Milton H. Fies | |
|---|---|
 1939 portrait | |
| Born | Milton Henry Fies 31 August 1882 |
| Died | October 20, 1970 (aged 88) |
| Burial place | Birmingham, Alabama |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Businessman |
| Employer | Henry T. DeBardeleben |
| Known for | Miner, engineer, and chemist |
| Title | Dr |
| Spouse | Rose Mayer |
| Parent(s) | Jacob Fies [1] Fannie (Kahn) Fies [2] |
Milton Henry Fies (31 August 1882 - 20 October 1970) was a Jewish-American engineer, miner, chemist, and town founder from Birmingham, Alabama. [3] [4]
Fies's father, Jacob Fies, was a German Jew who founded the Livery and Feed Stable Company in Birmingham, Alabama. [5] Jacob Fies, who was born in Trainbach, Alsace, Germany in 1827, came to Birmingham in 1882. By 1900 the J. Fies and Sons livery stable was by far the largest in the south. [6] Milton Fies was one of six children born to Jacob Fies and Fanne Kahn. [7]
Fies graduated as a Bachelor of Science from Columbia University, School of Mines in 1904. In 1907, he was married to Rose Mayer. From 1904 to 1910, he worked for Republic Iron and Steel Company as a resident engineer and then the superintendent of mines. From 1910 to 1912, he was the general superintendent of mines for the Birmingham Coal and Iron Company, and then subsequently took work with the DeBardeleben coal company. [2]
In 1912-13 the town of Sipsey, Alabama was laid out by Fies and his wife Rose. Fies was then superintendent of the local mine owned by Henry T. DeBardeleben and vice-president of the company, [8] as accommodation for the miners. [9] [10] Accommodation was segregated in keeping with the Jim Crow practices of the time, though the workers were better paid than in other mines. [11] Funds to construct the new school house at Sipsey ran out before it was finished, but DeBardeleben released more funds to finish it under Fies's urging, however, once it was finished only white residents were allowed to use it, with black residents having to make do with the dilapidated old school house for a number of more years before a new school was finally constructed for them. [12]
Fies has been praised for supporting the education of African-Americans. [13] During WW1 he supported paying black workers more in order to keep them from migrating to northern states to work in war-related industries as well as other northern industries, however the salaries offered in Birmingham remained less than those paid in the northern states. [14]
Fies also offered poor compensation to injured black workers, offering only $100 to a black worker who was badly burned whilst working at the Sipsey mine. [15] Later in life he declined to endorse the Tuskegee United Negro College Fund, stating that the fund already had enough support from "men of Hebraic religious affiliation" such as himself and that he did not wish to incite anti-Semitic sentiment. [13] Fies also offered to collect money owed to plantation managers by his black workers, essentially sharing them with the plantations. [16] When in 1914, a night boss killed a black miner for being "impertinent" and failing to show up to work, Fies responded by calling in a local deputy to arrest the other black miners who protested the killing, and then fired five of them. He similarly fired a black employee for "insulting" the wife of a company agent, and spoke of "...hanging the negro upon a limb and shooting him full of holes". [17]
Fies preferred a top-down approach to labour management through what he called "company welfare", where the company would offer amenities such as schools and hospitals to their workers. He stated that extending this to black workers was their "reward" for contributing to a "non-union Alabama". [18] Fies had been an outspoken advocate of abolishing the use of convict labour in the mines, however he moderated this position when it became apparent that this might strengthen the hand of the United Mine Workers union. [19] Fies fired a worker who he discovered was acting as a union organiser. [17]
Fies took part in research into Coal gasification in co-operation with the US Bureau of mines at Gorgas, Alabama. The research focused on attempts at gasification underground, and involved the first purposeful ignition of coal in-situ in the United States. [20] Initially the coal was ignited using thermite, [21] but later ignition was provided by electrical means, [22] and in a bed prepared via hydraulic fracturing. [23] The research was proposed by Fies in September 1946. [24] Fies took part in five years of experiments of in-situ coal gasification in an attempt to develop a way of burning coal for power without first having to extract it via mining whilst at the Alabama Power Company, and presented the results of this research in 1952, saying that it had come close to being ready for practical application. [25] Fies believed this research was important as he believed that the US would have exhausted its most important mineral reserves by the year 2000 (gasification was believed to be a more efficient way of extracting power), [21] and in order for the US not to fall behind international competitors. [26]
The experiments at Gorgas continued for seven years until 1953, at which point the US Bureau of Mines withdrew its support for them after the US Congress withdrew funding. In total 6,000 tons of coal were combusted by 1953 in these experiments. The experiments succeeded in producing combustible synthetic gas. [27] The experiments were reactivated after 1954, this time with hydrofracturing using a mixture of oil and sand, but finally discontinued in 1958 as uneconomical. [28]
Fies was the vice-president of the DeBardeleben company, [29] and was appointed as a consulting engineer of the United States Bureau of Mines by Harold L. Ickes in 1939. [30] In 1949, work was begun on a mine near Madisonville, Kentucky that was to be named after him. [31] The mine was opened in a ceremony in 1950 attended by Fies. [32] In 1952 Fies was a nominee for the 1952 "Man of the South" hall of fame rune by Dixie Business. [33] Fies received the "Conservation Service Award" from the US department of the interior in 1956. He was also declared a "Golden Citizen" by the Birmingham Advertiser Club in the same year. The Alabama legislature declared Fies an "outstanding civic and industrial leader" in a resolution passed by the legislature in 1965. [4]
His wrote a history entitled "A Man with a Light on his Cap-Being a Brief Chronicle of Coal Mining in Walker County: 1912-1960, which published in 1960. [2] Fies died in 1970 at the age of 88. [4]
Bessemer is a city in Jefferson County, Alabama, United States and a southwestern suburb of Birmingham. The population was 26,019 at the 2020 census. It is within the Birmingham-Hoover, AL Metropolitan Statistical Area, of which Jefferson County is the center. It developed rapidly as an industrial city in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Sipsey is a town in Walker County, Alabama, United States. In the 2010 census, the population was 437, down from the previous 552 in the year 2000.
