Author: Raymond Tyler
Publisher: PM Press
ISBN:
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 138
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Book Description
In the early-20th century, strikes and union battles were common in industrial centers throughout the US. But nothing compared to the class warfare of the West Virginia Mine Wars. The origins of this protracted rebellion were in the dictatorial rule of the coal companies over the proud, multi-racial, immigrant and native-born miners of Appalachia. Our illustrated history begins with Mary Harris “Mother” Jones's arrival at the turn of the century. White-haired, matronly, and fiercely socialist, Jones became known as the “miners’ angel,” and helped turn the fledgling United Mine Workers into the nation’s most powerful labor union. “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living,” was her famous battle cry. In 1912, miners led by stubborn Frank Keeney struck against harsh conditions in the work camps of Paint and Cabin Creeks. Coal operators responded by enlisting violent Baldwin-Felts guards. The ensuing battles and murderous events caused the governor to declare and execute martial law on a scale unprecedented in the US. On May 19, 1920, in response to evictions by coal company agents, gunshots rang through the streets of a small-town in “Bloody Mingo” county. In an event soon known as the “Matewan Massacre”; the pro-union, quick-draw chief of police Smilin’ Sid Hatfield became an unexpected celebrity—but also a marked man. Events climax with the dramatic Battle of Blair Mountain that pitched the spontaneous Red Neck Army of 10,000 armed strikers against a paid army of gun thugs in the largest labor uprising in US history and the largest armed uprising since the American Civil War. This graphic interpretation of people’s history features unforgettable main characters while also displaying the diverse rank and file workers who stood in solidarity during this struggle.
Author: Gordon P. Andrews
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443893889
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 410
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Book Description
This book, the first in a series entitled Historical and Pedagogical Issues: Insights from the Great Lakes History Conference, addresses historical and pedagogical issues. It explores the agency of historical actors tied to larger movements, demonstrating the efficacy and power of individuals to act with historical impact. It also describes the nuanced role of memory, often neglected in larger national or global social movements. This volume explores these powerful themes through a broad range of topics, including the research and pedagogy of revolution, reform, and rebellion as they are applied to race, ethnicity, political movements, labour, reconciliation, memory, and moral responsibility. The book will interest researchers that have an interest in both, or either, history and pedagogy.
Author: Annette Lynch
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0759121508
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 337
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Book Description
The clothes we wear tell stories about us—and are often imbued with cultural meanings specific to our ethnic heritage. This concise A-to-Z encyclopedia explores 150 different and distinct items of ethnic dress, their history, and their cultural significance within the United States. The clothing artifacts documented here have been or are now regularly worn by Americans as everyday clothing, fashion, ethnic or religious identifiers, or style statements. They embody the cultural history of the United States and its peoples, from Native Americans, white Anglo colonists, and forcibly relocated black slaves to the influx of immigrants from around the world. Entries consider how dress items may serve as symbolic linkages to home country and family or worn as visible forms of opposition to dominant cultural norms. Taken together, they offer insight into the ethnic-based core ideologies, myths, and cultural codes that have played a role in the formation and continued story of the United States.
Author: Denise Giardina
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393076261
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 360
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Book Description
This is the story of the miners and the union they wanted, of the people who loved them and the people who wanted to kill their dreams. Annadel, West Virginia, was a small town rich in coal, farms, and close-knit families, all destroyed when the coal company came in. It stole everything it hadn't bothered to buy—land deeds, private homes, and ultimately, the souls of its men and women. Four people tell this powerful, deeply moving tale: Activist Mayor C. J. Marcum. Fierce, loveless union man Rondal Lloyd. Gutsy nurse Carrie Bishop, who loved Rondal. And lonely, Sicilian immigrant Rosa Angelelli, who lost four sons to the deadly mines. They all bear witness to nearly forgotten events of history, culminating in the final, tragic Battle of Blair Mountain—when the United States Army greeted ten thousand unemployed pro-union miners with airplanes, bombs, and poison gas. It was the first crucial battle of a war that has yet to be won.
Author: Charles B. Keeney
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781949199840
Category : Blair Mountain (W. Va.)
