Labor History Commons^™

Northeastern Pennsylvania's Forgotten Labor Massacre: Analysis Pf The English Language Record Of The Lattimer Massacre, Jamie C. Costello

Graduate Masters Theses

The Lattimer Massacre occurred on September 10, 1897, in a small anthracite mining town in northeastern Pennsylvania. The bloody conflict erupted when an unarmed group of mostly Eastern European immigrant mine workers lethally clashed with militantly armed sheriff’s deputies who acted on behalf of private coal companies. Nineteen strikers died at the scene and dozens more were horrifically wounded. Despite the outraged shock of the community clamoring for justice which led to a murder trial that made international headlines, the Lattimer Massacre faded from local and national memory in the following decades. A combination of lingering nativist prejudice curated by …

“Mixed Up In The Coal Camp”: Interethnic, Family, And Community Exchanges In Matewan During The West Virginia Mine Wars, 1900-1922, Lela Dawn Gourley

History Theses & Dissertations

The West Virginia Mine Wars are etched in the popular memory of West Virginians, who view these events as an important part of their identity as Mountaineers; yet, there is still much historians do not know about the Mine Wars, especially when concentrating on the perspectives and experiences of the working-class miners. These everyday miners and their families are the topic of this thesis. Using oral histories from the Matewan Development Center Records housed in the W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, this thesis argues that community-building across ethnic and racial lines within Matewan’s …

Mamas, Miners, & Movements: Women And Gendered Labor In Central Appalachia During The 20th Century, Devan M. Mullins

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to better analyze the contributions and experiences of women within the central Appalachian region through the work they participated in during the 20th century. It lays the foundational understandings of gender roles that crafted the society of the area and connects labor evolution for women within Appalachia and the US as a whole – highlighting similarities and differences. It also discusses Appalachian women’s move from the household to waged labor within the coal mines. Special attention will be paid to the reactions of men and other women to women coal miners to understand what gendered labor means …

Review Of Richard L. Davis And The Color Line In Ohio Coal: A Hocking Valley Mine Labor Organizer, 1862–1900, By Frans H. Doppen, Cicero Fain

History Faculty Research

Much has been written on union organizers' bitter struggle to establish collective bargaining in the coal mines of central and southern Appalachia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Mine operators regularly employed deprivation, intimidation, black and white strikebreakers, violence, and murder to enforce their will. Thus, one can imagine the enormity of the challenges facing an African American coal mine labor organizer during this era. Yet, this is the task Richard L. Davis took on "among his 'colored brothers'" in the "microregion known as the Little Cities of Black Diamonds," located in southeastern Ohio's Hocking River Valley (p. …

Black Gold: Molly Maguireism, Unionism, And The Anthracite Labor Wars, 1860-1880, Samantha Edmiston

History Theses & Dissertations

The class and ethnic tensions that manifested in the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania were a microcosm of the broader, nation-wide labor wars of the late-nineteenth century. These labor wars, violent and sometimes bloody, shaped workingmen’s condition and the larger history of unionism. The Molly Maguires, in both their real and imagined form counted as key protagonists in these wars between big business and unions. More local wars also occurred between workers, those like the Mollies who wanted to use violence to encourage change, and others who instead sought to peacefully organize and bargain collectively with their employers.

This thesis …