Willard Wirtz asks how it will all come out, how the strike will end. They point out that most of the big coal companies, such as U.S. Steel and others, have signed UMW contracts, but that the smaller companies of eastern Kentucky have held out. 1931, only $13.5 million. Interview with B. W. Whitfield, Jr., February 9, 1989 SPOKEdb Harlan County War History, Impact, The Free Encyclopedia Why are people allowed to dump raw sewage in the streams? Herndon J. Evans, the editor of the Pineville Sun, argued, The troubles of the coal industry had their inception in war times. Where will the families go? 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. I have attended the University of Kentucky. The Kentucky mining camps still had the paternalism idea in their mists and the ever-independent Appalachian people were not having it. 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. The women say they then organized a "sunrise worship service" to begin at 4:30 on the morning of October 23, on the railroad tracks across the highway from the picket line. The sign man for R C Cola has worked this territory well. Mr. Blanton explained the reasoning behind coal camps. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. The miners say that, somehow, management always knows when the government inspectors are coming. 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. The UMW union called in the National Guard to help them. 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." 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. These battles will end the Coal Wars proper. Home - Harlan County Source Citation [ }] Descriptive Note Contributors from initial SNAC EAC-CPF ingest. "I've seen some hurt and some killed. With the added protection for workers and the addition of collective bargaining between the workers and their employers. They're trapped. That year, annual wages dropped from $1,235 to $749. ", 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. The miners and the coal owners were still having disputes. This was thirteen percent of the workers showing up for their scheduled work times. 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. "We run because we wanted to testify, and if we hadn't run, he woulda had us in jail." This caused the clergy to denounce the union. During the big coal boom in the early 1900s, Harlan County was amongst the largest contributors. In June of 1973, in a National Labor Relations Board election, the miners at Brookside voted 113 to 55 to affiliate with the United Mine Workers. A month later, back in Washington, I meet with Bernie Aaronson at UMW headquarters. Even though things were doing better for the unions in Harlan County, there was still civil unrest. The miners say that all of the strikers have been blacklisted by the Association. Some seventy-five state policemen were on hand as the crowd gathered. We never would find out what happened. Documentary of mining practices in Hazard County, Kentucky. The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 (Paperback) at the best online prices at eBay! The Price of Coal, Part I - kentuckymonthly.com I've got five living children and four dead. It is the second coal mining fatality in . Benham Coal Company Records - University of Kentucky With the passage of these acts, there was unrest in Harlan County. There is no water in the house. Bryan W. Whitfield III (1925-2010) - Find a Grave Memorial The Act was an attempt to restructure the industrial sector of the economy and to alleviate unemployment with a public works program. There had been several clashes with the "scabs," the mine guards, and the state police, Kahn says. He was transferred to a worse section, he says. During the Great Depression of the 1930s coal miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, struck against the coal operators for better pay and better working conditio. Harlan County USA Revisited - Medium The prospects for settlement do not look good unless Duke begins to feel public pressure. Sudie Crusenberg, a plain woman in a cotton dress, gives us some idea of what life is like for a coal-mining family. On the way back to the Mount Aire at the end of the day, we pass back through Brookside with its deteriorating mining-camp houses along the stinking Clear Fork River. ("Tony") Boyle for the national presidency of the UMW in 1972 in an election closely supervised by the federal government. ", "They've done discriminated me," Grover Jennings continues. Name Entry; Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. What a marvelous view! 1 mine in Evarts, in Harlan County, Kentucky. Members of The Harlan County Medical Society 1932 No more union coal mines remain in Kentucky, home of the deadly battles He fined the UMW $20,000. She pays $10 a month for rent and $10 a month for electricity. Duke went into the coal business directly in 1970 when it organized Eastover Mining Company as a wholly owned subsidiary and, through it, bought several mines in eastern Kentucky, including the one at Brookside. The Great Depression of 1929 through the late 1930s hit Harlan County Kentucky. 