[videorecording] Contributor(s): Kopple, Barbara; First-Run Features (Firm) Cabin Creek Films; Publication details: New York : First Run Features, 1976. . The Harlan County coal miners campaigned and fought to organize their workplaces and better their wages and working conditions. Willard Wirtz says he senses that the Harlan County Coal Operators Association is a major factor in the dispute, that it doesn't want a settlement with higher wages and benefits and tough safety provisions to be made by Eastover, because it fears the domino effect of such a settlement on the rest of the companies in the county. Now, Tony Boyle is among those who have been convicted of complicity in the murders, and Arnold Miller is the head of the revamped union. Rev. It doesn't seem like enough. the foreman would just say, "We gotta run coal. 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. (Brookside) were the only two mines of the Harlan County owner/operators association who rejected a 10% pay increase in 1933. After the railroad arrived in 1911 . Paternalism is the practice of people who have a business or other authority to restrict the freedoms of those who are subordinate to them. But is it really hurting? I've read that in its heyday, the Blackjoe coal camp consisted of 60 or so houses. The group included John Dos Passos, Sherwood Anderson, and a number of other writers and artists. He is a sturdily built, self-assured man of about fifty, with a strong, square jaw and a rough, weathered face. Their General Secretary recently released some facts which help to illustrate the reason for much of the unemployment in the county. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. There were constant beatings of the miners by the Sheriffs deputies. But, Aaronson says, Norman Yarborough had then called back to say, simply, that there was nothing of further interest to them in the negotiations More public pressure on Duke is needed, he says. Where will the families go? Others say they intend to speak and write about what they have heard. 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 meeting room. We look back on the film, which screens this Sunday, February . In the face of what promised to be a lengthy struggle for the Harlan County coal miners of 1931, their wildcat strike had left thousands jobless and many homeless as well. 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. Depression-era Harlan County, Kentucky, was the site of one of the most bitter and protracted labor disputes in American history. They exercised their powers with impunity and operated under Sheriff J.H. It is clear that these women have been a main factor in keeping the mine shut down. Here, too, are some of the richest natural resources in the countryand some of the poorest people. The distance a miner had to walk and how time was looked at was in 15-minute increments. 8 N.L.R.B. One of the towns that were a refuge was Evarts, Kentucky. The group publishes policy papers on the benefits of coal for Kentucky and sponsors the "Friends of Coal" initiative. There were only nine hundred miners working and 5,800 miners were idle and striking during the first strike. The judge's fines and sentences were appealed. Jacqueline Brophy asks why public services have broken down. The Wagner Act of 1935 (National Labor Relations Act or NLRA) guaranteed the rights of workers to choose to organize. Nannie Rainey says, "I told him if he got my children, he was gonna haveta take me too." 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. Garbage along the roadside. It will be a two-hour, winding drive through the Cumberland Mountains to the town of Harlan. Blaine Sergent, coal leader, putting up his check at the end of a workday in Harlan County, Kentucky, in 1946. 2012: $1,552,717. Neither will Dr. Robert Coles, psychiatrist and author of Children of Crisis. Why are people allowed to dump raw sewage in the streams? I can see twenty-five miles to the southeast, five ridges. With this Supreme Court ruling, all but one of the open shops in Harlan County went back to the previous mine operations. 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). These interviews with major coal operators document their personal histories and the history of the coal industry in eastern Kentucky during the twentieth century. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. In Harlan County, Kentucky, are some of our country's richest natural resourcesand some of its poorest people. Pay ranged from $17 to $32 day, the average being $25. It was two o'clock on a Monday morning when the accident occurred, and he'd been in the mine., more than twelve hours. Crossing the Clinch River, we turn onto Highway 421 and leave the modern world. 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. By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. A Committee was formed and conducted by Activist Theodore Dreiser under the auspices of the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP). On Friday, October 3, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt called a precedent-shattering meeting at the temporary White House at 22 Lafayette Place, Washington, D.C. A . Herndon J. Evans, the editor of the Pineville Sun, argued, The troubles of the coal industry had their inception in war times. 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. 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. On February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association reduced wages for miners in that part of eastern Kentucky by 10 percent. That's an old term in Harlan County, used to describe special, plain-clothed guards. Get a Demo. "I don't know nothing about the electrical part." But relatives did come and take the children. We first hear from a number of the striking miners about safety conditions in the Brookside mine. KCA traces its origin to a statewide association of coal operators who united their efforts in 1942. It was the most violent attack of the Harlan County Coal wars and the most violence would only last fifteen minutes in total but would forever change the name to Bloody Harlan. 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. corporateBody associatedWith : Heyl & Patterson, Inc . The miners say that they want their own safety committee, elected by the miners, as the standard UMW contract provides, with the right to walk out, losing their pay, when there is eminent danger in the mine. The Red Cross eventually became involved in the county along with several local charities. Toilets are built out over the river, and the water has obviously been much higher in the recent past. Kentucky communities discussed include Artemus, Burdine, Jenkins, Jellico, Van Lear, and Wheelwright; and Kentucky counties include Bell, Clay, Floyd, Harlan . Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. She speaks in a soft, pleasant voice. This caused the clergy to denounce the union. It is an area of Kentucky that you only go to if you are intentionally going to the county. Carl Horn of Duke Power and Arnold Miller of the UMW had talked, and negotiations had been resumed. The Kentucky mining camps still had the paternalism idea in their mists and the ever-independent Appalachian people were not having it. Three of the federal reports state that there was no safety committee at Brookside, as required by law. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. 