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 were killed, including miners' wives and children. John D. Rockefeller Jr. was a part-owner of CF&I who had recently appeared before a United States congressional hearing on the strikes, and he was widely blamed for having orchestrated the massacre.
The Lattimer massacre refers to a Luzerne County sheriff's posse killing at least 19 unarmed striking immigrant anthracite miners at the Lattimer mine near Hazleton, Pennsylvania on September 10, 1897. The miners were mostly of Polish, Slovak, Lithuanian and German ethnicities. Scores more miners were wounded in the attack by the posse. The massacre was a turning point in the history of the United Mine Workers (UMW).
Underground coal gasification (UCG) is an industrial process which converts coal into product gas. UCG is an in-situ gasification process, carried out in non-mined coal seams using injection of oxidants and steam. The product gas is brought to the surface through production wells drilled from the surface.
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 2024.
Coal mining in the United Kingdom dates back to Roman times and occurred in many different parts of the country. Britain's coalfields are associated with Northumberland and Durham, North and South Wales, Yorkshire, the Scottish Central Belt, Lancashire, Cumbria, the East and West Midlands and Kent. After 1972, coal mining quickly collapsed and had practically disappeared by the 21st century. The consumption of coal—mostly for electricity—fell from 157 million tonnes in 1970 to 18 million tonnes in 2016, of which 77% was imported from Colombia, Russia, and the United States. Employment in coal mines fell from a peak of 1,191,000 in 1920 to 695,000 in 1956, 247,000 in 1976, 44,000 in 1993, 2,000 in 2015, and to 360 in 2022.
The 1920 Alabama coal strike, or the Alabama miners' strike, was a statewide strike of the United Mine Workers of America against coal mine operators. The strike was marked by racial violence, and ended in significant defeat for the union and organized labor in Alabama.
The Illinois coal wars, also known as the Illinois mine wars and several other names, were a series of labor disputes between 1898 and 1900 in central and southern Illinois.
People have worked as coal miners for centuries, but they became increasingly important during the Industrial Revolution when coal was burnt on a large scale to fuel stationary and locomotive engines and heat buildings. Owing to coal's strategic role as a primary fuel, coal miners have figured strongly in labor and political movements since that time.
Valdez is an unincorporated community and a census-designated place (CDP) located in and governed by Las Animas County, Colorado, United States. From 1907 to 1960, Valdez served as a company town for Colorado Fuel & Iron and its Frederick coal mine, the company's most productive and second largest. The population of the Valdez CDP was 46 at the United States Census 2020. The Trinidad post office serves the area.
Acmar is a former unincorporated community and neighborhood within the city of Moody in St. Clair County, in the U.S. state of Alabama.
Heman Edward Drummond was an American businessman from Alabama. He was the founder of the Drummond Company, a coal-mining company.
Henry Fairchild DeBardeleben was an American coal magnate and town founder from Alabama.
Henry Ticknor DeBardeleben was an American coal magnate from Alabama.
Patton was an unincorporated community in Walker County, in the U.S. state of Alabama. "Patton" and "Patton Junction" are often treated as different names for a single community.
Coleanor, also known as Coal-Eleanor, is an unincorporated community in Bibb County, Alabama, United States.
Piper is an unincorporated community in Bibb County, Alabama, United States.
Gorgas is a settlement in Walker and Tuscaloosa counties, Alabama, United States. It is named, via a former school in the area, after William Crawford Gorgas.
References Owen's The Story of Alabama, Vol. 5.
