Labor and Working-Class History Association

News

Great Labor Arts Exchange Conference on Creative Organizing & Camp Solidary, June 17-19, Washington, D.C.

The Labor Heritage Foundation is looking for presenters and workshop organizers for the 2011 G reat Labor Arts Exchange Conference. See below for more details.

"This year's events will be held at the National Labor College in Silver Spring, MD just on the edge of Washington, DC June 17-19, 2011. We are the synergy that promotes and fuels the labor and progressive movements. You are building the movement. Your voice, experience, and struggle make us stronger. This is why we invite conference participants and supporters to bring dynamic- interactive workshops/presentations to enhance our collective and our network. Read on for guidelines and procedures for workshop/presentation submissions.

We are also looking for presenters/instructors for Camp Solidarity- for youth ages 7-17. Presenters/Instructors are asked to submit short simple lesson ideas that will help the youth explore union/labor history and culture, social justice, human rights, and civil rights through the creative arts. Unlike other summer experiences, Camp Solidarity also includes unique and powerful explorations of progressive movements. Workshop lessons should be interactive in nature and can be as creative as you are!!

In the spirit of the Labor Heritage Foundation, as a base for collaboration, synergy, and strengthening the labor movement through the use of arts, culture and creative organizing; and particularly as a shared movement process we are very interested in proposals that build on best practices, shared and real life experiences. We also encourage proposals that promote multi-generational, cross-cultural, and cross movement solidarity and in visioning for the future success of artists, cultural workers, and creative organizers. Proposals may be submitted now through May 15st 2011. We encourage you to submit your proposals early."

For more information, see their website at http://www.laborheritage.org/.

Midwest Labor and Working-Class History Conference, April 15-16, Iowa City

The Midwest Labor and Working-Class History Conference is organized by graduate students in labor history from different university campuses in the Midwest. The conference has been meeting annually each spring since the mid-1990s, hosted each year by participating graduate students from one of the campuses. The conference provides a forum for graduate students to present their work-in-progress, usually in a workshop setting that provides constructive feedback from other participants. This year's conference is hosted by students from the University of Iowa.

For more information, see the schedule of events.

Update & Conference Report

The Midwest Labor and Working-Class History colloquium (MLWCH) was held at the University of Iowa on April 15th and 16th, 2011, and it was a smashing success. Staughton and Alice Lynd joined graduate students in labor history from around the Midwest for the event. Pre-circulated papers were presented in a workshop format on topics including labor and working class history, human rights, immigration, and popular culture. The Lynds and student panelists ensured that the perspective of the colloquium would remain broad and international. Wilson Juarez presented a paper on the struggle to recover the memory of the genocide in Guatemala, and Jessica Schink (University of Iowa) examined mining workers struggles in Bolivia in the 1950s and 1960s. Such topics intersected nicely with Staughton Lynd's recent visit with the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico, and with the focus of the Lynd's intellectual interests.

On Friday evening, Staughton Lynd gave a rousing keynote speech on guerrilla history to a group of approximately 80 people, many of whom were from the community. In it, he recounted his and Alice's lifelong dedication to social justice and used their experiences to demonstrate how we can practice guerrilla history. He also reminded his audience that thought without action has plagued academia in the United States for many years. To address this conundrum, he called on those who practice history to also develop other professional skills in order to engage in struggles for social justice. The Lynd's personal history of activism on behalf of workers, prisoners, draftees and others is an example of how that can be done.

The Lynds encouraged graduate students who participated in MLWCH to learn to let the voice of historical participants speak by viewing themselves as equal to their subjects. In doing so, historians must reconsider their own intellectual boundaries that often prevent them from capturing history from the perspective of the actor. Alice provided the colloquium with a powerful example of this when she spoke about her and Staughton's work with inmates who are kept in extreme isolation in the Supermax prison in Ohio. The Lynds work closely with inmates and have gained their perspective on issues that take place within the prison, and let the voices of the confined drive their own history. Using this methodology, the Lynd's have noticed that white supremacists, Muslim extremists, and black nationalists supported one another to fight against prison guard violence, extreme isolation, and other human rights issues that prisoners in Supermax institutions experience on a daily basis. Those stories would (and will continue to be) lost unless historians can listen closely to the historical actors and set aside their own personal biases.

