The men and women were released on good behavior. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. Special Judge F. Byrd Hogg, a neighboring county judge who has been assigned to the case, entered an early order limiting the strikers to three pickets at each of two entrances to the Eastover Mining Company property. Nevertheless, as the county seat, the city of Harlan has resources much of the county lacks. Don Dalton, UMW Safety Director for Region Six, explains this. The members of the Inquiry panel leave the Community Center to visit the coal camp at Brookside-rows of delapidated frame houses, identical except for their weathering gray, green, red, and beige paint. You come out of there lookin' like a hog that's been rootin' in the mud.' ", We break for lunch, prepared by the women of the Evarts Community Center. What will happen now that the first full year after the union election is ending? ", What about the Southern Labor Union? The transcript will be published as a book. Three Harlan County incorporated towns were not owned by the coal mines, they became a sanctuary for the evicted and starving miners. McQueen says that in late 1972 he burned his fingers to the bone on a switchbox where a blown fuse had been hot-wired. ", What about federal inspection? The women are nervous about testifying, afraid of retaliation. The Brookside mine is capable of producing only about a half-million tons of the 15 million tons of coal Duke uses each year. Here at Kentucky Tennessee Living we fully support the coal miners and their families. The most shocking moment in Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976) looks at first like an abstract painting. CBS is represented by a camera crew, and there are a number of national reporters. KCA's constitution and by-laws were adopted on April 28, 1947, "to promote the best interest of the coal mining industry in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and all those engaged therein". Movie Review: Harlan County, USA (1976) - organizing.work These disputes were still brewing when on December 8, 1934, the United Mine Workers Union was threatened by deputies and mine bosses. [ 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%. Duke Power Company appears to be the key to breaking the deadlock in negotiations. Now and then, there is a neat, new frame house or a Pic and Pay market between scattered tarpaper shacks. This Day in Labor History: February 16, 1931 I look at the government statistics once more. Appalachia: Coal Operators Oral History Project SPOKEdb One of the better houses is already being demolished. He run all the way down the stairs and out of the jail." There were constant beatings of the miners by the Sheriffs deputies. Though the union had made substantial inroads into the Central Appalachian coalfields by 1930, when miners in Bell and Harlan Counties went out on strike in early May, 1931, the UMWA removed its support. Quakers and Bloody Harlan - Appalachian History This was thirteen percent of the workers showing up for their scheduled work times. 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." The Benham Coal Company records (151 cubic feet, 302 Boxes; dated 1911-1973) focus primarily on the early years of Benham Coal through the 1940s. Harry Simms, who was a Young Communist League organizer was killed in Harlan. The strikebreakers were under the protection of private mine guards. We first hear from a number of the striking miners about safety conditions in the Brookside mine. Forty percent of the county's dwellings lack some or all of plumbing, water, or toilet facilities. The miners say that they want their own safety committee, elected by the miners, as the standard UMW contract provides, with the right to walk out, losing their pay, when there is eminent danger in the mine. One of the Deputies was Jim Daniels. Blair made it clear that he was on the side of the mine operators and the people of the county lost any illusion that the law enforcement would be impartial in this strike. Benham Coal Company Records - University of Kentucky She pays $10 a month for rent and $10 a month for electricity. HARLAN COUNTYHarlan County, Kentucky, is a rural county located in a major coal-mining region in the Appalachian Mountains. Harlan, city, seat of Harlan county, southeastern Kentucky, U.S., in the Cumberland Mountains, on the Clover Fork Cumberland River. The decade-long conflict between miners and the coal operators who adamantly resisted unionization has been immortalized in folksong by Florence Reece and Aunt Molly Jackson, contemplated in prose by Theodore Dreiser and Sherwood Anderson, and long been obscured by . We're all involved. With unprecedented access, Kopple and her crew captured the miners' sometimes violent struggles with strikebreakers, local police, and company thugs. A Brief History of Harlan County, USA | Labor Notes Harlan Fuel Co. Download PDF. Harlan Daily Enterprise, September 17, 1943. Mr. Nolan, a resident of Cawood, is survived by his wife, Mrs. Stella Nolan . "The personal is political" was a rallying cry of second wave feminism. When fuses blow, they are not immediately replaced; the cable is spliced or "hot-wired" around the fuse. We gather back in Evarts and announce that our report will be ready in two or three weeks. They relate federal mine-safety figures which show that in 1971 the accident rate in the Brookside mine was three times the national average, and in 1972 was twice the national average. Among coal miners, Harlan County, Kentucky, is known as "Bloody Harlan." The company will probably demand a new election. 