners (WFM) was a labor union that gained a reputation for militancy in the mines of the western United States and British Columbia. Its efforts to organize both hard rock miners and smelter workers brought it into sharp conflicts – and often pitched battles – with both employers and governmental authorities. One of the most dramatic of these struggles occurred in the Cripple Creek district of Colorado in 1903–04; the conflicts were thus dubbed the Colorado Labor Wars. The WFM also played a key role in the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905, but left that organization several years later.
William Dudley "Big Bill" Haywood was a founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and a member of the executive committee of the Socialist Party of America. During the first two decades of the 20th century, Haywood was involved in several important labor battles, including the Colorado Labor Wars, the Lawrence Textile Strike, and other textile strikes in Massachusetts and New Jersey.
Frank Steunenberg was the fourth Governor of the State of Idaho, serving from 1897 until 1901. He was assassinated in 1905 by one-time union member Harry Orchard, who was also a paid informant for the Cripple Creek Mine Owners' Association. Orchard attempted to implicate leaders of the radical Western Federation of Miners in the assassination. The labor leaders were found not guilty in two trials, but Orchard spent the rest of his life in prison.
Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 is a non-fiction book by historians Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace. Based on over twenty years of research, it was published in 1998 by Oxford University Press and won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for History. The second volume, written by Wallace, was published in 2017, covering New York City history from 1898 through 1919. Initial plans were to have the second volume's timeline go through World War II, but due to the amount of material, an upcoming third volume should cover the period from 1920 until 1945.
Jay Anthony Lukas was an American journalist and author, probably best known for his 1985 book Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families. Common Ground is a classic study of race relations, class conflict, and school busing in Boston, Massachusetts, as seen through the eyes of three families: one upper-middle-class white, one working-class white, and one working-class African-American.
Lisa Pulitzer is an American author and journalist. Pulitzer is a former correspondent for The New York Times newspaper. She is the author/ghostwriter of more than fifteen non-fiction books. In addition to her own books, Pulitzer has written a number of memoirs including several about young women who have escaped fundamentalist religion including Jenna Miscavige Hill the former Scientologist, Lauren Drain the ex-member of Westboro Baptist Church and Elissa Wall who wrote about her experiences after leaving the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Pulitzer left journalism in 1998 while pregnant with her first child to concentrate on writing books and has had numerous publications on The New York Times Best Seller list.
Linda Barnes is an American mystery writer.
Neal Shusterman is an American writer of young-adult fiction. He won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature for his book Challenger Deep.
Albert Edward Horsley, best known by the pseudonym Harry Orchard, was a miner convicted of the 1905 political assassination of former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg. The case was one of the most sensational and widely reported of the first decade of the 20th century, involving three prominent leaders of the radical Western Federation of Miners as co-defendants in an alleged conspiracy to commit murder.
There were two related incidents between miners and mine owners in the Coeur d'Alene Mining District of North Idaho: the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor strike of 1892, and the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor confrontation of 1899. This article is a brief overview of both events.
Frank Robert Gooding was a Republican United States Senator and the seventh Governor of Idaho. The city of Gooding and Gooding County, both in southern Idaho, are named for him.
James McParland was an American private detective and Pinkerton agent.
Morris Friedman was, until 1905, the private stenographer for Pinkerton detective James McParland. Friedman came to the attention of the public when he published an exposé of anti-union actions by the private detective industry which was called The Pinkerton Labor Spy. The book focused in particular on how mining and ore milling companies used spies during the Colorado Labor Wars.
Steve Adams, sometimes known as Stephen Adams, was a miner and member of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) in the early 1900s. Adams was named as an accomplice in several murders by Harry Orchard, who said that the murders were done at the orders of the WFM leadership. Adams was tried three times for murder, but was never convicted.
Tomas Alexander Asuncion Tizon was a Filipino-American author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. His book Big Little Man, a memoir and cultural history, explores themes related to race, masculinity, and personal identity. Tizon taught at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. His final story, titled "My Family's Slave", was published as the cover story of the June 2017 issue of The Atlantic after his death, sparking significant debate.
The Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, labor riot of 1899 was the second of two major labor-management confrontations in the Coeur d'Alene mining district of northern Idaho in the 1890s. Like the first incident seven years earlier, the 1899 confrontation was an attempt by union miners, led by the Western Federation of Miners to unionize non-union mines, and have them pay the higher union wage scale. As with the 1892 strike, the 1899 incident culminated in a dynamite attack that destroyed a non-union mining facility, the burning of multiple homes and outbuildings and two murders, followed by military occupation of the district.
The Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, labor strike of 1892 erupted in violence when labor union miners discovered they had been infiltrated by a Pinkerton agent who had routinely provided union information to the mine owners. The response to that violence, disastrous for the local miners' union, became the primary motivation for the formation of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) the following year. The incident marked the first violent confrontation between the workers of the mines and their owners. Labor unrest continued after the 1892 strike, and surfaced again in the labor confrontation of 1899.
Kevin Sullivan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist, best-selling author and senior correspondent at The Washington Post.
Big Trouble may refer to:
Randall Sullivan is an American author and journalist who has also worked as a screenwriter, film and television producer and on-camera television personality.
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