Many graduate students and other participants were inspired by the community building that the MLWCH colloquium generated. Sarah Frohardt-Lane (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) captured the mood of most of the participants when she explained that she and her colleagues from Urbana Champaign, Janine Giordano-Drake and Emily Pope-Obeda, "left feeling so energized about labor history." Nate Holdren, who studies legal history at the University of Minnesota, explained that, "as someone who is not a labor historian, the colloquium was a fantastic way to meet and engage with a range of scholars in the field." Wilson Juarez appreciated that sense of camaraderie that is such a central part of MLWCH. In particular he noted that it was "very inspirational because there is not typically a lot of activism in our generation." This feeling of camaraderie was epitomized in the closing moments of the conference, in which Staughton Lynd led the participants in singing "One Man's Hands" and "Solidarity Forever."

Every year, MLWCH generates interest among new scholars who have an interest in labor and working class history, and share a strong commitment to social justice. This year, students from the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee had a particularly strong presence, along with students from Purdue, University of Illinois—Urbana, and University of Iowa. Graduate students in the history department at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee have generously offered to host the colloquium in Spring 2012 (if the University has not been closed by Governor Scott Walker).

See Also: MLWCH Wisconsin Discussion

Haymarket Martyrs Monument Ceremony, Chicago

1 p.m., May 1, 2011, Forest Home Cemetery, Chicago, Illinois

2011 will mark the restoration and rededication of the Haymarket Martyrs' Monument, the statue of liberty for workers around the world. As a symbol of international labor solidarity, come together to honor our history. The ceremony will have special guest Liz Shuler, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, and other dignitaries.

Bread and Roses Strike Centennial Anniversary - Call for Papers, Cultural, and Video Presentation

When 30,000 workers walked out of Lawrence's textile mills in the dead of a New England winter in January 1912, they launched an epic confrontation between capital and labor. With immigrant women playing a central role, the strike gained national prominence. To commemorate the strike's100th anniversary and to consider its lessons for today, the Lawrence History Center is issuing a call for papers, art, spoken word, and video presentations for a Bread & Roses centennial conference to be held in Lawrence, Massachusetts on Friday and Saturday, April 27 and 28, 2012.

Submissions of individual papers and panel presentations will be considered through July 1, 2011. Graduate, undergraduate, and high school students are encouraged to submit. Include a brief biography of up to 250 words with your submission.

ALL SUBMISSIONS SHOULD BE SENT TO: symposium2012@breadandrosescentennial.org
Notification on acceptance will be made by mid-Oct. 2011.

An edited book with several of the selected papers will be published in the Baywood Publishing Series, Work, Health and Environment.

Activities and Events

A permanent multi-media history exhibit will be housed in the top floor of the Everett Mill building showcasing the strike's lead-up, events, and aftermath. Artifacts, rare video from the strike, oral history recordings, publications, and original documents will be exhibited to tell the Bread and Roses story. Current and former UMass Lowell students and history department faculty are engaged in the creation of this exhibit, including Professor Forrant. Notables including the U.S. Secretary of Labor, the national president of the AFL-CIO, Governor Deval Patrick, and Senators John Kerry and Scott Brown will be extended invitations to attend the opening of the exhibit. This event will garner national and international attention.
An exhibit of famed painter Ralph Fasanella's original works depicting moments in the Bread and Roses strike to be displayed in Lawrence. Fasanella spent considerable time living and working in Lawrence and his paintings are widely known and revered.
An academic symposium in Lawrence of students and scholars from across the country who will present work that relates to the strike?s themes and lessons. The symposium will include a weekend-long series of panel discussions, presentations, lectures, and walking-tours of the city. The symposium is being chaired by Professor Forrant. Over a dozen area colleges and universities are supporters of the symposium.
Bread and Roses Labor Day 2012 Festival. Vendors, labor unions, community groups, and local businesses will join prominent performers, business leaders, public officials, and union leaders to help Lawrencians celebrate labor day and the strike?s centennial.
Lawrence Reads. Through the public library age-appropriate histories of the strike books will be simultaneously read and discussed across the city.

