Here and there, we also see white-blossoming pear and dogwood trees. 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. 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. Strikebreakers were often beaten. Coal companies refused to back down while the Red Cross refused to give aid . New subdivisions named Tall Oaks and Colonial Heights. "The personal is political" was a rallying cry of second wave feminism. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. All too many Americans are under the naive belief that, while unions may have been necessary in the 30's, they are no longer needed in the United States today. 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 . The coal miners, lean and tough from Kentucky mountain life, knew how to fight back. By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. I glance at the new Piedmont magazine, Pace. During the rest of the afternoon, the miners talk about what has happened on the picket line and in the local court. When filmmaker Barbara Kopple traveled to Harlan County, Kentucky, the resulting Academy award-winning documentary, Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976) captured a historic story. It is thought that Middleton was assassinated for backing troops who were present in the County to protect the miners. He is a sturdily built, self-assured man of about fifty, with a strong, square jaw and a rough, weathered face. Why couldn't Eastover live with the same national UMW contract that so many other companies have accepted? With this Supreme Court ruling, all but one of the open shops in Harlan County went back to the previous mine operations. Why wasn't the fuse replaced at once? She talks about the women being armed with sticks, mace . October 31, 2016. If those under them behave in an approved manner then they receive housing, work, food, and other perks of their position. 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. She says that she and some of the other women hid out last night to avoid being served with a contempt citation from Judge Hogg's court. Killed - 12. 5355, atEvarts . ", What about the Southern Labor Union? The officials were listed were the "veteran safety director of the Harlan Coal Operators Association, and Rufus Bailey and H. Hamlin, state . 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 the Harlan County Coal Operators Association (HCCOA) and secondly at the worn work boots of miners who, when work was plentiful, saw little or no need for a union. Exist Dates. Duke Power Company appears to be the key to breaking the deadlock in negotiations. Burger Chef. 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. Dateline Newport News, Virginia, November 12, 1931: Dreiser denies the charge and says he wants people to concentrate on the facts of the labor dispute and "get the American mind off sex for a moment." Our drive takes us upstream along the yellow-brown Clear Fork River. "We want safety all the time, not just when the inspector comes," Jerry Johnson says. Throughout 1931, violence sprouted between miners Thirty percent of the families lack automobiles. You just don't hit a woman in Harlan County." It seems that unfriendly local law enforcement officials kept a constant surveillance on Dreiser, hoping to catch him in something that would justify a criminal charge against him. And always there is a murky roadside stream, beech and sycamore trees lining its banks. 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. There were only nine hundred miners working and 5,800 miners were idle and striking during the first strike. Apparently, this is one of Eastover's major objections. B.W. There is one ostentatious feature about him, though: a large, multi-diamond ring on the third finger of his left hand. Why are people allowed to dump raw sewage in the streams? June 17th of that same year, the first strike was over as the last miner had returned to work. California labor activist Caroline Decker also raised money for the relief of the striking miner efforts. I have been married to David W. Sergent since May 4, 2013. 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. Five men and their titles are listed and all are doing all they can.. It is unclear who fired that shot but both sides claim that the other side did it. She doesn't know where she will go when the camp is closed. ("Tony") Boyle for the national presidency of the UMW in 1972 in an election closely supervised by the federal government. Abstract. I've got five living children and four dead. The next morning the toothpicks were still in place, it was said. McDonald's. Duke went into the coal business directly in 1970 when it organized Eastover Mining Company as a wholly owned subsidiary and, through it, bought several mines in eastern Kentucky, including the one at Brookside. They want the terms of the standard UMW contract or better. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. Here at Kentucky Tennessee Living we fully support the coal miners and their families. He was transferred to a worse section, he says. Violence erupted that would periodically repeat itself for the next eight years. 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. But negotiations for a contract with Eastover soon broke down, and on July 30 the miners at Brookside began the strike that now, as we arrive, is in its eighth month. We feel that we have provided a national forum for the miners to tell their story. They are merely a service organization, Yarborough says. The miners, impoverished due to their already low pay (this coming in the form of company scrip, room, and board), decided enough was enough, and some of them . A Brief History of Harlan County, USA. In Harlan County, Kentucky, are some of our country's richest natural resourcesand some of its poorest people. Nannie Rainey takes us into her four-room house where she and her husband and five children live. It will be a two-hour, winding drive through the Cumberland Mountains to the town of Harlan. We drive through the streets of the town of Harlan, past the stores and houses, past the Harlan Baptist Church with a sign out front which reads: "If you are unkind, you are the wrong kind." 