People should read Howard Fast’s novel Power. New York, Doubleday, 1962 which deals with the rise of the fictional Benjamin Holt, leader of the International Miner’s Union, in the 1920s and 30s.

Thomas,

Congratulations on this. I look forward to hearing this!

Best,

Gabriel

How dare you do a topic like this? Any time workers breach a false peace and stand up against ill treatment, that’s nothing more than (insert menacing music) CLASS WARFARE!

I teach an online American history course at Boston University called “The Meaning of America.” Part of the course is made up of case studies and I use the Ludlow Massacre as an example of labor relations and upheaval in our country.

My students are mostly over 30 years of age and they say, until this course, they had never heard of the Ludlow Massacre. Thank you for covering this topic. More of us have to understand our labor and social history.

I might have missed something, but was the Ludlow Massacre really the worst outbreak of its kind in US history? Most accounts list 20 dead — bad enough, but in 1885 the Rock Spring massacre in Wyoming killed at least 28 Chinese railroad workers and miners. Granted the killers at Rock Spring were not militia or troops or company security forces (the Union Pacific Coal Co.), but white miners hostile to Chinese labor (and in fact the feds ultimately came in to protect the remaining Chinese).

Nicholas Clifford

Thanks for focussing on this tragic chapter in our woefully unknown labor history. Like the Bread and Roses Strike here in Lawrence, the Ludlow story belies the mythology of the wonders of the free market. People had to organize to achieve a fair share of the wealth our economy produced, and people today need to know that it is possible to work together to oppose corporate power and “free market uber alles” groupthink. Labor organizing is not un-American…it’s American history.

Here in our own country, we very rarely examine the role of American Corporations in Extraction Industries abroad. But the brutality exercised upon foreign workers and the residents of areas rich in these minerals – oil, gas, copper, and the entire range of additional minerals, is incalculable. The interests of the American companies are protected by local militaries and militias, funded by the companies themselves. Sometimes our military has been involved in their training. The local elites benefit from the arrangements, as do the governmental leaders of whatever country it happens to be, but usually at a remove. When our leaders discuss a foreign policy which protects “our interests”, this is what they are talking about. Not just our ability to procure these minerals, but to convey them safely to our shores. All of this requires a huge military expenditure on our part, and a lot of suffering on the part of workers all over the world – as much today as in the past.

My first exposure to the Ludlow massacre was last year, through David Mason’s incredible, novel-in-verse, Ludlow, published by Red Hen Press. In addition to the very detailed retelling of the daily drudgery of immigrant labor in the cold fields, Mason’s account, based largely on the journals of one Greek organizer, rises up off of the page and sings. Perhaps this is due to the lyric nature of the form, likening this epic narrative to a more articulate and in depth Woody Guthrie songbook. Certainly a must read for anyone involved in the Ludlow conversation. A review at the Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042700043.html?referrer=emailarticle

Enjoyed the piece on Ludlow yesterday, but wanted to clear up a mistake made by Tom. While Joe Hill may have been a Colorado Coal miner at some point, according to Wikipedia, and local publications here in Park City, Joe was killed while he was a silver and copper miner in Park City, working at the Silver King Mine. He was convicted of a murder in Salt Lake (which he probably did not committ)and executed.

My Grandfather Thomas Scott born and raised in England and then brought his young family to America in 1903. My Mother wrote a book for the family about her growing up in the Coal Mines all over Colorado. They lived in Berwin, Ludlow, Walsinburg. Grandpa always had a job as a foreman or superintendent so they lived in the big house at the mine and needed it with 5 children. Grandpa moved the family to Trinidad out of the trouble in 1913 when my Mother Glady Reese was 12 years old. I know that it was with Molly Brown’s effort to help the people that they got the tents delivered to Ludlow. I find this to be so interesting and can’t wait to read your book “killing for coal” Thank you Shirley Ryan

Facinating. I look forward to reading the book. I wonder if it will ever happen again.

Like tobacco [was], coal is a major structural element of our economic foundation; and like tobacco, its contribution to our morbidity and mortality are separated by large spans of time.

Whereas, a smoker knows they smoked, we, who live in a post-industrial/industrializing age can only way we breathe the air, eat the flora and fauna and drink the waters.

The cause and effect is not intuitively apparent. But, the thousands who die prematurely due to coal/clean coal are real.

Env/lab/econ

…age have no choice but to breathe….