For more information, see the Lawrence History Center Bread and Roses Symposium Site or contact Professor Bob Forrant at Robert_Forrnt@uml.edu.

LAWCHA Events at the 100th Anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, March 25

The weekend of March 24-26, 2011 there will be a variety of activities sponsored by dozens of organizations and unions to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, March 25, 1911, in which 146 young workers lost their lives and which forever changed the relationship of American government to the workplace.

The schedule linked below focuses on the LAWCHA events. Many other events will take place over the three days. For the full schedule and updates for Triangle Commemoration and March 24-26th, see: www.rememberthetrianglefire.org/category/events/upcoming

View the Event List

Bay Area

Sabrina Jacobs of the Bay Area radio station KPFA recently conducted an interview with relatives of Triangle Fire survivors.

"Little is known to west coast residents about the connection of the Triangle Fire and how it affected the working class on a national level. We will hear from Eileen Nevitt, whose paternal grandmother, Annie Spinstock, has been lauded for her heroism in saving Katie Weiner, the last person to escape the inferno. We will also hear the story of Dora Miller Maisler, the maternal grandmother of Steve Rosen, who also survived the fire and went on to become a lifelong supporter of labor rights."

Listen to the Program

Chicago Events

Chicago will feature a free program featuring a presentation by Professor Jo Ann Argersinger of Southern Illinois University. Her book, The Triangle Fire, tells the story of the March 25, 1911 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City. The fire took the lives of 146 mostly Jewish and Italian immigrant women. These garment workers, largely teenagers, were unable to escape because of locked exit doors and other inadequate safety protections. Many died jumping from high floors to the pavement below.

Public outrage and grief over this horrific and preventable tragedy led to new work and safety legislation, rules and regulations throughout the country. The Triangle Fire was a defining moment in U.S. history that led to social reform and a robust labor movement.

View the Flier

Iowa City Events

Events in Iowa City, Iowa will take place on Friday, March 25, 2011, opening with a talk by Linda K. Kerber, professor of history at the University of Iowa. A dramatic reading will follow from Carol Macvey, and the events will end with a commentary by Janet Schlapkohl.

Minneapolis-St. Paul Events

Presented by Jewish Community Action. The activities take place between March and May. For details on each event, see their website at http://www.jewishcommunityaction.org/shirtwaist.htm.

Washington D.C.

"Please join the International Labor Rights Forum and Host Committee for a reception in Washington, D.C. All proceeds will help ILRF strengthen workers' organizations and labor rights advocacy around the world.

We will commemorate the centennial of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and highlight the struggle of Bangladeshi workers who have experienced several factory fires and other unsafe working conditions. ILRF will honor groups and individuals who have shown an extraordinary commitment to workers worldwide."

View the Website for More Details!

Resources

Want to learn more about the Triangle Fire? The literature is vast, but here are just a few resources for your convenience.

AFL-CIO Strategic Corporate Research Training (Summer)

The AFL-CIO Center for Strategic Research and Cornell University sponsor an annual training on strategic corporate research. Held each June in Ithaca, the one-week course has served as a great door opener for students of all ages who are interested in working as strategic researchers in the labor movement. Since the program's inception in 2001, scores of participants have landed research jobs at a variety of unions around the country.

The course (credit or non-credit) is designed for undergrad and grad students who are interested in working as union researchers and campaigners. The registration deadline is May 17. Scholarships are available if taking the course for credit.

To obtain a registration form and other information, go to http://www.sce.cornell.edu/ss/programs.php?v=STRATCORP&s=Overview or contact Kate Bronfenbrenner at (607) 254-4749 or scrsummer@cornell.edu.

Southern Labor Studies Conference: Memory and Forgetting

Registration is now open for the SLSA Conference, Memory and Forgetting: Labor History and the Archive, April 7 to April 10, 2011, Atlanta, Georgia.

This conference is co-sponsored by LAWCHA.

For more information, see the www.southernlaborstudies.org.