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. There is a suit still in litigation. [ 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%. Another press member criticizes Barbara Bode for having raised a clenched fist during the women's testimony. ", What about federal inspection? "Then he'd come out looking like a sheep-killing dog and get in his truck and run. In 1973 the 13-month Brookside Strike brought almost 200 workers to battle Eastover Coal Company's Brookside Mine and Prep Plant, a company owned by Duke Power. When fuses blow, they are not immediately replaced; the cable is spliced or "hot-wired" around the fuse. Many of the houses have no running water, and these families have to carry all their water from a common outdoor spigot. One of the Deputies was Jim Daniels. Some of the miners also claim that the state police have tried to intimidate them. The Harlan County Coal War is one of the . There was no standard contract for the miners. 1938) Copy Citation . It does not store any personal data. There had been several clashes with the "scabs," the mine guards, and the state police, Kahn says. We look back on the film, which screens this Sunday, February . But is it really hurting? The Great Depression of 1929 through the late 1930s hit Harlan County Kentucky. Leroy Helton says he still owes a lot of bills that should have been paid by SLU. (Fifty million tons of union coal are mined in western Kentucky; only 6.5 million tons of union coal are mined in eastern Kentucky.) With the passage of these acts, there was unrest in Harlan County. Copy as parenthetical citation. That year, annual wages dropped from $1,235 to $749. had them make me go in and pin it because it wasn't done right the first time. Why is garbage left on the roadway? It is clear that these women have been a main factor in keeping the mine shut down. He is dressed more like a miner than a mining executive. "Roof falls are a constant hazard, but the bosses just keep on rushin'.". "We could lay down, fight the police, or let them scabs go to work. That's an old term in Harlan County, used to describe special, plain-clothed guards. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. One of the towns that were a refuge was Evarts, Kentucky. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. Only 23 percent of those in the county over the age of twenty-five have completed high school. 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. It doesn't seem like enough. Done. I can see twenty-five miles to the southeast, five ridges. James Sizemore says that frequently float dust, which is dangerously explosive, would get too heavy in the mine, and he would complain, but that. 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. 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. The Great Depression of 1929 through the late 1930s hit Harlan County Kentucky. or smaller. Afterwards, they gathered near the picket line at the Eastover property in Brookside. Sheriff Blair was voted out of his office in 1933 and died just a year later. But relatives did come and take the children. Find the perfect harlan county coal stock photo, image, vector, illustration or 360 image. 9:03 PM. corporateBody associatedWith : Heyl & Patterson, Inc . We hope that you have enjoyed our stop in Bloody Harlan and the history of the longest and still ongoing coal struggles of the United States. ~~ David Sergent. by Ron Soodalter. We return to our series on the Coal Wars of the United States with Bloody Harlan and the Battle for Evarts. The men's life depended on my job, but I knowed if I protested I'd a got fired. 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. And, all around, there are the rolling mountains, covered with second-growth timber. 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. Kahn says that the miners were encouraged by Eastover's management, headed by Norman Yarborough, to join a small "company union," the Southern Labor Union. Bill McQueen says that the shuttle car into the mine usually has no brakes, and that it can only be stopped by putting it in reverse. But you must remember I am an immoral man. Mr. Blanton explained the reasoning behind coal camps. 25 (N.L.R.B. A third generation coal operator, he served as President of the Harlan County Coal Operators and the Harlan Mining Institute, as Vice President of the Kentucky Coal Association and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Associated Industries of Kentucky. I have attended the University of Kentucky. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Harlan County to unionize miners. In the year of "the energy crisis," Coal is King again at $30 a ton. Pricing; Switch; Big firm; There was no functioning safety committee Medical and retirement benefits were minimal and unreliable. the meeting room. Mostly, the miners were fighting for improved working conditions, higher wages, and better housing options for their families. 