African American Workers and the Appalachian Coal Industry

African American Workers and the Appalachian Coal Industry PDF Author: Joe William Trotter
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781959000129
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Essays by the foremost labor historian of the Black experience in the Appalachian coalfields. This collection brings together nearly three decades of research on the African American experience, class, and race relations in the Appalachian coal industry. It shows how, with deep roots in the antebellum era of chattel slavery, West Virginia's Black working class gradually picked up steam during the emancipation years following the Civil War and dramatically expanded during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. From there, African American Workers and the Appalachian Coal Industry highlights the decline of the region's Black industrial proletariat under the impact of rapid technological, social, and political changes following World War II. It underscores how all miners suffered unemployment and outmigration from the region as global transformations took their toll on the coal industry, but emphasizes the disproportionately painful impact of declining bituminous coal production on African American workers, their families, and their communities. Joe Trotter not only reiterates the contributions of proletarianization to our knowledge of US labor and working-class history but also draws attention to the gender limits of studies of Black life that focus on class formation, while calling for new transnational perspectives on the subject. Equally important, this volume illuminates the intellectual journey of a noted labor historian with deep family roots in the southern Appalachian coalfields.

African American Workers and the Appalachian Coal Industry

African American Workers and the Appalachian Coal Industry PDF Author: Joe William Trotter
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781959000129
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Essays by the foremost labor historian of the Black experience in the Appalachian coalfields. This collection brings together nearly three decades of research on the African American experience, class, and race relations in the Appalachian coal industry. It shows how, with deep roots in the antebellum era of chattel slavery, West Virginia's Black working class gradually picked up steam during the emancipation years following the Civil War and dramatically expanded during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. From there, African American Workers and the Appalachian Coal Industry highlights the decline of the region's Black industrial proletariat under the impact of rapid technological, social, and political changes following World War II. It underscores how all miners suffered unemployment and outmigration from the region as global transformations took their toll on the coal industry, but emphasizes the disproportionately painful impact of declining bituminous coal production on African American workers, their families, and their communities. Joe Trotter not only reiterates the contributions of proletarianization to our knowledge of US labor and working-class history but also draws attention to the gender limits of studies of Black life that focus on class formation, while calling for new transnational perspectives on the subject. Equally important, this volume illuminates the intellectual journey of a noted labor historian with deep family roots in the southern Appalachian coalfields.

Blacks in Appalachia

Blacks in Appalachia PDF Author: William H. Turner
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813181526
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 489

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Book Description
Although southern Appalachia is popularly seen as a purely white enclave, blacks have lived in the region from early times. Some hollows and coal camps are in fact almost exclusively black settlements. The selected readings in this new book offer the first comprehensive presentation of the black experience in Appalachia. Organized topically, the selections deal with the early history of blacks in the region, with studies of the black communities, with relations between blacks and whites, with blacks in coal mining, and with political issues. Also included are a section on oral accounts of black experiences and an analysis of black Appalachian demography. The contributors range from Carter Woodson and W. E. B. Du Bois to more recent scholars such as Theda Perdue and David A. Corbin. An introduction by the editors provides an overall context for the selections. Blacks in Appalachia focuses needed attention on a neglected area of Appalachian studies. It will be a valuable resource for students of Appalachia and of black history.

Race and Renaissance

Race and Renaissance PDF Author: Joseph William Trotter Jr.
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822977559
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
African Americans from Pittsburgh have a long and distinctive history of contributions to the cultural, political, and social evolution of the United States. From jazz legend Earl Fatha Hines to playwright August Wilson, from labor protests in the 1950s to the Black Power movement of the late 1960s, Pittsburgh has been a force for change in American race and class relations. Race and Renaissance presents the first history of African American life in Pittsburgh after World War II. It examines the origins and significance of the second Great Migration, the persistence of Jim Crow into the postwar years, the second ghetto, the contemporary urban crisis, the civil rights and Black Power movements, and the Million Man and Million Woman marches, among other topics. In recreating this period, Trotter and Day draw not only from newspaper articles and other primary and secondary sources, but also from oral histories. These include interviews with African Americans who lived in Pittsburgh during the postwar era, which reveal firsthand accounts of what life was truly like during this transformative epoch. Race and Renaissance illuminates how Pittsburgh's African Americans arrived at their present moment in history. It also links movements for change to larger global issues: civil rights with the Vietnam War; affirmative action with the movement against South African apartheid. As such, the study draws on both sociology and urban studies to deepen our understanding of the lives of urban blacks.

Black Prisoners and Their World, Alabama, 1865-1900

Black Prisoners and Their World, Alabama, 1865-1900 PDF Author: Mary Ellen Curtin
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813919843
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
This book traces the history of black prisoners in Alabama and their connections to and participation in the labor movement among miners in the late 19th century. Curtin (U. of Essex, UK) explores the convict- leasing system that ran most of Alabama's mines and its links to the African American transition out of slavery, illustrating the parallel transition from prisoner to coal miner. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