Triangle Fire Commemoration: March 24-26

The preliminary schedule for LAWCHA events at the Triangle fire commemoration is out! The following itinerary focuses on the LAWCHA events at the Triangle Fire Commemoration, March 24-26, 2011. Full information for other these and other events can be found at Remember the Triangle Fire: rememberthetrianglefire.org. Specific questions for LAWCHA events should be directed to Kim Phillips, klphil@wm.edu

100th Anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, March 25, 1911

The weekend of March 24-26, 2011 there will be a variety of activities to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, March 25, 1911, in which 146 young workers lost their lives and which forever changed the relationship of American government to the workplace.

Thursday March 24 | 9am-8:30pm

Legacy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
Day-long conference at CUNY Grad Center
365 Fifth Ave
Co-sponsored by the Labor and Working Class History Association [LAWCHA. Conference is followed by an evening of presentations at the Gotham Center.
Full Schedule: http://trianglefireconference.org/

First Session, 11am - 12:30

Global Perspectives on Sweatshops (LAWCHA)
Memorializing the Past: Using Memorials and Monuments to Teach Local History
Triangle, Unionism, and the NYC Garment Industry
Why No Fire This Time? Round Table on the State of Contemporary Class Politics
Labor and Immigration Politics: Past and Present
Labor Standards and the State
Grassroots Organizing for Workers Health and Safety Today
Triangle and Representations of Labor in 20th Century Art

Second Session, 3pm - 4:30

Organizing the Usable Past (LAWCHA)
Teaching the Triangle Fire (LAWCHA)
Child Labor: Then and Now (LAWCHA)
Combating Domestic Sweatshops (LAWCHA)
Global Sweatshops and International Solidarity: The Case of Bangladesh
Feminism, Low Wage Workers, and Organized Labor
From Triangle To Massey: OSHA at 40

7pm-8:30pm

Panelists Richard Greenwald (The Triangle Fire, the Protocols of Peace, and Industrial Democracy in Progressive Era New York), Jennifer Guglielmo (Living the Revolution), Annelise Orleck (Common Sense and A Little Fire), Ruth Sergel (Street Pictures, Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition), Ellen Todd (George Mason University), and author David Von Drehle look back at The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the tragedy.

Friday March 25

8:30-11am
Gotham Center
365 5th Avenue
New York
Rooms 9204/9205/9206/9207

Plenary, 9-9:30
Richard Greenwald, "How the Triangle Fire Changed America"
[Room 9204]

Panels, 9:45-11:00am

Teaching Tragedy: From Middle School to College
[Room 9205]
Patricia A. Reeve, Suffolk University; Michael Innis-Jiménez, University of Alabama; Cybèle Locke, Connecticut College; Cynthia Anne McLeod, Burney-Harris-Lyons Middle School; Kathleen Banks Nutter, Stony Brook University.
2. Practicing Historical Memory: Cultural Responses to the Triangle Fire
[Room 9206]
Annie Lanzillotto, Poet and Activist, Louisville, Kentucky; Janet Zandy, Rochester Institute of Technology; Florence Howe, emerita, Graduate Center, CUNY, emerita, Feminist Press.
Remembering Our Past, Continuing the Struggle: Immigrant Women, Radical Cultures, and Organizing in the US, Canada, and England
[Room 9207]
Ruth Percy, University of Southern Mississippi, "Critical Mass Matters: Comparing Labor Organizing among Jewish Immigrant Garment Workers in Turn-of-the-Century London and Chicago;"
Ester Reiter, York University, "Zingen far Sholem, Zingen Far Broyt/ Sing for Peace, Sing for Bread: Culture and Political Activism among the Jewish Left in Canada, 1920s-1930s, and its Legacy;"
Warren Pepicelli, New England UNITE HERE Joint Board

11:30-1pm

Workers United Official Commemoration, Brown Building
Asch/Brown Building
Green St and Washington Place (1 block off Washington Square Park)
The memorial will feature speeches (including one by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis), music and commemorative performances

The Brown Building housed the Triangle Waist Company on the 8, 9 & 10th floors.

Cooper Union, 2:30-4:30

7 East 7th Street
Film: "Out of Darkness: The Mine Workers Story"
Student Activism Workshop

6:30-8:30 An evening of speeches and performances

Great Hall of the People, Cooper Union
7 East 7th Street
Featuring worker testimony about today's labor conditions around the world, this evening will include a talk by Katie Quan on the bridge program between garment union retirees in NYC and garment workers in the People's Republic of China today; Jim Green and Cecil Roberts on the history of disasters and mineworkers; Ai Jen Poo about domestic workers, Chaumtoli Huq about taxi workers.

