There were only nine hundred miners working and 5,800 miners were idle and striking during the first strike. We return to our series on the Coal Wars of the United States with Bloody Harlan and the Battle for Evarts. The Price of Coal, Part II - kentuckymonthly.com They fed strikers' children as well as the employed, blacks as well as whites. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. 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. They have probably helped keep their own men from exploding too. After this, the first strike occurred, in which only about 13% of strikers showed up to work. COMING THE BOYS OF HARLAN - The Washington Post Life After Coal in Harlan County, U.S.A. - In These Times 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. It has assets worth $2.5 billion. Whitfield's family was from Alabama where his father had been in the coal business. Hazard County documentary / produced by H. Sinclair. - Internet Archive Capitalizing on the general . 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. Crossing the Clinch River, we turn onto Highway 421 and leave the modern world. 25 (N.L.R.B. The Harlan County coal miners campaigned and fought to organize their workplaces and better their wages and working conditions. 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. 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. We are picked up at the airport by Si (for Simon) Kahn, a Pennsylvania rabbi's son who graduated from Harvard, came to the Southern mountains as a Vista worker, and remained here, working for local community groups. She talks about the women being armed with sticks, mace . 8 N.L.R.B. Featuring a haunting soundtrack-with legendary country . She pays $10 a month for rent and $10 a month for electricity. They have done this only since the Brookside strike. 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. Sheriff Blair was voted out of his office in 1933 and died just a year later. It took forty-five minutes for someone to come and help get him out, Deaton says. Big Boy. There are very few vacant houses in the county. Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. - Details - SNAC I have an Associates Degree from Hazard Community College and Technical School. "I don't like to handle that raw juice," he says. Nannie Rainey takes us into her four-room house where she and her husband and five children live. What will happen now that the first full year after the union election is ending? Pay ranged from $17 to $32 day, the average being $25. . (This . They made several attempts at holding strikes against the coal companies, but these failed in Harlan County. Harlan County War History, Impact, The Free Encyclopedia Interment at Resthaven Cemetery, Keith, Ky. Visitation 6-9 p.m. at the Grays Knob Bible Church. The United Mine Workers union also cited that they did not have the resources to help in the battle. Daniels was one of the most hated deputies in the county due to his anti-union views. The group included John Dos Passos, Sherwood Anderson, and a number of other writers and artists. The Harlan County Coal Wars lasted from 1931-1939. Typical of counties with low income, counties where the mine companies own everything and pay low taxes, our UMW driver says. If you wouldn't do it, they'd just say, 'Get your bucket.' They are neatly and attractively dressed. I glance at the new Piedmont magazine, Pace. A Brief History of Harlan County, USA. PDF "I Am a Union Woman": Gender, Class, and Folk Music in The Harlan The mining company had ordered a motorcade to deliver food and supplies to the strikebreakers known as Scabs. Only three of the families in the camp have indoor toilets. They want portal-to-portal pay from the time they enter the mine until they leave it. The miners say that, somehow, management always knows when the government inspectors are coming. We first hear from a number of the striking miners about safety conditions in the Brookside mine. Leroy Helton says he still owes a lot of bills that should have been paid by SLU. There was no functioning safety committee Medical and retirement benefits were minimal and unreliable. The unrest continues in Harlan and surrounding counties as there have been many strikes. Other clippings detail the earlier bloodshed and misery in Harlan County. Toilets are built out over the river, and the water has obviously been much higher in the recent past. Soon enough, most miners had gone on strike out of solidarity. Dalton points out that there were 132 mine fatalities in the United States in 1973, only seventeen of them in UMW mines. This series of skirmishes and strikes, lasting from early 1931 into 1939, began because of the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association's (HCCOA) decision to cut miners' wages by 10%. Middleton died on the scene. Members of The Harlan County Medical Society 1932 The miners say that they often have to stand knee-deep in water while handling 440-volt electrical cables. "They don't want miners havin' any say in safety." "But if they call me and ask if a man works for me, I simply say yes or no.". Hell in Harlan - front page We stop for fish and chips at a chain-operated Long John Silver's Sea Food Shoppe, as out of place in the Cumberlands as a clam in a spruce tree. He run all the way down