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. Segment Synopsis: Lois Scott continues her conversation from her previous interview. 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). The bosses wouldn't go in, but I've. Working barns of gray-black weathered wood. If you protested this safety violation, he says, "the boss would just say, 'Run it.'" Poffitt, Jacqueline Brophy, and I meet the other members of the Citizens Inquiry in a private dining room in the Mount Aire: James David Barber, chairman of the Political Science Department at Duke University and author of The Presidential Character; Monsignor Geno Baroni, president of the National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs, a Catholic priest whose father is a retired Pennsylvania miner with black lung; Barbara Bode, president of the Children's Foundation in Washington; and Dr. Raymond Wheeler of Charlotte, North Carolina, president of the Southern Regional Council. A month later, back in Washington, I meet with Bernie Aaronson at UMW headquarters. In 1973 the 13-month Brookside Strike brought almost 200 workers to battle Eastover Coal Company's Brookside Mine and Prep Plant, a company owned by Duke Power. Four men were arrested in connection with this murder. [Verse 2] I got 27 peopl coming over to this house. Miners also wanted the right to organize and have a union. Clyde V Bennett Jr. (1930-2000) - Find a Grave Memorial Pierce has brought the actual Courier-Journal clippings about the Dreiser inquiry and shares them with us. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Lifelong resident of Harlan. It seems to me that for a great many people in Harlan County-for poor people and a lot of coal miners the whole county is a jail. McDonald's. The Harlan County Coal Wars 1931-1939 - Kentucky Tennessee Living Some of the miners also claim that the state police have tried to intimidate them. Trailer parks called Walnut Grove, Mobile Manor, and Mesa Village Mobile Manor. As part of his New Deal, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt presented and had passed the National Industrial Act. ", "They've done discriminated me," Grover Jennings continues. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. . knee-deep in water, he has experienced many electrical shocks. The Brookside labor dispute erupted spontaneously soon after Miller's election. The trees are barely beginning to bud in the early March warmth. Herndon J. Evans, the editor of the Pineville Sun, argued, The troubles of the coal industry had their inception in war times. When this strike was broken in1924, none of the non-union mines in Harlan County, all of which were members ofthe Harlan County Coal Operators Association, would employ a man from BlackMountain."Many of the men who worked at Black Mountain transferred to LocalUnion No. So we lay down in the road." 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. Theoretically, even operators' and owners' children were . Frame houses with rusty tin roofs. Darrell Deaton, president of the Brookside UMW local, says he was caught in a belt line last year because he had to work alone, without a helper. A shoulder blade and five of his ribs were broken. There is a hard edge in her voice, and her blue-gray eyes are flashing. The miners say that, somehow, management always knows when the government inspectors are coming. She doesn't know where she will go when the camp is closed. "We could lay down, fight the police, or let them scabs go to work. The coal miners, lean and tough from Kentucky mountain life, knew how to fight back. There had been several clashes with the "scabs," the mine guards, and the state police, Kahn says. The Great Depression of 1929 through the late 1930s hit Harlan County Kentucky. Rev. With the opening left by the United Mine Workers union the openly Communist (NMU) National Miners Union tried to help the miners to organize. (Fifty million tons of union coal are mined in western Kentucky; only 6.5 million tons of union coal are mined in eastern Kentucky.) Carl Horn of Duke Power and Arnold Miller of the UMW had talked, and negotiations had been resumed. Only three of the families in the camp have indoor toilets. After the railroad arrived in 1911 . Their foothold there ultimately ended because the local clergy who were the labor organizers found out that the union was communist in nature and held animosity toward religion. Our drive takes us upstream along the yellow-brown Clear Fork River. "Then he'd come out looking like a sheep-killing dog and get in his truck and run. It has assets worth $2.5 billion. Strikebreakers were often beaten. 