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
"Keeney delivers a riveting and propulsive story about a nine-year battle to save sacred ground that was the site of the largest labor uprising in American history. . . . He unveils a powerful playbook on successful activism that will inspire countless others for generations to come." --Eric Eyre, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Death in Mud Lick: A Coal Country Fight against the Drug Companies That Delivered the Opioid Epidemic In 1921 Blair Mountain in southern West Virginia was the site of the country's bloodiest armed insurrection since the Civil War, a battle pitting miners led by Frank Keeney against agents of the coal barons intent on quashing organized labor. It was the largest labor uprising in US history. Ninety years later, the site became embroiled in a second struggle, as activists came together to fight the coal industry, state government, and the military- industrial complex in a successful effort to save the battlefield--sometimes dubbed "labor's Gettysburg"--from destruction by mountaintop removal mining. The Road to Blair Mountain is the moving and sometimes harrowing story of Charles Keeney's fight to save this irreplaceable landscape. Beginning in 2011, Keeney--a historian and great-grandson of Frank Keeney--led a nine-year legal battle to secure the site's placement on the National Register of Historic Places. His book tells a David-and-Goliath tale worthy of its own place in West Virginia history. A success story for historic preservation and environmentalism, it serves as an example of how rural, grassroots organizations can defeat the fossil fuel industry.
Author: Working Class His Working Class History
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781629638874
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
History is not made by kings, politicians, or a few rich individuals--it is made by all of us. From the temples of ancient Egypt to spacecraft orbiting Earth, workers and ordinary people everywhere have walked out, sat down, risen up, and fought back against exploitation, discrimination, colonization, and oppression. Working Class History presents a distinct selection of people's history through hundreds of "on this day in history" anniversaries that are as diverse and international as the working class itself. Women, young people, people of color, workers, migrants, indigenous people, LGBTQ people, disabled people, older people, the unemployed, home workers, and every other part of the working class have organized and taken action that has shaped our world, and improvements in living and working conditions have been won only by years of violent conflict and sacrifice. These everyday acts of resistance and rebellion highlight just some of those who have struggled for a better world and provide lessons and inspiration for those of us fighting in the present. Going day by day, this book paints a picture of how and why the world came to be as it is, how some have tried to change it, and the lengths to which the rich and powerful have gone to maintain and increase their wealth and influence.
Author: Judah Schept
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479888923
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 203
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Book Description
How prisons became economic development strategies for rural Appalachian communities As the United States began the project of mass incarceration, rural communities turned to building prisons as a strategy for economic development. More than 350 prisons have been built in the U.S. since 1980, with certain regions of the country accounting for large shares of this dramatic growth. Central Appalachia is one such region; there are eight prisons alone in Eastern Kentucky. If Kentucky were its own country, it would have the seventh highest incarceration rate in the world. In Coal, Cages, Crisis, Judah Schept takes a closer look at this stunning phenomenon, providing insight into prison growth, jail expansion and rising incarceration rates in America’s hinterlands. Drawing on interviews, site visits, and archival research, Schept traces recent prison growth in the region to the rapid decline of its coal industry. He takes us inside this startling transformation occurring in the coalfields, where prisons are often built on top of old coalmines, including mountaintop removal sites, and built into community planning approaches to crises of unemployment, population loss, and declining revenues. By linking prison growth to other sites in this landscape—coal mines, coal waste, landfills, and incinerators—Schept shows that the prison boom has less to do with crime and punishment and much more with the overall extraction, depletion, and waste disposal processes that characterize dominant development strategies for the region. Schept argues that the future of this area now hangs in the balance, detailing recent efforts to oppose its carceral growth. Coal, Cages, Crisis offers invaluable insight into the complex dynamics of mass incarceration that continue to shape Appalachia and the broader United States.
Author: Elizabeth Catte
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 0998018872
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 151
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Book Description
In 2016, headlines declared Appalachia ground zero for America's "forgotten tribe" of white working class voters. Journalists flocked to the region to extract sympathetic profiles of families devastated by poverty, abandoned by establishment politics, and eager to consume cheap campaign promises. What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia is a frank assessment of America's recent fascination with the people and problems of the region. The book analyzes trends in contemporary writing on Appalachia, presents a brief history of Appalachia with an eye toward unpacking Appalachian stereotypes, and provides examples of writing, art, and policy created by Appalachians as opposed to for Appalachians. The book offers a must-needed insider's perspective on the region.
Author: Mitch Troutman
Publisher: PM Press
ISBN: 1629639478
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 238
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Book Description
Told with great intimacy and compassion, The Bootleg Coal Rebellion uncovers a long-buried history of resistance and resilience among depression-era miners in Pennsylvania, who sunk their own mines on company grounds and fought police, bankers, coal companies and courts to form a union that would safeguard not just their livelihoods, but protect their collective autonomy as citizens and workers for decades. Community and Labor organizer Mitch Troutman brings this explosive and accessible American tale to life through the bootleggers’ own words. Scholars, historians, organizers and activists will celebrate this story of the people who literally seized mountains and stood their ground to create the Equalization movement, the miners’ union democracy movement, and the Communist-led Unemployed Councils of the anthracite region. This epic story of work, love and community stands as a testament to the power of collective action; a story that is sorely needed as communities today rise to confront neoliberal policies ravaging our planet.
Author: Carl Sandburg
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 214
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Book Description
