West Virginia, in History, Life, Literature and Industry

West Virginia, in History, Life, Literature and Industry PDF Author: Morris Purdy Shawkey
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : West Virginia
Languages : en
Pages : 476

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West Virginia, in History, Life, Literature and Industry

West Virginia, in History, Life, Literature and Industry PDF Author: Morris Purdy Shawkey
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : West Virginia
Languages : en
Pages : 476

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A History of West Virginia

A History of West Virginia PDF Author: Charles Henry Ambler
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : West Virginia
Languages : en
Pages : 680

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Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields

Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields PDF Author: David Corbin
Publisher: Urbana : University of Illinois Press
ISBN:
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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"Between 1880 and 1922, the coal fields of southern West Virginia witnessed two bloody and protracted strikes, the formation of two competing unions, and the largest armed conflict in American labor history--a week-long battle between 20,000 coal miners and 5,000 state police, deputy sheriffs, and mine guards. These events resulted in an untold number of deaths, indictments of over 550 coal miners for insurrection and treason, and four declarations of martial law. Corbin argues that these violent events were collective and militant acts of aggression interconnected and conditioned by decades of oppression. His study goes a long way toward breaking down the old stereotypes of Appalachian and coal-mining culture"--Back cover.

A Constant Reminder to All

A Constant Reminder to All PDF Author: Steven Cody Straley
Publisher: 35th Star Publishing
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Confederate general Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson was unquestionably one of the most successful and popular military leaders in the Civil War. Long regarded by some as one of Virginia’s great war heroes, many people do not realize that Jackson was born and raised in what is now West Virginia. When Jackson died in 1863, there was little sympathy for him in the new Mountain State. After all, West Virginia was born out of opposition to the Confederacy. Jackson’s own sister preferred that he was dead rather than serving in a rebellion. Yet over the next century and a half, West Virginia’s attitude towards its controversial son changed. Today, many residents celebrate him as one of the state’s greatest historical icons. How did this happen? In the decades after the Civil War, Confederate veterans and their descendants took up the banner of the Lost Cause and embarked on a campaign to normalize Jackson. Through ceremonies, speeches, publications, and monument building, Lost Cause advocates created a romanticized image of Jackson as the model West Virginian — a military hero, and a symbol of honor, integrity, and piety. The countless monuments to Stonewall Jackson in West Virginia serve as a constant reminder of the complicated history of the state and the nation.

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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“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).

The West Virginia Encyclopedia

The West Virginia Encyclopedia PDF Author: Ken Sullivan
Publisher: West Virginia Humanities
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 952

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The Smokeless Coal Fields of West Virginia

The Smokeless Coal Fields of West Virginia PDF Author: William Purviance Tams (Jr.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 122

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U.S. Steel and Gary, West Virginia

U.S. Steel and Gary, West Virginia PDF Author: Ronald G. Garay
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 1572337974
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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“This book is well written and meticulously documented; it will add significantly to the available literature on West Virginia’s industrial and community history. It should find a receptive audience among college and post- graduate scholars of industrial and labor history, West Virginia history, and Appalachian studies.” —John Lilly, editor, Goldenseal The company owned the houses. It owned the stores. It provided medical and governmental services. It provided practically all the jobs. Gary, West Virginia, a coal mining town in the southern part of the state, was a creation of U.S. Steel. And while the workers were not formally bound to the company, their fortunes—like that of their community—were inextricably tied to the success of U.S. Steel. Gary developed in the early twentieth century as U.S. Steel sought a new supply of raw material for its industrial operations. The rich Pocahontas coal field in remote southern West Virginia provided the carbon-rich, low-sulfur coal the company required. To house the thousands of workers it would import to mine that coal bed, U.S. Steel carved a town out of the mountain wilderness. The company was the sole reason for its existence. In this fascinating book, Ronald Garay tells the story of how industry-altering decisions made by U.S. Steel executives reverberated in the hollows of Appalachia. From the area’s industrial revolution in the early twentieth century to the peak of steel-making activity in the 1940s to the industry’s decline in the 1970s, U.S. Steel and Gary, West Virginia offers an illuminating example of how coal and steel paternalism shaped the eastern mountain region and the limited ways communities and their economies evolve. In telling the story of Gary, this volume freshly illuminates the stories of other mining towns throughout Appalachia. At once a work of passionate journalism and a cogent analysis of economic development in Appalachia, this work is a significant contribution to the scholarship on U.S. business history, labor history, and Appalachian studies. Ronald Garay, a professor emeritus of mass communication at Louisiana State University, is the author of Gordon McLendon: The Maverick of Radio and The Manship School: A History of Journalism Education at LSU.

