(Eastover offered fifty cents a ton.) 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. Violence erupted that would periodically repeat itself for the next eight years. the foreman would just say, "We gotta run coal. Her daughter, Bessie Cornett, an attractive young brunette, says, "I'm not in jail today because you people are here." Some of the miners also claim that the state police have tried to intimidate them. Throughout 1931, violence sprouted between miners One of the Deputies was Jim Daniels. (Brookside) were the only two mines of the Harlan County owner/operators association who rejected a 10% pay increase in 1933. At Brookside, this would amount to $400,000 a year. Prior to the strike, the pay of the Brookside miners started and stopped at the face of coal. PDF "I Am a Union Woman": Gender, Class, and Folk Music in The Harlan When fuses blow, they are not immediately replaced; the cable is spliced or "hot-wired" around the fuse. ", We break for lunch, prepared by the women of the Evarts Community Center. "We could lay down, fight the police, or let them scabs go to work. I glance at the new Piedmont magazine, Pace. Members of The Harlan County Medical Society 1932 We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. Segment Synopsis: Lois Scott continues her conversation from her previous interview. 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. McDonald's. 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. However, they did make a greater effort than the United Mine Workers with relief as they opened soup kitchens around the county. "Here at Brookside, if you called someone from SLU, he might come in a week, he might come in two weeks, but when he did come, he'd go into Eastover's office and talk for an hour," Bill Doan says. 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. The three houses with baths rent for $24 a month, plus $14 a month for electricity. Mr. Nolan, a resident of Cawood, is survived by his wife, Mrs. Stella Nolan . 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. I have been married to David W. Sergent since May 4, 2013. The remaining workforce then went on strike as a sign of solidarity with those that were fired from their jobs. Chicago citation style: Harris & Ewing, photographer. "I've seen some hurt and some killed. I am the only man in the United States who would do that sort of thing.". October 31, 2016. We feel that we have provided a national forum for the miners to tell their story. But what of the people of Harlan County? Kentucky Coal Association - Ballotpedia 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. There were constant beatings of the miners by the Sheriffs deputies. They say no action has been taken on this report. For a time after the hearing, he says, it appeared that Duke had softened. At first, heading northwest on modern Route 23, through Kingsport, Tennessee, Weber City, Virginia, and Gate City, Virginia, the sights are the same as almost everywhere else in America today. [citation needed] On February 16, 1931, in order to prevent operating at a loss, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association cut miners' wages by 10%. Only to be escorted to the county line and told not to return. He can't never walk again." But you must remember I am an immoral man. Freda Armes says, "I take a cloth and strain the water to cook with. In response, the coal owners and operators decided to sell their fuel at below cost to increase the national dependency on coal. Sheriff Blair was voted out of his office in 1933 and died just a year later. 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. The union abandoned its efforts after less than a year. Si has signed on as head of the staff for the Citizens Inquiry, which is funded with a five-thousanddollar grant from the Field Foundation. Some of the women cut switches and joined the picketers. We are told that Eastover has announced its intention to tear down the mining-camp houses and move the striking miners out. 1 mine in Evarts, in Harlan County, Kentucky. Each contract varied from mine to mine. 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. Westmoreland Coal Company - Social Networks and Archival Context - SNAC He is a sturdily built, self-assured man of about fifty, with a strong, square jaw and a rough, weathered face. James Willard Pope officiating. Harry Caudill, attorney and author of Night Comes to the Cumberlands, will not be able to join us in Harlan because of legal business. Harlan County | Encyclopedia.com As correspondent Bob Simon reports, 47 miners died, six of them from just one county in eastern Kentucky . The Great Depression of 1929 through the late 1930s hit Harlan County Kentucky. It has assets worth $2.5 billion. With the passage of these acts, there was unrest in Harlan County. The decade-long conflict between miners and the coal operators who adamantly resisted unionization has been immortalized in folksong by Florence Reece and Aunt Molly Jackson, contemplated in prose by Theodore Dreiser and Sherwood Anderson, and long been obscured by . It is home to lawyers, doctors and coal operators; it has a hospital, several banks and a few fast-food . Wirtz says that his arbitration experience tells him that if Eastover really wants to negotiate in good faith, the remaining issues, tough as they are, can probably be worked out. Harlan County, Kentucky in a Post-Coal America: A Case Study He decided to make Harlan County a test case in the UMW's new, more aggressive organizing efforts. [videorecording] Contributor(s): Kopple, Barbara; First-Run Features (Firm) Cabin Creek Films; Publication details: New York : First Run Features, 1976. . There are very few vacant houses in the county. The unemployment rate in the county is 7 percent; that doesn't count those who have long since given up looking for the scarce or nonexistent jobs. 