March 26, 2011 8:30-12:30

Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT)
7th Avenue at West 27th Street

Plenary and panels on Contemporary Activism in the Labor Movement. Historians and labor activists discuss a variety of contemporary labor struggles in the United States and around the world.

Sponsored by Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA)

Plenary, 9-10:30 on Contemporary Activism in the Labor Movement

Panels, 10:30-12:30

Disaster and its Impact:
Howard Lupovitch, "‘Not So Golden After All':" The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in the European Jewish Press";
Robert D. Sampson, "A Priest on the Front Lines: Father Martin Mangan in the Decatur "War Zone";
Mark Noon, "Two Fires, Two Tragedies: Comparing Avondale and Triangle."
Labor, Environment, and Public Health Movements in Working-Class Communities
Les Leopold, Director, Labor Institute and Public Health Institute, NYC;
William Brucher, Brown University, "From the Picket Line to the Playground: Labor, Environmental Activism, and the International Paper Strike in Jay, Maine;"
Merlin Chowkwaynun, University of Pennsylvania, "Labor and the New Environmental Health Risk: Regional Perspectives;"
Kevin C. Brown, Carnegie Mellon University, "‘Working Environments' in Lumber: The Louisiana Experience, 1890-1920."
"Safety in the Modern Plantation: Women's Agency and Workers' Conditions in the Mississippi Delta" Roundtable
Laura Lovett, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Francoise Hamlin, ; Rose Turner, United Food and Commercial Workers; Sarah White, Mississippi Catfish Workers; Jaribu Hill, Director, Mississippi Workers Center for Human Rights.
Combating Domestic Sweatshops, a Roundtable
Eileen Boris, University of California, Santa Barbara; Premilla Nadasen, Queens College, CUNY; Narbada Chhetri, Senior Community Organizer, Adhikaar for Human Rights and Social Justice, NYC.

7:30-9pm Triangle: From the Fire

Judson Memorial Church
55 Washington Square South

Operetta by Elizabeth Swados, Cecilia Roberts, and Paula Finn
[tickets are $5 and we have seats reserved. Please email Kim Phillips, klphil@wm.edu, with your reservation]

Audio: LAWCHA Honors Staughton Lynd

Staughton Lynd has been a bridge between the worlds of labor activism and labor history. Like E.P. Thompson and David Montgomery his scholarship has been shaped and inspired by his vision of social change.

This past Spring, LAWCHA honored Lynd by awarding him our Distinguished Service Award. Staughton's acts of conscience and his unshakable integrity led to his denial of tenure at Yale, the most famous of innumerable such cases in the second phase of Cold War academic persecution and hysteria during the Vietnam War. Not by choice but out of necessity, Staughton had to redefine himself as a historian and a labor and social justice advocate, thereafter working outside the academy.

Labor Archives of Washington State Now Open

The Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies is pleased to announce the opening of the Labor Archives of Washington State in the Special Collections Division of the University of Washington Libraries. The new Archives brings together more than 200 collections of labor related materials, making it one of the largest labor repositories in the country and the key to research on the labor history of the Pacific Northwest. The collections and subjects are listed and linked on the Labor Archives of Washington State website.

Funds to operate the Labor Archives come largely from the Labor Movement. A campaign led by the Washington State Labor Council, the Longshore Division of the ILWU, and the Harry Bridges Center has secured the funds to see the Archives through its initial years. More than 140 unions and friends of labor have donated to the campaign. This is an extraordinary gesture, especially in these tough times, and shows that the labor movement in this region places a high value on the preservation of its history and heritage.

Conor Casey is the Labor Archivist. He comes to the position after years of experience with the Labor Archives and Research Center at San Francisco State University.

Although newly organized, the Labor Archives draws upon generations of work by archivists at the University of Washington who have acquired more than 200 collections of union records, records of civil rights and radical organizations, records of timber, maritime, manufacturing, and other companies, as well as the personal papers of labor and civil rights activists. The collections focus largely but not exclusively on the Pacific Northwest region including British Columbia and Alaska.

