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Map of Pittsburgh Coal Company rate schedules

Coalminers and Coordination Rights

In the two decades before the Hepburn Act’s enactment, two entities vied for the right to coordinate the price and distribution of coal.
by Branden Adams via LPE Project on July 15, 2021
A Blair Mountain coal miner with his rifle slung over his shoulder, 1921.

A Century Ago, West Virginia Miners Took Up Arms Against King Coal

In 1921, twenty thousand armed miners in West Virginia marched on the coal bosses and were met with bombs and submachine guns.
by Arvind Dilawar, Chuck Keeney via Jacobin on June 23, 2021
An illustration of a miner breaking off a piece of the star in the style of the "Hamilton: An American Musical" logo.

Talk Like a Red: A Labor History in Two Acts

It’s a simple process that recurs throughout history: workers see injustice, they organize each other, and they fight for change.
by Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein via The Baffler on January 5, 2021

The Mine Wars

The desire for dignity runs deep.
by Randall MacLowry via PBS on January 26, 2016
People holding union and BLM signs out of their car windows, taking part in the Workers First Caravan for Racial and Economic Justice, June 17, 2020, with the US capitol in the background.
partner

How Conservatives Drove a Wedge Between Economic and Cultural Liberals

Elites understood that a unified left spelled doom for their economic advantages.
by Jonathan Schlefer via Made By History on June 14, 2022

What Made the Battle of Blair Mountain the Largest Labor Uprising in American History

Its legacy lives on today in the struggles faced by modern miners seeking workers' rights.
by Abby Lee Hood via Smithsonian on August 25, 2021

‘They Will Remember Us’: The Miners of Black Harlan

A photographer travels to the heart of Appalachia to spend time with the area's last surviving black former coal miners.
by Radcliffe Roye via New York Review of Books on May 3, 2019

Appalachian Women Fought for Workers Long Before They Fought for Jobs

Two new books recount the leading role women have played in Appalachian social justice movements.
by Heather Duncan via Scalawag on March 25, 2019
Armed miners at the military headquarters of the United Mine Workers, in Trinidad, Colorado, the month of the Ludlow massacre.

There Was Blood

The Ludlow massacre revisited.
by Caleb Crain via The New Yorker on January 12, 2009
Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Jimmy Carter Was No Friend of Union Workers Like Me

As a worker in the 1970s, I looked forward to a Jimmy Carter administration. By the end of his term in office, I felt betrayed.
by Chris Townsend via Jacobin on December 29, 2024
Supreme Court justices William O. Douglas, Felix Frankfurter, and Owen J. Roberts at the White House.

FDR’s Compliant Justices

The Supreme Court’s deference to FDR during World War II resulted in unjustifiable ethical breaches.
by Jed S. Rakoff via New York Review of Books on November 14, 2024
Rednecks by Taylor Brown.

The Battle of Blair Mountain and Stories Untold

An interview with Taylor Brown, author of the novel "Rednecks."
by Steve Nathans-Kelly, Taylor Brown via Chicago Review of Books on May 21, 2024
Lebanese auto worker Eva Habib in her work coveralls in 1929.

Arab American Labor

On the centrality of the working classes to the Arab American immigrant experience and the pivotal roles Arab Americans played in American labor.
by Akram Khater, Chelsea Lundquist-Wentz, Nicole Ackman, Ginni Leeman, Lindsey Waldenberg via Khayrallah Center For Lebanese Diaspora Studies on September 4, 2023
A painting of an old gas station with modern police units in the forefront.

Organized Plunder

In the absence of tax dollars, American cities like Baltimore are now funding themselves by fining the poor instead of taxing the rich.
by Elias Rodriques, Clinton Williamson via The New Inquiry on July 27, 2022
Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama walking together

How to Tell the History of the Democrats

What connection does the party of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson have to the party of Barack Obama and Kamala Harris?
by Michael Kazin, Timothy Shenk via Dissent on April 25, 2022
Phil Wiggins performs at the Blair Mountain Centennial. | Rafael Barker, collection of the WV Mine Wars Museum.

The Singing Left

At a recent commemoration of the Battle of Blair Mountain in West Virginia, songs of struggle took center stage.
by Kim Kelly via The Baffler on September 21, 2021
Doorkeeper at a meeting of the United Mine Workers of America in Wheelwright, Kentucky.

Before Operation Dixie

What the failed Southern labor movement teaches us about the rightward shift in US politics.
by Joe William Trotter Jr. via Dissent on December 16, 2020
Photo taken from behind two men in a machine gun nest

‘The Road to Blair Mountain’

It’s the biggest battle on U.S. soil that most Americans have never heard of.
by Jim Branscome via The Daily Yonder on October 1, 2020
Coal-stained house in West Virginia.

When Miners Strike: West Virginia Coal Mining and Labor History

A primary source set and teaching guide created by educators.
by Adena Barnette via Digital Public Library of America on April 7, 2016

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