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. The United Mine Workers of America represented 400,000 miners at that point and promised miners safer work conditions and higher wages. The nearest ridge is green with spruce and pine. It is beautiful in Harlan County, as pretty as any place in the world. 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. Nonunion workers were attempting to leave the mine. The strikebreakers were under the protection of private mine guards. . The local grand jury returned an indictment against Dreiser for adultery, but by that time Dreiser had finished his work and had left the county on the train. The latest unrest in Harlan County came when in July of 2019, Black jewel LLC filed for bankruptcy and liquidation. . Poffitt, Jacqueline Brophy, and I meet the other members of the Citizens Inquiry in a private dining room in the Mount Aire: James David Barber, chairman of the Political Science Department at Duke University and author of The Presidential Character; Monsignor Geno Baroni, president of the National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs, a Catholic priest whose father is a retired Pennsylvania miner with black lung; Barbara Bode, president of the Children's Foundation in Washington; and Dr. Raymond Wheeler of Charlotte, North Carolina, president of the Southern Regional Council. (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.) He speaks of "my people" and "my men." Harry Simms, who was a Young Communist League organizer was killed in Harlan. Four men were arrested in connection with this murder. It is not all Duke's fault by any means. I remind her of what Bill Doan has said: "You work with one eye on the roof, one eye on your job, and your mind's outside.". It was settled in 1819 by Virginians led by Samuel Howard and was known as Mount Pleasant until renamed in 1912 for Major Silas Harlan, who was killed during the American Revolution at the Battle of Blue Licks (August 19, 1782). And we're burning up people to make electricity. Featuring a haunting soundtrack-with legendary country . Our drive takes us upstream along the yellow-brown Clear Fork River. Miners also wanted the right to organize and have a union. 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. Midway in the trial, Judge Hogg dismissed the jury and directed a verdict of guilty. Source Citation [ }] Descriptive Note Contributors from initial SNAC EAC-CPF ingest. Interment at Resthaven Cemetery, Keith, Ky. Visitation 6-9 p.m. at the Grays Knob Bible Church. Sudie Crusenberg, a plain woman in a cotton dress, gives us some idea of what life is like for a coal-mining family. Bryan W. Whitfield III (1925-2010) - Find a Grave Memorial 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 [Verse 2] I got 27 peopl coming over to this house. Find the perfect harlan county coal stock photo, image, vector, illustration or 360 image. We drive to the Evarts Community Center and report to the other members of the Citizens Inquiry. Funeral Wednesday March 1 at 11 a.m. at Grays Knob Bible Church. those in the Harlan County Coal Operators . California labor activist Caroline Decker also raised money for the relief of the striking miner efforts. On May 5, 1931 the pot boiled over; in Harlan County Kentucky, heavily armed deputies and company men, called "gun thugs" by miners, confronted disgruntled union men on a road near Evarts. Louis Stacy that he has several times been running a defective roofbolting machine when word came that inspector was on his way. Daniels was one of the most hated deputies in the county due to his anti-union views. When this strike was broken in1924, none of the non-union mines in Harlan County, all of which were members ofthe Harlan County Coal Operators Association, would employ a man from BlackMountain."Many of the men who worked at Black Mountain transferred to LocalUnion No. Toilets are built out over the river, and the water has obviously been much higher in the recent past. Hennen attributes this abandonment to the increasingly conservative John L. Lewis, the longtime and powerful president of the UMWA, who feared . As discussed in a previous video. The men and women were released on good behavior. I have an Associates Degree from Hazard Community College and Technical School. Si says Harlan is a dry countyno legal liquor and no beer. The Widows of Harlan County - CBS News There are still ongoing strikes today and the violence in Harlan County Continues. Resources | Harlan Coal Scrip The Act was an attempt to restructure the industrial sector of the economy and to alleviate unemployment with a public works program. They exercised their powers with impunity and operated under Sheriff J.H. If you wouldn't do it, they'd just say, 'Get your bucket.' We agree that most of us lean toward the miners, but we think we can be fair in trying to learn the facts. I can see twenty-five miles to the southeast, five ridges. However, the battle continues to this day. 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. However, after the dust was clear, the anti-labor coal country would end up being represented by unions. This series of skirmishes and strikes, lasting from early 1931 into 1939, began because of the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association's (HCCOA) decision to cut miners' wages by 10%. Coal Strike May End, But Miners Still Fear Future HARLAN COUNTY: Women - The Cinessential The issues had been narrowed down to Eastover's demand for a "no-strike clause" and a limit on the power of the safety committee. Among coal miners, Harlan County, Kentucky, is known as "Bloody Harlan." The median family income is $4600 a year. In Harlan County, Kentucky, are some of our country's richest natural resourcesand some of its poorest people. He says that he will not agree to the Brookside contract applying to "all" of Eastover's operations. Sadly, the state and federal troops would occupy the county several times. The company also agreed to abide by any agreement reached between the . In the bloody 1930s coal wars, miners known to be union members were fired and evicted from company-owned homes. Rev. They tell of two night incidents when rifle shots were fired at the picketers by unidentified persons. 