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 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. or smaller. After nearly 40 years of working in coalmines, David . You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. Harlan County Coal Miners Deaths 1940-1949 1940 1940 Hayes, Petry - Harlan Central Coal Company Totz No. (Fifty million tons of union coal are mined in western Kentucky; only 6.5 million tons of union coal are mined in eastern Kentucky.) 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. The Great Depression of 1929 through the late 1930s hit Harlan County Kentucky. Does the Association hire for all the mines in the county? Expand. Sometimes, they'll be a black scum on the rag." The company also agreed to abide by any agreement reached between the . Mr. Blanton explained the reasoning behind coal camps. This active organization is made up of those who represent the leader in the mining industry. Visit us and take a step back in time to learn more about how Harlan County helped build a nation at Portal 31 Exhibition Mine tour or come experience the delight of . . A reporter asks us again how we can expect to make an unbiased report when we've heard only one side. There are very few vacant houses in the county. Is the safety provision in the UMW contract the sticking point for Eastover? Brophy's was the last reform insurgency against UMW leadership until Joseph Yablonski's fatal try. However, after the dust was clear, the anti-labor coal country would end up being represented by unions. Conflict broke out again the 1970s in what was known as the Brookside strike. I am the only man in the United States who would do that sort of thing.". These women have organized a special kind of feminist movement, and the issues to them are life-and-death issues. Is that the only objection that is holding up a settlement? [6] Nearly four thousand miners working and living in Harlan County, Kentucky lost their jobs in the Great Depression. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. Strike benefits are $100 weekly for a family, $90 for a couple, and $80 for a single man. by Ron Soodalter. Si says Harlan is a dry countyno legal liquor and no beer. 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." Nevertheless, as the county seat, the city of Harlan has resources much of the county lacks. 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. [Verse 2] I got 27 peopl coming over to this house. Each contract varied from mine to mine. had them make me go in and pin it because it wasn't done right the first time. Name Entry; Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. The miners charge that the Harlan County Coal Operators Association is behind Eastover's refusal to sign a contract. The decrease in wages, unemployment, and irregular employment caused "poverty, hunger, and disease.". He is dressed more like a miner than a mining executive. "I don't try to blacklist anybody," he says. The miners could be fired if they refused to spend their paychecks only in the store. Strikebreakers were often beaten. Freda Armes says, "I run him off. USBM Final Investigation Report (1.7 Mb) Successful Rescue . This was not just a flashy slogan, and the truth of it is . 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. A rural county of 27,000, Harlan County's average household income is about $29,000. Mostly, the miners were fighting for improved working conditions, higher wages, and better housing options for their families. If for example, they did not behave in the way the companies wanted them to, they could lose all their benefits up to and including their jobs. 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. It is home to lawyers, doctors and coal operators; it has a hospital, several banks and a few fast-food . I have been married to David W. Sergent since May 4, 2013. By 1908 the union had . 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 . It is also women's day before the Citizens In-quiry. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. You come out of there lookin' like a hog that's been rootin' in the mud.' We soon get into a discussion about Dreiser's 1931 inquiry. The transcript will be published as a book. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". Miners laid in an ambush on the day of May 5, 1931, near the Evarts railroad crossing. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. 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. 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. . HARLAN COUNTYHarlan County, Kentucky, is a rural county located in a major coal-mining region in the Appalachian Mountains. Forty percent of the county's dwellings lack some or all of plumbing, water, or toilet facilities. And we're burning up people to make electricity. An investigation was conducted on Terrorism in the Kentucky Coal Fields. They had no safety committee, the miners say, and the federal reports bear them out. 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. Sheriff T. R. Middleton replaced Blair under the pro-union campaign platform. The Kentucky Coal Association is an IRS designated 501 (c) (6) nonprofit organization that aims to educate its members and the public of coal production and safety in the state of Kentucky. Finally, in 1939, the coal companies agreed to allow unions in their coal mine operations. Some of the women say they haven't had a drink of water since moving to the Brookside camp. Harlan County sits in the sweet spot of coal mining in southeastern Kentucky. knee-deep in water, he has experienced many electrical shocks. "I've seen some hurt and some killed. What a marvelous view! "I don't like to handle that raw juice," he says. Most of the land is owned by the mining companies. No. If you protested this safety violation, he says, "the boss would just say, 'Run it.'" 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. ~~ David Sergent. Mr. As part of his New Deal, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt presented and had passed the National Industrial Act. Afterwards, they gathered near the picket line at the Eastover property in Brookside. Whitfield recalls working in his father's coal mines during the first years of commercial mining in Harlan County, and he describes the conditions. And I can't get you off of that couch. Faith Primitive Baptist Church. Soon after the "Battle of Evarts," novelist Theodore Dreiser led a citizens' group to Harlan County to find and publicize the bloody facts. They file with us copies of specific federal safety violation reports, and they say that nothing was ever done to correct these violations. 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. In 1981, he traded coal mining for gold mining as one of the founders of the current . 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. A Brief History of Harlan County, USA. McDonald's. "Not at all," Yarborough says. "Roof falls are a constant hazard, but the bosses just keep on rushin'.". These disputes were still brewing when on December 8, 1934, the United Mine Workers Union was threatened by deputies and mine bosses. Why wasn't the fuse replaced at once? It took forty-five minutes for someone to come and help get him out, Deaton says. 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. 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. They have done this only since the Brookside strike. With the passage of these acts, there was unrest in Harlan County. No concessions or deals were made between the two factions and the membership of the United Mine Workers union plummeted. Why is garbage left on the roadway? J. D. Skidmore says, "I have no chance of getting a job in Harlan County if this strike is not settled."