Black Coal Miners in America

Black Coal Miners in America PDF Author: Ronald L. Lewis
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813150442
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
From the early day of mining in colonial Virginia and Maryland up to the time of World War II, blacks were an important part of the labor force in the coal industry. Yet in this, as in other enterprises, their role has heretofore been largely ignored. Now Roland L. Lewis redresses the balance in this comprehensive history of black coal miners in America. The experience of blacks in the industry has varied widely over time and by region, and the approach of this study is therefore more comparative than chronological. Its aim is to define the patterns of race relations that prevailed among the miners. Using this approach, Lewis finds five distractive systems of race relations. There was in the South before and after the Civil War a system of slavery and convict labor—an enforced servitude without legal compensation. This was succeeded by an exploitative system whereby the southern coal operators, using race as an excuse, paid lower wages to blacks and thus succeeded in depressing the entire wage scale. By contrast, in northern and midwestern mines, the pattern was to exclude blacks from the industry so that whites could control their jobs and their communities. In the central Appalachians, although blacks enjoyed greater social equality, the mine operators manipulated racial tensions to keep the work force divided and therefore weak. Finally, with the advent of mechanization, black laborers were displaced from the mines to such an extent that their presence in the coal fields in now nearly a thing of the past. By analyzing the ways race, class, and community shaped social relations in the coal fields, Black Coal Miners in America makes a major contribution to the understanding of regional, labor, social, and African-American history.

Gone Home

Gone Home PDF Author: Karida L. Brown
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469647044
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Since the 2016 presidential election, Americans have witnessed countless stories about Appalachia: its changing political leanings, its opioid crisis, its increasing joblessness, and its declining population. These stories, however, largely ignore black Appalachian lives. Karida L. Brown's Gone Home offers a much-needed corrective to the current whitewashing of Appalachia. In telling the stories of African Americans living and working in Appalachian coal towns, Brown offers a sweeping look at race, identity, changes in politics and policy, and black migration in the region and beyond. Drawn from over 150 original oral history interviews with former and current residents of Harlan County, Kentucky, Brown shows that as the nation experienced enormous transformation from the pre- to the post-civil rights era, so too did black Americans. In reconstructing the life histories of black coal miners, Brown shows the mutable and shifting nature of collective identity, the struggles of labor and representation, and that Appalachia is far more diverse than you think.

Daughters of the Mountain

Daughters of the Mountain PDF Author: Suzanne E. Tallichet
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271045183
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Much has been written over the years about life in the coal mines of Appalachia. Not surprisingly, attention has focused mainly on the experiences of male miners. In Daughters of the Mountain, Suzanne Tallichet introduces us to a cohort of women miners at a large underground coal mine in southern West Virginia, where women entered the workforce in the late 1970s after mining jobs began opening up for women throughout the Appalachian coalfields. Tallichet's work goes beyond anecdotal evidence to provide complex and penetrating analyses of qualitative data. Based on in-depth interviews with female miners, Tallichet explores several key topics, including social relations among men and women, professional advancement, and union participation. She also explores the ways in which women adapt to mining culture, developing strategies for both resistance and accommodation to an overwhelmingly male-dominated world.

Appalachian Fall

Appalachian Fall PDF Author: Jeff Young
Publisher: S&S/Simon Element
ISBN: 1982148861
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
A searing, on-the-ground examination of the collapsing coal industry—and the communities left behind—in the midst of economic and environmental crisis. Despite fueling a century of American progress, the people at the heart of coal country are being left behind, suffering from unemployment, the opioid epidemic, and environmental crises often at greater rates than anywhere else in the country. But what if Appalachia’s troubles are just a taste of what the future holds for all of us? Appalachian Fall tells the captivating true story of coal communities on the leading edge of change. A group of local reporters known as the Ohio Valley ReSource shares the real-world impact these changes have had on what was once the heart and soul of America. Including stories like: -The miners’ strike in Harlan County after their company suddenly went bankrupt, bouncing their paychecks -The farmers tilling former mining ground for new cash crops like hemp -The activists working to fight mountaintop removal and bring clean energy jobs to the region -And the mothers mourning the loss of their children to overdose and despair In the wake of the controversial bestseller Hillbilly Elegy, Appalachian Fall addresses what our country owes to a region that provided fuel for a century and what it risks if it stands by watching as the region, and its people, collapse.

The Devil Is Here in These Hills

The Devil Is Here in These Hills PDF Author: James Green
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802192092
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 447

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Book Description
“The most comprehensive and comprehendible history of the West Virginia Coal War I’ve ever read.” —John Sayles, writer and director of Matewan On September 1, 1912, the largest, most protracted, and deadliest working-class uprising in American history was waged in West Virginia. On one side were powerful corporations whose millions bought armed guards and political influence. On the other side were fifty thousand mine workers, the nation’s largest labor union, and the legendary “miners’ angel,” Mother Jones. The fight for unionization and civil rights sparked a political crisis that verged on civil war, stretching from the creeks and hollows of the Appalachians to the US Senate. Attempts to unionize were met with stiff resistance. Fundamental rights were bent—then broken. The violence evolved from bloody skirmishes to open armed conflict, as an army of more than fifty thousand miners finally marched to an explosive showdown. Extensively researched and vividly told, this definitive book about an often-overlooked chapter of American history, “gives this backwoods struggle between capital and labor the due it deserves. [Green] tells a dark, often despairing story from a century ago that rings true today” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).

Women in the Mines

Women in the Mines PDF Author: Marat Moore
Publisher: Macmillan Reference USA
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Women in the Mines informs, provokes and inspires from first page to last with gripping stories from coalfield women from 1914 to 1994. Early women miners describe handloading coal to help their families survive. The 1970s generation talks openly about sexual harassment, community attitudes, pregnancy, health and safety, racism, aging, and unemployment. The stories demonstrate the strength and resilience of women who accepted the challenge of nontraditional work and the changes in their lives brought by that decision.