the stairs and out of the jail." But what of the people of Harlan County? The Harlan County Wars took on its own epic spin on the ongoing fight between labor disputes and the coal operators and owners lasting almost ten years. Bright yellow forsythia has begun to bloom in the yards of Harlan and Brookside and Evarts. On May 24, 1931, Sheriff Blair rescinded the miners right to assemble and tear-gassed a union rally. California labor activist Caroline Decker also raised money for the relief of the striking miner efforts. This action did not go unnoticed by the labor unions and the United Mine Workers union decided to attempt to organize the already-impoverished labor force of the area. Three of the federal reports state that there was no safety committee at Brookside, as required by law. Mine operators formed the 1 Harlan County Coal Operators Association and through this organization made collective decisions concerning the mines. Si says Harlan is a dry countyno legal liquor and no beer. We drive through the streets of the town of Harlan, past the stores and houses, past the Harlan Baptist Church with a sign out front which reads: "If you are unkind, you are the wrong kind." In the bloody 1930s coal wars, miners known to be union members were fired and evicted from company-owned homes. Battle of Evarts - Wikipedia (Eastover offered fifty cents a ton.) Miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, have drawn national attention with their direct action occupying a railroad track to halt a coal train . By 1908 the union had . I say that the issue is whether or not the men will be allowed to have their own union to protect their safety and secure and maintain decent wages and benefits, that if enough pressure is put on Duke Power Company, maybe something will give. As part of his New Deal, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt presented and had passed the National Industrial Act. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". Before this war was over it is not known exactly how many miners, coal operators, deputies, and bosses would be killed. 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. A Committee was formed and conducted by Activist Theodore Dreiser under the auspices of the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP). Each of us makes a statement. The Price of Coal, Part II. But I ain't leaving because this is my home.". 1938) Copy Citation . Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. Biographical History . It is the second coal mining fatality in . It was a nearly decade-long conflict, lasting from 1931 to 1939. . Unemployment in 2017 was 9.4 percent, far above the national average. "Try walking out of there, carrying a man with a broken back," one of the miners says. Harlan Fuel Co. Download PDF. [ 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%. "They didn't say nothin'; all they want's coal.' 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. They say no action has been taken on this report. The officials were listed were the "veteran safety director of the Harlan Coal Operators Association, and Rufus Bailey and H. Hamlin, state . Did she find the stick on the ground? 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. After the railroad arrived in 1911 . J. D. Skidmore says, "I have no chance of getting a job in Harlan County if this strike is not settled." The miners say that all of the strikers have been blacklisted by the Association. Some of the women say they haven't had a drink of water since moving to the Brookside camp. 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. Wanted to be able to spend their money at a store of their choice besides the Black Mountain Coal Company store. No more union coal mines remain in Kentucky, home of the deadly battles 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. The miners speak of other dissatisfactions with Eastover and the old Southern Labor Union contract. With the opening left by the United Mine Workers union the openly Communist (NMU) National Miners Union tried to help the miners to organize. 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. Funeral Wednesday March 1 at 11 a.m. at Grays Knob Bible Church. Some seventy-five state policemen were on hand as the crowd gathered. Leroy Helton says miners often have to splice electrical cable, even though they're not qualified to do so. A Brief History of Harlan County, USA | Labor Notes 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. 3.' Harlan County, Kentucky in a Post-Coal America: A Case Study These battles will end the Coal Wars proper. The Coal Strike of 1902: Turning Point in U.S. Policy The most memorable of those are 1964, 1966, 1969 (The West Virginia Black Lung strike that the miners won) 1971, and the 1974 Strikes. Source Citation [ }] Descriptive Note Contributors from initial SNAC EAC-CPF ingest. Harlan County Struggle Collection, 1931-1932 - LibraryHost He is dressed more like a miner than a mining executive. Each contract varied from mine to mine. Nannie Rainey says, "I told him if he got my children, he was gonna haveta take me too." Willard Wirtz says he senses that the Harlan County Coal Operators Association is a major factor in the dispute, that it doesn't want a settlement with higher wages and benefits and tough safety provisions to be made by Eastover, because it fears the domino effect of such a settlement on the rest of the companies in the county. We are handed copies of court records concerning a certain Claude Beach, who has been hired by Eastover during the strike as a "security guard." "We want safety all the time, not just when the inspector comes," Jerry Johnson says. The strikebreakers were under the protection of private mine guards. There were only three cars in the motorcade each of which contained a sheriffs deputy. 