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. If any attractive woman became interested in me, I'd think it was a very lovely thing. "The way I figured it, they done that because it was just a faster, way of getting coal." The Harlan Daily Enterprise story of September 16, 1943 is serious and straightforward: 17 miners are trapped a mile underground and help is on the way.. Much of the story is about help. In response to the violence, the Kentucky National Guard was called upon and arrived for the first time in the county to try to stem the violence. There's water in the mine because the pumps often won't work. The National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP) was of the American Communist Party. "We've took about all we can take," he says. But, Aaronson says, Norman Yarborough had then called back to say, simply, that there was nothing of further interest to them in the negotiations More public pressure on Duke is needed, he says. Harlan: Working under the Gun - Social Welfare History Project Si Kahn says that Eastover tried for a time to operate the mine with "scabs," but that the mine was shut down when the coal miners' wives and other women joined the men on the picket line. . The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 (Paperback) at the best online prices at eBay! Blaine Sergent, coal leader, putting up his check at the end of a workday in Harlan County, Kentucky, in 1946. 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 name comes from a series of United Mine Workers strikes and labor-management battles which ended in a gunfight between deputized mine guards and miners on May 4, 1931, in the tiny community of Evarts. Throughout 1931, violence sprouted between miners Dixon and union leaders worry that the union's disappearance in Kentucky has opened the door for coal operators to . Harlan, Kentucky coal miner killed - World Socialist Web Site - wsws.org We soon get into a discussion about Dreiser's 1931 inquiry. Yarborough comes out of a staff meeting and ushers us hack to a large, paneled meeting room with folding tables and chairs. "Faith, power, and conflict: Miner preachers and the United Mine Worker The Great Depression of 1929 through the late 1930s hit Harlan County Kentucky. Lois Scott says that the women organized the Brookside Women's Club and got involved in the strike "because we knew that if the women didn't come in there would be violence." Burger Chef. The Federal Government, with the Commissioner of Labor in a fact finding role, acted as a 'neutral' for the first time in contributing to settlement of the bitter coal strike. The Brookside Women's Club of Harlan County - New York Women in Film Why couldn't Eastover live with the same national UMW contract that so many other companies have accepted? The Price of Coal, Part I - kentuckymonthly.com From July 30, 2019, through September 28, 2019, coal miners and their families have blocked roads and railways demanding their payment. Leroy Helton says he still owes a lot of bills that should have been paid by SLU. Harlan County, Kentucky in a Post-Coal America: A Case Study Si says Harlan is a dry countyno legal liquor and no beer. Some of the women went to jail with the men, and some took their children with them. 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. He says that he will not agree to the Brookside contract applying to "all" of Eastover's operations. There were only three cars in the motorcade each of which contained a sheriffs deputy. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". James Willard Pope officiating. What a marvelous view! Before this war was over it is not known exactly how many miners, coal operators, deputies, and bosses would be killed. 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. safety director for the Harlan County Coal Operators Association; Moss Paterson, chief of the State Bureau of Mines and Minerals, and State and Federal mine inspectors. The company also agreed to abide by any agreement reached between the . PDF "I Am a Union Woman": Gender, Class, and Folk Music in The Harlan In Harlan County, Kentucky, are some of our country's richest natural resourcesand some of its poorest people. James Sizemore says that frequently float dust, which is dangerously explosive, would get too heavy in the mine, and he would complain, but that. In the throes of the Great Depression, Harlan County coal owners and operators, in an effort to expand national dependency on their fuel, chose to sell below cost. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to . When the smoke had cleared, the bodies of three guards and one miner were found, and an undetermined number of other dead and dying had been carried away into the mountains. J. D. Skidmore says that, back in the mines, the phones are always out of order, there is no transportation out until the end of the shift, and it's a one-hour walk to daylight. But will Norman Yarborough ever agree to recognize the UMW? Kentucky communities discussed include Artemus, Burdine, Jenkins, Jellico, Van Lear, and Wheelwright; and Kentucky counties include Bell, Clay, Floyd, Harlan . They had no safety committee, the miners say, and the federal reports bear them out. He discusses the formation and activities of the Harlan County Coal Operators Association . It is thought that Middleton was assassinated for backing troops who were present in the County to protect the miners. Conflict broke out again the 1970s in what was known as the Brookside strike. But relatives did come and take the children. He was transferred to a worse section, he says. In response, the coal owners and operators decided to sell their fuel at below cost to increase the national dependency on coal. Neither will Dr. Robert Coles, psychiatrist and author of Children of Crisis. They say no action has been taken on this report. The Harlan County coal miners campaigned and fought to organize their workplaces and better their wages and working conditions. Up at seven on a Monday