For more information see the Labor Archives website or the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies website, or contact Conor Casey.

Chicago: Working-Class Eye of Milton Rogovin

LAWCHA (via its Chicago arm, Chicago Center for Working-Class Studies) is one of the co-sponsors of an upcoming photography show at Roosevelt University. Called the "Working-Class Eye of Milton Rogovin," the show will mark one of the most significant art shows the Gage Gallery at Roosevelt has ever hosted.

The goal of the show is to display a cross-section of the remarkable photographic collection of Milton Rogovin (one of the foremost 20th century photographers) to complicate views of what it meant to be working class during America's last industrial generation (1960s-1980s). During the course of the show, the Gage Gallery will also host a series of events, including an opening with Rogovin's son, a talk by his biographer, a "Getting Paid to Cause Trouble" panel of young activists in Chicago, a 100th anniversary event of the Triangle Fire (not the same week as NYC), and finally, a closing event during the Working-Class Studies conference.

More information: Milton Rogovin Gallery Poster | Gage Gallery

Scholars and Artists Launch National Campaign to Save Blair Mountain, Labor History Landmark

Tuesday, June 21

Jay Mallin has created a video about the campaign to save Blair Mountain, entitled Saving Blair Mountain. Give it a look! Thanks to Bill Barry for sharing the link.

Saving Blair Mountain from Jay Mallin on Vimeo.

Saturday, June 11

Saturday, we awoke early, having camped that night at the base of Blair Mountain. We listened to speeches from Robert Kennedy Jr., Denise Giardiana (author of Storming Heaven and The Unquiet Earth). Gordon Simmons, West Virginia Labor History Society President and United Electrical Workers West Virginia Public Workers division union organizer, made a terrific speech connecting the struggles of public workers in the present to the struggles of Blair Mountain miners. “ It’s not just Blair Mountain that the companies and the state want to blast & bury. Right now, in the present day, the state of West Virginia is firing public workers who cannot or will not work more than 40 hours a week, even though workers died for that right in 1886.”

It was terrifically hot, over 92 degrees as 755 marchers launched the 2 mile march up Blair Mountain around 2 p.m. We were halted several times, the police demanding single file lines even though that slowed us down considerably. Along the way, we sang union songs, chanted, and drank plenty of water. Folksingers played the beautiful song by John Prine Paradise http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sddVNMb1HkQ and union or struggle songs along the way. Marchers cheered as we reached the top. Counter-protesters had greased the boulders where we might have been able to sit down for a rest at the top of the mountain, but the marchers felt exhilaration only. We knew that we had accomplished much to bring the attention of the country to the threat to this historic site. In addition, the alliances that were created between supporters of this historic site and conservationists has resulted in a new attempt to ask the EPA to designate this as Lands Unsuitable for Mining Petition. You can send in a comment in support of the petition here.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/50630270@N06/sets/72157626828842351/

Friday June 10

We encountered both tremendous support and considerable opposition as we neared Blair Mountain. Along the way, as Joe Stanley, of UMWA Local 93 remarked, “for every negative comment I heard, I heard just as many spirited supporters of our cause.” Stanley who was president of his UMWA Local 93 (but who carried a sign for Matewan Local 1440, see photo) for four years, commented, “ I am here to stop mountaintop removal. This is a tough situation for everybody involved. This (opposition) is orchestrated by the coal companies. This is how they’ve conquered and divided for the last 150 years and left us at the bottom of every list. They’ve taken trillions of dollars out of west Virginia and left us with nothing but misery and grief. Mountaintop removal has cost too great a price. They love splitting us up. This didn’t occur by accident.” Stanley remarked that the companies get loyalty from a small group of non-union miners because “underground mining is hard damn work. A lot of these jobs is like running a video game. You have air conditioning in summer, you have heat in winter, you have a stereo, a lot of them have DVDs in ‘em, and you can work 14 hours a day and make 75,000-100,000 a year. They ain’t no perc jobs underground. You wade in mud, you suck dust, you earn a living underground. These are heavy equipment jobs.”