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. There are very few vacant houses in the county. The sign man for R C Cola has worked this territory well. While it succeeded in organizing thousands of miners, it failed to complete a bargaining agreement with Harlan County's coal operators. They made several attempts at holding strikes against the coal companies, but these failed in Harlan County. James Willard Pope officiating. Frame houses with rusty tin roofs. Several folk singers and other artists toured the United States to raise money during the strikes. Depression-era Harlan County, Kentucky, was the site of one of the most bitter and protracted labor disputes in American history. They just laughed about it, and we kept on cuttin' coal. "They sent me to 'Waterhole No. "This whole country is like a layer cake," Si Kahn says, "a layer cake of shale, coal, and sandstone. Available for both RF and RM licensing. Now and then, there is a neat, new frame house or a Pic and Pay market between scattered tarpaper shacks. They file with us copies of specific federal safety violation reports, and they say that nothing was ever done to correct these violations. 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. Biographical History . She pays $10 a month for rent and $10 a month for electricity. Leroy Helton says miners often have to splice electrical cable, even though they're not qualified to do so. I remind her that Duke and Eastover executives were invited, and have refused to appear before us. Kentucky communities discussed include Artemus, Burdine, Jenkins, Jellico, Van Lear, and Wheelwright; and Kentucky counties include Bell, Clay, Floyd, Harlan . Other times, he says, "Roof was workin', rock was a-hangin', and it sounded like thunder. We never would find out what happened. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". These women have organized a special kind of feminist movement, and the issues to them are life-and-death issues. Partial Transcript: August 27, '86. The Kentucky mining camps still had the paternalism idea in their mists and the ever-independent Appalachian people were not having it. Bill Doan says that the roof bolts often didn't have enough torque on them, sometimes causing roof falls as high as thirty-five feet above the regular ceiling, and that once he complained about this to the visiting inspector in the presence of his foreman. Harlan County in eastern Kentucky, which has been brought out into the spotlight this summer by the violence with which the local Coal Operators' Association has carried on this attack, is, as far as I can find out, a pretty good medium exhibit of the entire industry: living conditions are better than in Alabama and perhaps a little worse . With unprecedented access, Kopple and her crew captured the miners' sometimes violent struggles with strikebreakers, local police, and company thugs. Norman Yarborough, head of Eastover Mining Company, is not coming either. 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. At these locations, the mine wages began to be comparable to other jobs around the nation. "You could hunt for one, but there just weren't one there," he says. 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. At first, there were little battles with gunshots being exchanged between the strikers and the private guards, and the local law enforcement agents. Neither will Dr. Robert Coles, psychiatrist and author of Children of Crisis. They also plan to join with a North Carolina group in protesting Duke's requested rate increase, and they are going to attend the meeting of Duke's stockholders on May 30. Did she find the stick on the ground? "This troubles me; I don't sleep," Yarborough says. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. A thousand feet below me lies a small, green valley, partly shrouded by the morning mist. The miners charge that the Harlan County Coal Operators Association is behind Eastover's refusal to sign a contract. Yarborough says that he will not agree to the contract applying to Eastover's subcontractors. The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 (Paperback) at the best online prices at eBay! [videorecording] Contributor(s): Kopple, Barbara; First-Run Features (Firm) Cabin Creek Films; Publication details: New York : First Run Features, 1976. . The main problem, he says, is that the company wants a "no-strike" clause, so that the union cannot strike during the contract period. We are picked up at the airport by Si (for Simon) Kahn, a Pennsylvania rabbi's son who graduated from Harvard, came to the Southern mountains as a Vista worker, and remained here, working for local community groups. Office files covering topics such as "accounts receivable," "baseball club," "coal production," "garnishment orders," "Harlan Coal Operator's Association," "labor conditions," "medical conditions . The final straw was when the Harlan County Coal Operators Association cut miners' wages by 10%. Why haven't the car bodies been removed from the highway and the streets? The National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP) was of the American Communist Party. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. An investigation was conducted on Terrorism in the Kentucky Coal Fields. Yarborough is tough and unyielding. I've talked to Norman Yarborough, and you ain't bringing no union down here. Destitute miners were in no position to take a 2 wage cut; yet, in February of 1931 the newest in a long series of wage cuts occurred, reducing miners' weekly pay by 10 percent. On one excuse or another, such as not having personnel readily available to accompany the inspector into the mine, the company can delay the inspection. She speaks in a soft, pleasant voice. Si says Harlan is a dry countyno legal liquor and no beer. Overturned car bodies everywhere. On September 9, 1935, for the first time since the beginning of the war, troops were dispatched to Harlan County on behalf of the miners by the Governor of the State of Kentucky. Herndon J. Evans, the editor of the Pineville Sun, argued, The troubles of the coal industry had their inception in war times. Harlan, city, seat of Harlan