morning, I walk out onto the balcony of my motel room. During the rest of the afternoon, the miners talk about what has happened on the picket line and in the local court. The sign man for R C Cola has worked this territory well. 1940-49 Harlan Co Miners Deaths - USGenWeb sites corporateBody associatedWith : Heyl & Patterson, Inc . The miners speak of other dissatisfactions with Eastover and the old Southern Labor Union contract. Exist Dates. And you wondr why I keep running my mouth . Over one thousand shots were exchanged during those fifteen minutes. She speaks in a soft, pleasant voice. At Washington's National Airport, I board Piedmont Airline's fat little silver jet on a Sunday afternoon in early March. Harlan County War | Military Wiki | Fandom Others say they intend to speak and write about what they have heard. Soon enough, most miners had gone on strike out of solidarity. Early accounts of the Harlan County mine wars place the inability of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) to establish a permanent foothold in the county, first at the feet of the Harlan County Coal Operators Association (HCCOA) and secondly at the worn work boots of miners who, when work was plentiful, saw little or no need for a union. The nearest ridge is green with spruce and pine. by Ron Soodalter. There were only nine hundred miners working and 5,800 miners were idle and striking during the first strike. Established in 1916, its membership consisted of nearly all the large mining companies, and it represented the major political force in the county. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. He then answers a question he wasn't asked. 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. The median family income is $4600 a year. Destitute miners were in no position to take a 2 wage cut; yet, in February of 1931 the newest in a long series of wage cuts occurred, reducing miners' weekly pay by 10 percent. The Harlan County Coal Operators Association, still functioning today, spent nearly a half million dollars from 1927 to 1938 to combat unionism, most of it going to pay strongarm men to terrorize . Battle of Evartshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Evarts, National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/new-deal/national-industrial-recovery-act-of-1933/, Battle of Evartshttps://pipiwiki.com/wiki/Battle_of_Evarts, Battle of Evartshttps://wiki2.org/en/Battle_of_Evarts, Harlan County Warhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_County_War, A Brief History of Harlan County, USAhttps://labornotes.org/blogs/2019/08/brief-history-harlan-county-usa, Harlan County Warhttps://everipedia.org/Harlan_County_War, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/background-coal-strike, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/local-elite, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/new-york-writers, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/national-miners-union-and-other-radical-groups, The Wagner Act of 1935 (National Labor Relations Act)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, BOMB IN AUTO KILLS KENTUCKY OFFICIAL; Harlan County Attorney Predicted Assassination for Backing Troops in Election.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, Elmon Clay Middleton https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/70804679/elmon-clay-middleton, KENTUCKY HOLDS FOUR IN AUTO BOMB KILLING; Harlan Prosecutors Death Is Laid to His Fight Against Slot Machines.https://www.nytimes.com/1935/09/06/archives/kentucky-holds-four-in-auto-bomb-killing-harlan-prosecutors-death.html, Blackjewel Bankruptcy Leaves Damaged Lands and Miners Compensation in Limbo, https://ohiovalleyresource.org/2021/03/22/blackjewel-bankruptcy-finalized/, This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/?fbclid=IwAR21nYphw4Dul-_EwuAmSWgzsvPLNwsMM0FtV75j0y-mGUHq-lCZjJxZot8, For more about us, you can visit our Facebook at:https://www.facebook.com/kytnliving, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs0oV5gFzIS2JdMJ3HvTOgA, When we forget our past and who we are as a people, then we become who they say we are. Find the perfect harlan county coal stock photo, image, vector, illustration or 360 image. Interview with Lois Scott, August 27, 1986 - Nunn Center There was an addition to where miners could choose their own representation for these negotiations. In Harlan County on July 7, 1935, during a celebration of the Wagner Act, a group of disgruntled deputies severely beat up several miners and dispersed the crowd. Faith Primitive Baptist Church. The United Mine Workers of America represented 400,000 miners at that point and promised miners safer work conditions and higher wages. Two more Inquiry panel members join us, Willard Wirtz, who was Secretary of Labor under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and the Reverend Max Glenn, executive director of the Commission on Religion in Appalachia. While their main objectives were a steady job, a decent wage and a program of safety checks . Finally, in 1939, the coal companies agreed to allow unions in their coal mine operations. They lobby in Frankfort and Washington and sponsor an annual "Coal Miners Day" to try to get more high school students interested in mining engineering. Grace Elizabeth Hale. 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.
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