1938) Copy Citation . They want portal-to-portal pay from the time they enter the mine until they leave it. Typical of counties with low income, counties where the mine companies own everything and pay low taxes, our UMW driver says. Pay ranged from $17 to $32 day, the average being $25. The letter states that Eastover has now raised the wages in their other mines to the UMW scale and is paying the miners for time spent with the mine moving to and from the face of the coal. They had no safety committee, the miners say, and the federal reports bear them out. Our delegation arrives on time at the Eastover office in Brookside. Toilet paper clings to the bushes and tree limbs five or six feet up from the rushing stream. The roof is approximately forty-eight inches high in the mine. There were ten lodges that were chartered for the National Miners Union. 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. It is an area of Kentucky that you only go to if you are intentionally going to the county. She talks about the women being armed with sticks, mace . or smaller. Interviews with residents of Hazard who discuss the coal miners' union, the harassment union miners faced from large mining companies, and the unofficial strikes that are being organized in Hazard County. Working barns of gray-black weathered wood. Only three of the families in the camp have indoor toilets. When Barbara finishes her answer, Wirtz raises a clenched fist and says, "Right on!" This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. 9:03 PM. Overturned car bodies everywhere. ", 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." A Committee was formed and conducted by Activist Theodore Dreiser under the auspices of the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP). This Day in Labor History: February 16, 1931 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.". Middleton died on the scene. The name comes from a series of United Mine Workers strikes and labor-management battles which ended in a gunfight between deputized mine guards and miners on May 4, 1931, in the tiny community of Evarts. Name Entry; Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. Listen to "Harlan County Coal" from Pistol Annies' album, 'Hell of a Holiday,' out now: https://pa.lnk.to/HOAHAY Chorus:Making decorations out of shotgun she. These guards were legally able to protect these men during their off duty time. Troops had to be called into the county three times to maintain order. [ citation needed ] On February 16, 1931, in order to prevent operating at a loss, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association cut miners' wages by 10%. 8 N.L.R.B. 2011: $1,161,330. Some seventy-five state policemen were on hand as the crowd gathered. Its profits in 1973 were $90 million, up 14 percent from the year before. Eastover agreed to sign the 1971 wage pact of the Bituminous Coal Operators Association which is in force at 1,200 mines. 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. No wonder R C Cola has so many signs everywhere. Strikebreakers were often beaten. 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. Now, forty-three years later, Harlan County is again gripped in a UMW strike, this time at the Brookside mine of the Eastover Mining Company, and another citizens' group has been formed. Soon enough, most miners had gone on strike out of solidarity. Frame houses with rusty tin roofs. Free shipping for many products! Betty Eldridge is a mildmannered, well-dressed woman of about forty. Thirty percent of the families lack automobiles. Hell in Harlan - front page Miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, have drawn national attention with their direct action occupying a railroad track to halt a coal train . As in Germany, the AFSC used need alone to determine who got fed. Mrs. Herschel Gaw, wife of the ailing jailer, locked them all up. They were convicted on charges of conspiracy to murder. Harlan County. They fed strikers' children as well as the employed, blacks as well as whites. 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. Leroy Helton says miners often have to splice electrical cable, even though they're not qualified to do so. It is unclear who fired that shot but both sides claim that the other side did it. Harlan County, KY, coal miners win affiliation with UMWA union, United 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. The slab of slate, more than 51 feet long, and 17 feet wide and weighing tons, was dodged by two men. 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. The money was . Available for both RF and RM licensing. By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. Grace Elizabeth Hale. 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. The women are nervous about testifying, afraid of retaliation. Hazard County documentary / produced by H. Sinclair. - Internet Archive 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. 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. Three Point Mine Explosion It is clear that these women have been a main factor in keeping the mine shut down. No. Our History - Kentucky Coal Association That year, annual wages dropped from $1,235 to $749. What did the foremen say on those occasions? Captain James Cromer of the state police later tells news reporters, "The women are a problem. The trees are barely beginning to bud in the early March warmth. 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. "If we could monitor these inspections, perhaps we could cut down on the fatalities," he says. A rural county of 27,000, Harlan County's average household income is about $29,000. Miners laid in an ambush on the day of May 5, 1931, near the Evarts railroad crossing. The Harlan County Coal Wars 1931-1939 - Kentucky Tennessee Living 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.
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