Willard Wirtz asks how it will all come out, how the strike will end. Get a Demo. Si says Harlan is a dry countyno legal liquor and no beer. 2012: $1,552,717. Harlan County to unionize miners. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". Available for both RF and RM licensing. Blaine Sergent, coal leader, putting up his check at the end of a workday in Harlan County, Kentucky, in 1946. Battle of Evartshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Evarts, National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/new-deal/national-industrial-recovery-act-of-1933/, Battle of Evartshttps://pipiwiki.com/wiki/Battle_of_Evarts, Battle of Evartshttps://wiki2.org/en/Battle_of_Evarts, Harlan County Warhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_County_War, A Brief History of Harlan County, USAhttps://labornotes.org/blogs/2019/08/brief-history-harlan-county-usa, Harlan County Warhttps://everipedia.org/Harlan_County_War, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/background-coal-strike, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/local-elite, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/new-york-writers, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/national-miners-union-and-other-radical-groups, The Wagner Act of 1935 (National Labor Relations Act)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, BOMB IN AUTO KILLS KENTUCKY OFFICIAL; Harlan County Attorney Predicted Assassination for Backing Troops in Election.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, Elmon Clay Middleton https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/70804679/elmon-clay-middleton, KENTUCKY HOLDS FOUR IN AUTO BOMB KILLING; Harlan Prosecutors Death Is Laid to His Fight Against Slot Machines.https://www.nytimes.com/1935/09/06/archives/kentucky-holds-four-in-auto-bomb-killing-harlan-prosecutors-death.html, Blackjewel Bankruptcy Leaves Damaged Lands and Miners Compensation in Limbo, https://ohiovalleyresource.org/2021/03/22/blackjewel-bankruptcy-finalized/, This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/?fbclid=IwAR21nYphw4Dul-_EwuAmSWgzsvPLNwsMM0FtV75j0y-mGUHq-lCZjJxZot8, For more about us, you can visit our Facebook at:https://www.facebook.com/kytnliving, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs0oV5gFzIS2JdMJ3HvTOgA, When we forget our past and who we are as a people, then we become who they say we are. had them make me go in and pin it because it wasn't done right the first time. Herndon J. Evans, the editor of the Pineville Sun, argued, The troubles of the coal industry had their inception in war times. Pay ranged from $17 to $32 day, the average being $25. As in Germany, the AFSC used need alone to determine who got fed. ~~ David Sergent. Talking to Aaronson, I am reminded of an old tin sign I saw tacked on a tree along the highway as I left Harlan. ", Bill McQueen says that when the shuttle's lights and brakes were not working and the inspector was coming, the foreman would say, "Park it." How does the Harlan County Coal Operators Association fit into the picture? It is not all Duke's fault by any means. Altogether, it is a heavy financial burden for the UMW. The accident was investigated by Rufus Bailey, Harlan, district mine inspector of the State Department of Mines and Minerals, and James Bryson, safety director, Harlan County Coal Operators Association. Depression-era Harlan County, Kentucky, was the site of one of the most bitter and protracted labor disputes in American history. The Red Cross eventually became involved in the county along with several local charities. The most memorable of those are 1964, 1966, 1969 (The West Virginia Black Lung strike that the miners won) 1971, and the 1974 Strikes. The coal miners, lean and tough from Kentucky mountain life, knew how to fight back. 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. . 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. A Committee was formed and conducted by Activist Theodore Dreiser under the auspices of the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP). To prevent operating at a loss, on February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators Association decided to cut all wages by ten percent. Following this episode, the women say, Norman Yarborough asked Judge Hogg to hold the UMW and a number of miners and women in contempt of the Judge's order limiting the number of picketers to six. Since the county began mining, over one billion tons of coal have Some of the women went to jail with the men, and some took their children with them. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. Why is garbage left on the roadway? Yarborough says that he will not agree to the contract applying to Eastover's subcontractors. There was no functioning safety committee Medical and retirement benefits were minimal and unreliable. We soon get into a discussion about Dreiser's 1931 inquiry. The Harlan County Coal War is one of the . Prior to the strike, the pay of the Brookside miners started and stopped at the face of coal. By comparison to Harlan, the Pittston strike in 1989-1990 shut down almost 70% of that company's production (and completely halted production during the Moss 3 refining plant occupation) and won back the health care benefits of around 1500 miners and their families, as well as the Coal Act of 1992 that requires all coal operators in the U . 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. I can see twenty-five miles to the southeast, five ridges. Theoretically, even operators' and owners' children were . Only to be escorted to the county line and told not to return. 3.' Many of the houses have no running water, and these families have to carry all their water from a common outdoor spigot. [Verse 2] I got 27 peopl coming over to this house. Free shipping for many products! James Willard Pope officiating. Here at Kentucky Tennessee Living we fully support the coal miners and their families. He can't never walk again." 1938) Copy Citation . USBM Final Investigation Report (1.7 Mb) Successful Rescue . She pays $10 a month for rent and $10 a month for electricity. Chicago citation style: Harris & Ewing, photographer. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to . "Then he'd come out looking like a sheep-killing dog and get in his truck and run. We look back on the film, which screens this Sunday, February . She says that the women decided that they couldn't fight guns with switches and that they had taken sticks with them the next time. "Dreiser, Woman Indicted," one headline reads. There were only three cars in the motorcade each of which contained a sheriffs deputy. We return to our series on the Coal Wars of the United States with Bloody Harlan and the Battle for Evarts. As discussed in a previous video. They want the terms of the standard UMW contract or better. On February 16, 1931, in order to prevent operating at a loss, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association cut miners' wages by 10%. He said that when the coal industry was at its height in 1928, the peak of . Harlan Daily Enterprise, September 17, 1943. Arnold Miller, who was an active coal miner until three years ago and is now the reform-minded president of the United Mine Workers, has asked me to serve as a member of a "Citizens Public Inquiry into the Brookside Strike.". After the railroad arrived in 1911 . It is too early for dolor. 