county, southeastern Kentucky, U.S., in the Cumberland Mountains, on the Clover Fork Cumberland River. More than twenty-four babies out of a thousand die before they are one year old, and the expenditure per child in the public schools is one-half the national average. Three Point, Harlan County, Kentucky September 16, 1943 No. No one knows who fired the first shot but when it was over four were . She talks about hiding behind cars on the picket line for protection from the "gun thugs." She talks about a standoff against Basil Collins and the scabs and gun thugs. On September 4, 1935, Harlan County Attorney Elmon Clay Middleton, age 31, was assassinated by a car bomb containing eighteen sticks of dynamite. Toilets are built out over the river, and the water has obviously been much higher in the recent past. Eight miners were sentenced to life in prison for the actions that were taken on May 5, 1931. Hennen attributes this abandonment to the increasingly conservative John L. Lewis, the longtime and powerful president of the UMWA, who feared . United States Washington D.C. District of Columbia Washington D.C . There are nearly 40,000 people in the county, a drop of 36 percent since 1960. An organic shape, small and shiny and pinkish white, sits . It comes to a bill of about $20,000 a week for the national union. Dixon and union leaders worry that the union's disappearance in Kentucky has opened the door for coal operators to . "It's one of 'em," Yarborough says. The company will probably demand a new election. 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. They are demanding the standard UMW provision requiring the company to pay a royalty of seventy-five cents a ton on mined coal into the UMW Welfare & Retirement Fund. Barbara Kopple 's Academy Award-winning Harlan County USA unflinchingly documents a grueling coal miners' strike in a small Kentucky town. A shoulder blade and five of his ribs were broken. Mr. There were ten lodges that were chartered for the National Miners Union. We soon get into a discussion about Dreiser's 1931 inquiry. Ky., told the Senate Civil Liberties Committee as it resumed its investigation of alleged terrorism in connection with Harlan County Coal Operators' efforts to resist union organization drives. Some of the women went to jail with the men, and some took their children with them. They have done this only since the Brookside strike. "Why couldn't the original thirteen colonies live with the same British policy that applied to all other British colonies?" I say that the issue is whether or not the men will be allowed to have their own union to protect their safety and secure and maintain decent wages and benefits, that if enough pressure is put on Duke Power Company, maybe something will give. This was thirteen percent of the workers showing up for their scheduled work times. The United Mine Workers union also cited that they did not have the resources to help in the battle. Its profits in 1973 were $90 million, up 14 percent from the year before. Harlan County Coal Miners Deaths 1940-1949 1940 1940 Hayes, Petry - Harlan Central Coal Company Totz No. 1 mine in Evarts, in Harlan County, Kentucky. Willard Wirtz asks how it will all come out, how the strike will end. Typical of counties with low income, counties where the mine companies own everything and pay low taxes, our UMW driver says. "We took the sticks with us," she says. 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. This active organization is made up of those who represent the leader in the mining industry. In Harlan County on July 7, 1935, during a celebration of the Wagner Act, a group of disgruntled deputies severely beat up several miners and dispersed the crowd. Si sticks a wad of Red Man chewing tobacco in his cheek and begins to fill us in on the background of the Brookside strike. Harlan County U.S.A. by Felicia Elliott, August 2, 2016. As correspondent Bob Simon reports, 47 miners died, six of them from just one county in eastern Kentucky . 3.' The men and women were released on good behavior. Before the first meeting of the Citizens Inquiry, we sit around and talk with the Inquiry chairman, Daniel Pollitt, a professor of law at the University of North Carolina. He fined the UMW $20,000. Word precedes him. Project Summary. 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. KCA traces its origin to a statewide association of coal operators who united their efforts in 1942. The distance a miner had to walk and how time was looked at was in 15-minute increments. From July 30, 2019, through September 28, 2019, coal miners and their families have blocked roads and railways demanding their payment. 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. knee-deep in water, he has experienced many electrical shocks. The Harlan County Wars took on its own epic spin on the ongoing fight between labor disputes and the coal operators and owners lasting almost ten years. On May 5, 1931, the Battle of Evarts began. 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. By 1908 the union had . Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features. When drafting these articles, I found that many things have not been taught to the future generations about the struggles for coal miner rights have been in the Appalachian Mountains. Midway in the trial, Judge Hogg dismissed the jury and directed a verdict of guilty. Yarborough replies. They exercised their powers with impunity and operated under Sheriff J.H. Coal employment in Harlan county dropped 53.7% in the second quarter of this year compared with last year, driven by Blackjewel's bankruptcy. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. Most of the land is owned by the mining companies.
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