The Americanization of West Virginia

The Americanization of West Virginia PDF Author: John C. Hennen
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813193621
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
Local teachers and ministers extolling the virtues of hard work and loyalty to God and country. Veterans' groups and women's clubs promoting the military fighting radicalism, and equating business and patriotism. Industrial leaders gaining legal as well as moral influence over national domestic policy. Such scenes might seem to be lifted from a Sinclair Lewis novel or a Contract with America publicity video. But as John C. Hennen shows in this piercing analysis of early-twentieth-century American political culture, from 1916 to 1925 "Americanization" became the theme—indeed, the script—not only of West Virginia but of the entire nation. Hennen's interdisciplinary work examines a formative period in West Virginia's modern history that has been largely neglected beyond the traditional focus on the coal industry. Hennen looks at education, reform, and industrial relations in the state in the context of war mobilization, postwar instability, and national economic expansion. The First World War, he says, consolidated the dominant positions of professionals, business people, and political capitalists as arbiters of national values. These leaders emerged from the war determined to make free-market business principles synonymous with patriotic citizenship. Americanization, therefore, refers less to the assimilation of immigrants into the national mainstream than to the attempt to encode values that would guarantee a literate, loyal, and obedient producing class. To ensure that the state fulfilled its designated role as a resource zone for the perceived greater good of national strength, corporate leaders employed public relations tactics that the Wilson administration had refined to gain public support for the war. Alarmed by widespread labor activism and threatened by fears of communism, the American Constitutional Association in West Virginia, one of dozens of similar organizations nationwide, articulated principles that identified the well-being of business with the well-being of the country. With easy access to teacher training and classroom programs, antiunion forces had by 1923 rolled back the wartime gains of the United Mine Workers of America. Middle-class voluntary organizations like the American Legion and the West Virginia Federation of Women's Clubs helped implant mandated loyalty in schoolchildren. Far from being isolated during America's transformation into a world power, West Virginia was squarely in the mainstream. The state's people and natural resources were manipulated into serving crucial functions as producers and fuel for the postwar economy. Hennen's study, therefore, is a study less of the power or force of ideas than of the importance of access to the means to transmit ideas. The winner of the1995 Appalachian Studies Award is a significant contribution to regional studies as well as to our understanding of American culture during and after World War I.

The WPA Guide to West Virginia

The WPA Guide to West Virginia PDF Author: Federal Writers' Project
Publisher: Trinity University Press
ISBN: 159534246X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 673

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Book Description
During the 1930s in the United States, the Works Progress Administration developed the Federal Writers’ Project to support writers and artists while making a national effort to document the country’s shared history and culture. The American Guide series consists of individual guides to each of the states. Little-known authors—many of whom would later become celebrated literary figures—were commissioned to write these important books. John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ralph Ellison are among the more than 6,000 writers, editors, historians, and researchers who documented this celebration of local histories. Photographs, drawings, driving tours, detailed descriptions of towns, and rich cultural details exhibit each state’s unique flavor. The beautiful landscape as well as the significant role of the coal mining industry are both detailed in the WPA Guide to West Virginia. The essay “Country Folk and Country Ways” gives the reader an idea of how rural life was in the Mountain State in the early 20th century and the descriptions of Charleston, Clarksburg, and other cities are complete with stunning photographs of classic Southern architecture.