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. And we're burning up people to make electricity. I am the only man in the United States who would do that sort of thing.". Documents the 1973 Kentucky coal miners' strike against the operators of the Brookside mine and the Duke Power Company, which resulted from the company's refusal to honor the . 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. Freda Armes says, "I take a cloth and strain the water to cook with. Lois Scott explains that during the first confrontation at the mine, she saw a pistol in the front seat of every "scab" car she looked into and that a company "gun thug" pointed a submachine gun at the women from the porch of the Eastover office. Barbara says that she was reacting spontaneously to the spirit and determination exhibited by the women, that their testimony was the highlight of our hearings. KCA traces its origin to a statewide association of coal operators who united their efforts in 1942. We feel that we have provided a national forum for the miners to tell their story. 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. 2011: $1,161,330. 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. J. D. Skidmore says, "I have no chance of getting a job in Harlan County if this strike is not settled." Miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, have drawn national attention with their direct action occupying a railroad track to halt a coal train . There's water in the mine because the pumps often won't work. "It's one of 'em," Yarborough says. "Why couldn't the original thirteen colonies live with the same British policy that applied to all other British colonies?" 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. Bill Doan says, "When I got hurt, I couldn't find Jim Miller, the man who had charge of the sick fund." 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. But relatives did come and take the children. He sentenced nine men and seven women to six months in jail and fined them $500 each. They range in age from about twenty-one to seventy. Almost immediately after the explosion became known rescue teams, under the direction of J. F. Bryson, safety director of the Harlan County Coal Operators association, started into the entry. I glance at the new Piedmont magazine, Pace. Killed - 12. There are still ongoing strikes today and the violence in Harlan County Continues. Bobby Simpson, 79, has been blind for more than a half-century, but still managed to shovel coal. Genders. But, I say, even without further investigation of each of the complaints, it is possible to conclude that fear is an everyday part of the miners' lives. Willard Wirtz says that it is important to remember that one side of the dispute felt confident enough about their case to arrange to spread it before the widest possible audience. Now, along a cloudy green stream, or through deep cuts in the mountains, or high atop a timbered ridge, looking down on green quilt-patch valleys, we wind our way toward Harlan. Yarborough tells us that the company does not now object to paying the miners for portal-to-portal time for inside mine work, but that the union wants comparability for outside workers too, in effect requiring the company to pay outside workers overtime for all work in excess of a seven and-a-quarter-hour regular day. Carl Horn of Duke Power and Arnold Miller of the UMW had talked, and negotiations had been resumed. These women have organized a special kind of feminist movement, and the issues to them are life-and-death issues. HARLAN COUNTYHarlan County, Kentucky, is a rural county located in a major coal-mining region in the Appalachian Mountains. Brophy's was the last reform insurgency against UMW leadership until Joseph Yablonski's fatal try. Dixon and union leaders worry that the union's disappearance in Kentucky has opened the door for coal operators to . Someone had planted dynamite in his automobile and when he started it up the car blew up. Blair. Miners laid in an ambush on the day of May 5, 1931, near the Evarts railroad crossing. This law was enacted to try to reverse the hardships to those who were out of a job because of the economic collapse of the Great Depression. However, after the dust was clear, the anti-labor coal country would end up being represented by unions. Or all you're gonna get's a chunk of Harlan County coal. Biographical History . 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. The Great Depression of 1929 through the late 1930s hit Harlan County Kentucky. On September 4, 1935, Harlan County Attorney Elmon Clay Middleton, age 31, was assassinated by a car bomb containing eighteen sticks of dynamite. "Not at all," Yarborough says. The slab of slate, more than 51 feet long, and 17 feet wide and weighing tons, was dodged by two men. That year, annual wages dropped from $1,235 to $749. Miner Curtis Cress, 34, says towns that . "The personal is political" was a rallying cry of second wave feminism. . Jacqueline Brophy asks why public services have broken down. Hennen attributes this abandonment to the increasingly conservative John L. Lewis, the longtime and powerful president of the UMWA, who feared . The money was . "I've had the foreman to tell me to set timbers or something until the inspector got gone. Segment Synopsis: Lois Scott continues her conversation from her previous interview. Looking for protection by the Kentucky National Guard, many were surprised to find that they broke the picket lines instead. Thirty percent of the families lack automobiles. Two hundred people crowd. In the throes of the Great Depression, Harlan County coal owners and operators, in an effort to expand national dependency on their fuel, chose to sell below cost. Five men and their titles are listed and all are doing all they can.. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Special Judge F. Byrd Hogg, a neighboring county judge who has been assigned to the case, entered an early order limiting the strikers to three pickets at each of two entrances to the Eastover Mining Company property. 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. 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 men's life depended on my job, but I knowed if I protested I'd a got fired. Is that the only objection that is holding up a settlement? Based on this new Act, from October 27, 1933, to March 31, 1935, the mines ran as open shops. There are nearly 40,000 people in the county, a drop of 36 percent since 1960. James Sizemore says that frequently float dust, which is dangerously explosive, would get too heavy in the mine, and he would complain, but that. Garbage along the roadside. I don't like- workin' in them kind of conditions." Bobby's wife, Becky, who died in 2013, was a lifelong advocate for the people of Harlan County. Tuesday morning: Norman Yarborough has agreed to meet some of our group. It is unclear who fired that shot but both sides claim that the other side did it. I have been married to David W. Sergent since May 4, 2013.
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