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. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. Other times, he says, "Roof was workin', rock was a-hangin', and it sounded like thunder. 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. 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. 1940-49 Harlan Co Miners Deaths - USGenWeb sites 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. Even pop culture cannot ignore its impact with such shows as Justified. The coal companies refused to back down from their positions and change anything. Prior to Miller's election, the union had become corrupt, dictatorial, and a frequent collaborator with the mine owners. The airline magazine contains an article on southern skiing, a feature on hot, winter drinks for the "Piedmont palate," an article on how tough it is to be thirty-three and middle-class today, and a success story about an Atlanta bra, sleepwear, girdle, and pantie company. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to . And lastly, the Harlan Fox Mining Co - presumably derived from the Harlan Fox Coal Co - was in operation from 1925-1932. Blaine Sergent, coal leader, putting up his check at the end of a workday in Harlan County, Kentucky, in 1946. There is one ostentatious feature about him, though: a large, multi-diamond ring on the third finger of his left hand. Its initial land holdings were in the Irwin gas coal basin in Westmoreland County, but as these were exhausted the company purchased 14,000 acres of undeveloped coal land along the border of Boone and Logan Counties in West Virginia in 1923-28. . At Brookside, this would amount to $400,000 a year. The trees are barely beginning to bud in the early March warmth. The Harlan County Coal War is one of the . Along the way, we pass through the community of Brookside, its mine-camp houses dominated by the brooding tin presence of the Eastover mine building on the hill. They were convicted on charges of conspiracy to murder. She talks about hiding behind cars on the picket line for protection from the "gun thugs." She talks about a standoff against Basil Collins and the scabs and gun thugs. They're trapped. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. Sadly, the state and federal troops would occupy the county several times. He said that when the coal industry was at its height in 1928, the peak of . 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. 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. They just laughed about it, and we kept on cuttin' coal. Steeped in Appalachian culture and surrounded by the influence of coal, Harlan County has amassed an interesting reputation and national attention with rest of the world. When a miner complains, Jerry Johnson says, the foreman says, "If you don't like it, you can always get your bucket," meaning pick up your lunch bucket and get out. ", What about federal inspection? This active organization is made up of those who represent the leader in the mining industry. Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. He speaks of "my people" and "my men." It is not all Duke's fault by any means. The group publishes policy papers on the benefits of coal for Kentucky and sponsors the "Friends of Coal" initiative. Trailer parks called Walnut Grove, Mobile Manor, and Mesa Village Mobile Manor. And you wondr why I keep running my mouth . (That is a tough point.) 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. Darrell Deaton says there is a direct telephone line to Washington for safety complaints, "but if you identify yourself; you're gonna be out of a job.". In 1981, he traded coal mining for gold mining as one of the founders of the current . Miners die, and last year was the deadliest in American coal mines in more than a decade. The Price of Coal, Part I - kentuckymonthly.com The county became nationally famous in 1931 and 1932 when it was the site of one of the earliest and bloodiest labor battles of the decade. The Harlan County Coal Wars 1931-1939 - Kentucky Tennessee Living Mr. Nolan, a resident of Cawood, is survived by his wife, Mrs. Stella Nolan . I don't like- workin' in them kind of conditions." Brophy's was the last reform insurgency against UMW leadership until Joseph Yablonski's fatal try. (Eastover, to repeat, now pays portal-to-portal wages for inside workers in its other mines and has raised the wages of nonstrikers to the UMW level.) No, Yarborough says; it just serves as a central clearing house, so that job applicants won't have to go around and apply at each of the mines separately. ", Bill Doan says that he was hurt in a rockfall at 7:15 one morning and that he didn't get out of the mine until nine o'clock. Hennen attributes this abandonment to the increasingly conservative John L. Lewis, the longtime and powerful president of the UMWA, who feared . Two hundred people crowd. Home - Harlan County B.W. Someone had planted dynamite in his automobile and when he started it up the car blew up. 