As we continued to march just past the gauntlet of counter-protesters to the area where miners were forced to lay down their arms in 1921, we heard a shout-out from 82 year old Bill Doody,” Boy, I like that sign you have.” (referring to Stanley’s UMWA sign) Doody said, “I used to live in Blair. My daddy lived across the mountain when the battle was going on, and there was bullets going through the house, over at George’s Creek, other side of the Mountain. He was a union man before me. My daddy fought for the union, I won’t give the rest of the family credit for nothing. The whole state of West Virginia has belonged to the coal operators all my life. And I’m 82 years and a half. I’m a hard-shell union man. Me and my wife’s been married 62 years in September. The reason that these young men’s working on the strip mining. Their dad’s weren’t true union even if they carried the label. I’m still a fighter and I’m not scared of no man. This non-union strip mining, it’s for the birds.”

You can see the live interviews with Joe Stanley and Bill Doody at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-nFh03l0xs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxkt263YrS4

Thursday, June 9 update from Rosemary Feurer

We drove from Marmet, West Virginia, the launching point of the 50 mile march to the Blair Mountain, navigating a series of roads to try to locate the marchers. They have been walking since Monday, and we figured they would be over 30 miles in. But 30 miles in West Virginia’s winding mountain roads is not a short drive. After curling around curve after curve on the march route, it became clear to us just what the marchers had already endured and accomplished. Many locals don’t obey the speed limit, their familiarity with the winding roads giving them the confidence I lacked. And the marchers don’t have much of an embankment to walk along, and in some areas, they just have to walk single file on the road itself, as there is nowhere else to go.

When we finally reached the marchers in Logan county, we understood just how they were able to accomplish this on an unforgiving terrain. There they were, on the left side of the road facing oncoming traffic, accompanied by state police whose cars gave warning to motorists in the most dangerous areas.

As we approached the marchers, we realized that they were encountering an organized counterprotest. Across the road, held back by police, a group of local residents shouted epithets, telling marchers to “go home,” and expressing their support of mountaintop removal. A number of signs in this community read “friends of coal” in neat, printed letters. It was clearly an organized campaign, though other signs were home-made. The marchers had been trained to not respond in any fashion, and soon the counter protest was over, as the marchers continued up a particularly steep road.

Later in the evening several marchers expressed their sense that the troopers have become more and more impressed with the discipline and demeanor of the marchers. The discipline is one indication of the high degree of organization that has gone into this march. But when we compare the 300 marchers today to the kind of self-organization that miners had in 1921, we can only be in awe of how the 10,000 miners made this long trek.

Despite the counterprotest, the marchers felt inspired by the significant support in these communities for the march. Such support was dramatically signified by today’s lunch site for marchers, which took place was at Mary Ann and Michael Miles house. Miles home was a camp site for the original 1921 march, and the long memory of that event brought home to the marchers the need for preserving the spaces where this conflict took place, and the larger meaning it holds for some.

A number of the marchers are reading “When Miners March” by William C. Blizzard (ed. Wes Harris). Others such as Dustin Steele, one of the young organizers whose family roots are in Matewan, West Virginia, the old stories of resistance to coal company domination have been handed down as part of their heritage.

Dustin’s grandmother, Wilma Lee Steele, is another organizer for the march. She is Mingo County Conservation Supervisor for the West Virginia Conservation Agency. Her husband Terry is president of the Matewan local of the United Mine Workers of America. They married 41 years ago, high school sweethearts who have involved their family in worker and environment preservation. Wilma told me that when some miners at the Matewan local began to speak against endorsing the march, Terry reminded them of how some conservationists had helped clean the muck out of their basements after the 2009 flood in the area. Miner after miner stood up speaking of the help they received from conservationists at that time. Then one exclaimed, they call them “treehuggers” and “lazy-why don’t they get a job,” but he’d “never seen women working as hard as those women did after the flood.” Then one miner, she recalled, jumped up and exclaimed, “we need to support this march, and we need to stop mountaintop removal.” The Matewan local gave $500 to the march, and some members are marching to Blair on Friday. Their international union has refused to give official endorsement, however, claiming that the goal of the march is to end coal mining.

Friday’s marchers expect more confrontation, as they enter Massey property lines.