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. Trailer parks called Walnut Grove, Mobile Manor, and Mesa Village Mobile Manor. Partial Transcript: August 27, '86. Its profits in 1973 were $90 million, up 14 percent from the year before. The miners charge that the Harlan County Coal Operators Association is behind Eastover's refusal to sign a contract. Harlan County U.S.A. by Felicia Elliott, August 2, 2016. And always there is a murky roadside stream, beech and sycamore trees lining its banks. 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. Coal Strike May End, But Miners Still Fear Future 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. The Harlan County Coal Wars 1931-1939 - Kentucky Tennessee Living Kentucky communities discussed include Artemus, Burdine, Jenkins, Jellico, Van Lear, and Wheelwright; and Kentucky counties include Bell, Clay, Floyd, Harlan . "The way I figured it, they done that because it was just a faster, way of getting coal." Here, too, are some of the richest natural resources in the countryand some of the poorest people. "We took the sticks with us," she says. One night, they saw a secretary for the Dreiser group enter Dreiser's hotel room, and they placed toothpicks against the door to determine whether she ever came back out during the night. He does say, I think primarily for the record, that he would like to see negotiations begin again. Four men were arrested in connection with this murder. This was not just a flashy slogan, and the truth of it is . 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. Our delegation arrives on time at the Eastover office in Brookside. On February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association reduced wages for miners in that part of eastern Kentucky by 10 percent. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Five miles north of Harlan, we drive up Inspiration Mountain. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". Looking for protection by the Kentucky National Guard, many were surprised to find that they broke the picket lines instead. Si says Harlan is a dry countyno legal liquor and no beer. 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.". "Roof falls are a constant hazard, but the bosses just keep on rushin'.". . "A gun thug pulled a gun on us, and I broke a switch over his head, and the little gun thug pulled out," Lois Scott says matter-of-factly. Only to be escorted to the county line and told not to return. The Wagner Act of 1935 (National Labor Relations Act or NLRA) guaranteed the rights of workers to choose to organize. Established in 1916, its membership consisted of nearly all the large mining companies, and it represented the major political force in the county. Pierce mentions the "toothpick incident." In the bloody 1930s coal wars, miners known to be union members were fired and evicted from company-owned homes. And I can't get you off of that couch. What did the foremen say on those occasions? Sadly, the state and federal troops would occupy the county several times. (This . by Ron Soodalter. "This troubles me; I don't sleep," Yarborough says. Harlan | Kentucky, United States | Britannica Coal employment in Harlan county dropped 53.7% in the second quarter of this year compared with last year, driven by Blackjewel's bankruptcy. No wonder R C Cola has so many signs everywhere. A rural county of 27,000, Harlan County's average household income is about $29,000. those in the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association, were run as open shops from October 27, 1933 - March 31, 1935. Capitalizing on the general . New subdivisions named Tall Oaks and Colonial Heights. 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. In 1981, he traded coal mining for gold mining as one of the founders of the current . 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. James Willard Pope officiating. Breaks in the cable, they say, are often just wrapped with mask-ing tape and exposed again to the water. . In the year of "the energy crisis," Coal is King again at $30 a ton. The Sheriff reportedly got rich on payoffs from the companies, and he used 181 mine company gunmen as special deputies. They are merely a service organization, Yarborough says. Lifelong resident of Harlan. The National Industrial Recovery Act only partially succeeded in accomplishing its stated goals when it was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on May 27, 1935, which was three weeks before the Act was set to expire. Miners die, and last year was the deadliest in American coal mines in more than a decade. They range in age from about twenty-one to seventy. "I don't try to blacklist anybody," he says. Back in my motel room, a gathering place, Bernie Aaronson of UMW says that the union is paying strike benefits and medical bills for the 160 strikers. 1938) Copy Citation . We return to our series on the Coal Wars of the United States with Bloody Harlan and the Battle for Evarts. Based on this new Act, from October 27, 1933, to March 31, 1935, the mines ran as open shops. They say no action has been taken on this report. 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 . "I don't know nothing about the electrical part." Faith, power, and conflict: Miner preachers and the United Mine Workers And lastly, the Harlan Fox Mining Co - presumably derived from the Harlan Fox Coal Co - was in operation from 1925-1932. I have also attended the University of Pikeville. He'd worked seventy-eight hours straight the preceding week. "Yeah," a coal miner says, "but the land's so poor, you can't hardly raise an umbrella on it.". With the opening left by the United Mine Workers union the openly Communist (NMU) National Miners Union tried to help the miners to organize. Our driver points out Norman Yarborough's two-story frame house, across the highway from the camp and up out of the river bottom. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". He decided to make Harlan County a test case in the UMW's new, more aggressive organizing efforts. Soon after the "Battle of Evarts," novelist Theodore Dreiser led a citizens' group to Harlan County to find and publicize the bloody facts. The SLU was largely seen as serving the interests of the mine owners rather than the workers. Westmoreland Coal Company - Social Networks and Archival Context - SNAC Under this Act, the right to organize in ones workplace was granted as well as it outlawed any discrimination whether employed or seeking employment based on union membership. Whitfield recalls working in his father's coal mines during the first years of commercial mining in Harlan County, and he describes the conditions. We hope that you have enjoyed our stop in Bloody Harlan and the history of the longest and still ongoing coal struggles of the United States. A thousand feet below me lies a small, green valley, partly shrouded by the morning mist. Yarborough says that he will not agree to the contract applying to Eastover's subcontractors. They just laughed about it, and we kept on cuttin' coal. 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. Exist Dates. The Widows of Harlan County - CBS News These guards were legally able to protect these men during their off duty time. At these locations, the mine wages began to be comparable to other jobs around the nation. They are neatly and attractively dressed. Jacqueline Brophy is the daughter of Pat Brophy, who went into the mines when he was twelve, and who, in 1926, ran against John L. Lewis and lost. Rev. An investigation was conducted on Terrorism in the Kentucky Coal Fields. 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. It is thought that Middleton was assassinated for backing troops who were present in the County to protect the miners. However, after the dust was clear, the anti-labor coal country would end up being represented by unions. "Then he'd come out looking like a sheep-killing dog and get in his truck and run. All during the day they worked in shifts, trying to penetrate to the point where the explosion occurred. It took forty-five minutes for someone to come and help get him out, Deaton says. McQueen says that in late 1972 he burned his fingers to the bone on a switchbox where a blown fuse had been hot-wired. The Act also made a provision for a National Labor-Relations Board to designate a legal structure for the workers to conduct fair and legal elections of their officers and representatives. It is home to lawyers, doctors and coal operators; it has a hospital, several banks and a few fast-food . 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. On September 4, 1935, Harlan County Attorney Elmon Clay Middleton, age 31, was assassinated by a car bomb containing eighteen sticks of dynamite. America in the Harlan County Mine Wars, 1931-1939 Carletta A. Bush 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 of the Harlan County Coal Operators Association (HCCOA) and secondly at The decision caused unrest in the county among the miners. Pricing; Switch; Big firm; The UMW had made written proposals for compromising these issues a little. Talking to Aaronson, I am reminded of an old tin sign I saw tacked on a tree along the highway as I left Harlan. "In Harlan County, U.S.A., sound anchors, explains, and makes 'authentic' visual imagery compromised by the long history of documentary work in Appalachia.". Details for: Harlan County. Marywood University catalog . Strikebreakers were often beaten. An essay on The Harlan County War : r/history (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.) Before this war was over it is not known exactly how many miners, coal operators, deputies, and bosses would be killed. Harlan County Struggle Collection, 1931-1932 - LibraryHost The miners say that they often have to stand knee-deep in water while handling 440-volt electrical cables. They fed strikers' children as well as the employed, blacks as well as whites. These charities began to give aid to blacklisted miners who were unable to find employment as the soup kitchens had closed once the NMU had closed its doors. 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. Before the first meeting of the Citizens Inquiry, we sit around and talk with the Inquiry chairman, Daniel Pollitt, a professor of law at the University of North Carolina. HARLAN COUNTYHarlan County, Kentucky, is a rural county located in a major coal-mining region in the Appalachian Mountains. A Committee was formed and conducted by Activist Theodore Dreiser under the auspices of the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP). . . We come into Harlan County at dusk. During the rest of the afternoon, the miners talk about what has happened on the picket line and in the local court. So we lay down in the road." But relatives did come and take the children. An organic shape, small and shiny and pinkish white, sits . The coal companies refused to back down from their positions and change anything. National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions Jul 5, 1938. We're all involved. I have taken several classes in Journalism as well as in the Appalachian History, Literature, and Sociology during my time at those schools. Enforcing the operators' political will, both within and outside the law, was the Harlan County Coal Operators Association. The next morning the toothpicks were still in place, it was said. On May 24, 1931, Sheriff Blair rescinded the miners right to assemble and tear-gassed a union rally. 