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. As the motorcade approached a single shot rang out in the air. Harlan | Kentucky, United States | Britannica He tells me that the miners plan to picket on Wall Street, hoping to give Duke problems with its stock. Talking to Aaronson, I am reminded of an old tin sign I saw tacked on a tree along the highway as I left Harlan. The median family income is $4600 a year. Our driver points out Norman Yarborough's two-story frame house, across the highway from the camp and up out of the river bottom. On the plane with me, it turns out, is another member of the Citizens Inquiry, Jacqueline Brophy, who is the director of the Labor-Liberal Arts Program of Cornell University's School of Industrial Labor Relations in New York. No wonder R C Cola has so many signs everywhere. 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 foreman would just say, "We gotta run coal. Does the Association hire for all the mines in the county? During the day, a man came and said that if their children weren't out of the jail by night, the welfare people would take them. 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. On February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association reduced wages for miners in that part of eastern Kentucky by 10 percent. 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. Yarborough replies. 1 negative : glass ; 4 x 5 in. It is clear that these women have been a main factor in keeping the mine shut down. They also plan to join with a North Carolina group in protesting Duke's requested rate increase, and they are going to attend the meeting of Duke's stockholders on May 30. James Sizemore says that frequently float dust, which is dangerously explosive, would get too heavy in the mine, and he would complain, but that. At these locations, the mine wages began to be comparable to other jobs around the nation. I was born in Florida and grew up in Burdine, Kentucky. New subdivisions named Tall Oaks and Colonial Heights. The Harlan County Wars took on its own epic spin on the ongoing fight between labor disputes and the coal operators and owners lasting almost ten years. Filmed during the coal strike of 1974-1975, this documentary does much to capture the tension brought on by the injustice of the coal operators to the coal miners in Harlan County, Kentucky. The sign man for R C Cola has worked this territory well. Since the county began mining, over one billion tons of coal have Background to the 1931-32 Strike - University of Kentucky 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. by Ron Soodalter. Troops had to be called into the county three times to maintain order. Another press member criticizes Barbara Bode for having raised a clenched fist during the women's testimony. By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. Yellow-dog contracts (Contracts where the employees agreed to never organize into a union before they were employed with a coal company), company unions, blacklists, all tactics that were employed by the companies to bust up unions, and discrimination-based on union activity were all outlawed under this act. 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." It is a warm night and at every bend in the asphalt road we hear a chorus of croaking frogs. 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. The nearest ridge is green with spruce and pine. Copy as parenthetical citation. A shoulder blade and five of his ribs were broken. Their activities began with a demonstration and march in Harlan on September 27, 1973. Freda Armes says, "I take a cloth and strain the water to cook with. Duke Power Company of North Carolina, he says, is the sixth largest utility company in the world. Coal employment in Harlan county dropped 53.7% in the second quarter of this year compared with last year, driven by Blackjewel's bankruptcy. She says that she and some of the other women hid out last night to avoid being served with a contempt citation from Judge Hogg's court. There is no water in the house. Up at seven on a Monday morning, I walk out onto the balcony of my motel room. Fifty miners and their wives have at one time or another been held in contempt of this order. 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. Burger Chef. This was not just a flashy slogan, and the truth of it is . He says that they do not need the UMW to look after them; he will do that. Which Side are You On? : The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 He says that, standing. But negotiations for a contract with Eastover soon broke down, and on July 30 the miners at Brookside began the strike that now, as we arrive, is in its eighth month. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. There were constant beatings of the miners by the Sheriffs deputies. 9:03 PM. I look at the government statistics once more. "You could hunt for one, but there just weren't one there," he says. Interview with B. W. Whitfield, Jr., February 9, 1989 SPOKEdb Outlining the legal framework for labor unions and management relations to improve the working conditions for workers.