April 14, 2011

Scholars and activists across the country are organizing an event in June to save Blair Mountain. "The March on Blair Mountain is a unifying rally involving labor unions, environmental organizations, scholars, artists, and other citizens and groups. The march commemorates the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921, when 10,000 coal miners rose against the rule of the coal operators and fought for the basic right to live and work in decent conditions. Currently, Blair Mountain is threatened with obliteration by mountaintop removal (MTR) mining, and it is here that a new generation of Appalachians takes a stand.

The event will consist of a five-day march from Marmet, WV, to Blair Mountain in Logan County, WV, beginning on June 6th, 2011. Participants will march 10 miles a day, and evenings will consist of workshops, cultural festivities, and music. On the sixth day, June 11th, a large rally will be held in Blair, followed by a march to the crest of Blair Mountain where culminating activities will occur.

In the spirit of the original march–which consisted of mountain folk, African-Americans, and immigrants from all over Europe–we call on a diversity of groups to march in solidarity for the workers, communities and mountains of Appalachia. If you stand with us, you are one of us--a true mountaineer."

For more information, visit their website at http://marchonblairmountain.org/

October 5, 2010

WEST VIRGINIA, October 5, 2010: Prominent scholars and artists from across the United States today published an 'Open Letter' calling upon the US National Park Service and the West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office to take immediate action in protecting the historic Blair Mountain battlesite from imminent threat of destruction by 'mountaintop removal' mining. In the fall of 1921, Blair Mountain was the site of the largest domestic insurrection in the nation's post-Civil War history. Over a five-day period, fierce battles raged across the West Virginia mining region, pitting union miners against municipal authorities and private armies hired by local coal companies. At the height of the conflict private planes were used to drop homemade bombs on union supporters. For many, Blair Mountain became emblematic of the huge disparities in wealth and power in America during the industrial age. Allowing the site to be destroyed by strip mining would "desecrate the memory of the 15,000 men who fought and those who died in this historic labor struggle," campaign supporter Harvard Ayers insists.

Signatories of the Open Letter include filmmakers John Sayles (Matewan) and Barbara Kopple (Harlan County, USA), bluegrass legend and West Virginia native Hazel Dickens, award-winning novelist Denise Giardina (Storming Heaven), and Singer-Songwriter David Rovics (Battle of Blair Mountain), along with more than two dozen prominent historians, archaeologists, and university educators, many of them specializing in American labor history. The campaign is seeking urgent action from the National Parks Service to place Blair Mountain on its National Register of Historic Places. Campaigners aim to gather support through an online petition campaign and have set up a facebook group ('Save Blair Mountain').

Member News and Awards

Have you been honored recently for your work or scholarship? LAWCHA would like to recognize your accomplishments. Please send your news to lawcha@duke.edu.

Labor Landmarks News

Check back soon for updates from the Labor Landmarks History and Memory Project committee. If you would like to participate in this committee, or have news to report, please email Committee Chair Jim Green at james.green@umb.edu.

Jessie B. Ramey Wins 2010 Herbert Gutman Dissertation Prize!

Named in honor of pioneering labor historian Herbert G. Gutman, the award comes with a cash prize of $500 from LAWCHA and a publishing contract with the University of Illinois Press. The prize is contingent upon the author¹s acceptance of the contract with the University of Illinois Press.

Jessie B. Ramey, “A Childcare Crisis: Poor Black and White Families and Orphanages in Pittsburgh, 1878-1929,” Carnegie-Mellon University, 2009.

For information about applying for this year's Gutman Prize, please see http://www.lawcha.org/gutman.php

Seth Rockman Wins 2010 Philip Taft Labor History Prize!

The 2010 Taft Prize committee, in collaboration with the Labor and Working Class History Association, is pleased to announce that the winner of the 2010 Taft Award in Labor and Working-Class History is Seth Rockman, for his book, Scraping By: Wage Labor, Slavery, and Survival in Early Baltimore, published by The Johns Hopkins University Press.

The Taft Prize comes with a cash award of $1,500. It is named in honor of Professor Philip Taft, an eminent labor historian and economist, who made outstanding contributions to the field of labor and working-class history during his lengthy career. The prize competition is administered by the ILR School at Cornell University and has been held annually since 1978. Visit www.ilr.cornell.edu/taftaward for more information.