1 negative : glass ; 4 x 5 in. Source for information on Harlan County: Encyclopedia of the Great Depression dictionary. 2012: $1,552,717. It has assets worth $2.5 billion. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. (Fifty million tons of union coal are mined in western Kentucky; only 6.5 million tons of union coal are mined in eastern Kentucky.) The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. "I've had the foreman to tell me to set timbers or something until the inspector got gone. Done. The Coal Strike of 1902: Turning Point in U.S. Policy Nobody knows how long the UMW can keep paying strike benefits. Tuesday morning: Norman Yarborough has agreed to meet some of our group. the meeting room. 4 . Fifty miners and their wives have at one time or another been held in contempt of this order. The radical ideology of the union began gaining some ground in the mountains. There is one ostentatious feature about him, though: a large, multi-diamond ring on the third finger of his left hand. The company will probably demand a new election. 2011: $1,161,330. Apparently, this is one of Eastover's major objections. At Brookside, this would amount to $400,000 a year. The Price of Coal, Part II - kentuckymonthly.com Battle of Evarts - Wikipedia 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. Crossing the Clinch River, we turn onto Highway 421 and leave the modern world. Life After Coal in Harlan County, U.S.A. - In These Times 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. [Verse 2] I got 27 peopl coming over to this house. Harlan County War Wiki - Everipedia Pay ranged from $17 to $32 day, the average being $25. Prior to the strike, the pay of the Brookside miners started and stopped at the face of coal. Mostly, the miners were fighting for improved working conditions, higher wages, and better housing options for their families. 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 the miners and their families. "Yarborough says he just don't want nobody tellin' him how to run his mine," Deaton says. Pic from Harlan County USA of a Coal Camp. At first, there were little battles with gunshots being exchanged between the strikers and the private guards, and the local law enforcement agents. Nannie Rainey says, "I told him if he got my children, he was gonna haveta take me too." Is that the only objection that is holding up a settlement? Three Point Mine Explosion 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. The group included John Dos Passos, Sherwood Anderson, and a number of other writers and artists. "My daddy's a retired coal miner, and he's got the black lung. If you wouldn't do it, they'd just say, 'Get your bucket.' He says that they do not need the UMW to look after them; he will do that. They are demanding the standard UMW provision requiring the company to pay a royalty of seventy-five cents a ton on mined coal into the UMW Welfare & Retirement Fund. 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. 8 N.L.R.B. Domesticity and Depression: Kentucky Coal Mining, Song, and Organizing If any attractive woman became interested in me, I'd think it was a very lovely thing. And we're burning up people to make electricity. There were ten lodges that were chartered for the National Miners Union. United States Washington D.C. District of Columbia Washington D.C . These disputes were still brewing when on December 8, 1934, the United Mine Workers Union was threatened by deputies and mine bosses. An open shop is where union membership is allowed but not mandated to work at that location. The Kentucky Coal Association is an IRS designated 501 (c) (6) nonprofit organization that aims to educate its members and the public of coal production and safety in the state of Kentucky. Three of our Inquiry members plan to talk with the president of Duke Power Company. But will Norman Yarborough ever agree to recognize the UMW? We hope that our hearings will help hold down violence. With unprecedented access, Kopple and her crew captured the miners' sometimes violent struggles with strikebreakers, local police, and company thugs. KCA traces its origin to a statewide association of coal operators who united their efforts in 1942. The group publishes policy papers on the benefits of coal for Kentucky and sponsors the "Friends of Coal" initiative. Resources | Harlan Coal Scrip I glance at the new Piedmont magazine, Pace. The Harlan County coal miners campaigned and fought to organize their workplaces and better their wages and working conditions. A young woman from the Associated Press asks me, aren't we getting only one side of the story? Sheriff Blair was voted out of his office in 1933 and died just a year later. Troops had to be called into the county three times to maintain order.