Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields: The Southern West Virginia Miners, 1880-1922 2nd Edition

by David Corbin

Overview

Between 1880 and 1922, the coal fields of southern West Virginia witnessed two bloody and protracted strikes, the formation of two competing unions, and the largest armed conflict in American labor history—a week-long battle between 20,000 coal miners and 5,000 state police, deputy sheriffs, and mine guards. These events resulted in an untold number of deaths, indictments of over 550 coal miners for insurrection and treason, and four declarations of martial law. Corbin argues that these violent events were collective and militant acts of aggression interconnected and conditioned by decades of oppression. His study goes a long way toward breaking down the old stereotypes of Appalachian and coal mining culture. This second edition contains a new preface and afterword by author David A. Corbin.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781940425795
Publisher:	West Virginia University Press
Publication date:	10/01/2015
Series:	WEST VIRGINIA & APPALACHIA , #16
Edition description:	2nd Edition
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

David A. Corbin served as a Senate staffer for twenty-six years—six years on the leadership staff of Senate majority leader Byrd and ten years on the leadership staffs of Senate majority leaders George Mitchell and Tom Daschle. He also served as Senator Byrd’s speechwriter for the last ten years of his career. Corbin is the editor of The West Virginia Mine Wars: An Anthology and the author of The Last Great Senator: Robert C. Byrd’s Encounters with Eleven U.S. Presidents. He received his PhD in history from the University of Maryland and lives in Annapolis.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction xvii

I "Coal is Our Existence" 1

II What Kind of Animals" 25

III Class over Caste: Interracial Solidarity in the Company Town 61

IV "Solidarity Forever" 87

V Conspiracies and Control 106

VI "We Shall Not Be Moved" 146

VII A War for Democracy 176

VIII "I'm Gonna Fight for My Union" 195

IX "Land of the Free, Home of the Brave" 236

Afterword: "So It Is with West Virginia" 253

Bibliographical Essay on Sources 271

Selected Bibliography 277

Index 297

Editorial Reviews

"Marked by objectivity, clarity, and scholarship, this is unquestionably one of the finest monographs ever written about the American labor movement. With a fine taste for language, an admirable mastery of his materials, and a keen insight, Corbin leads his readers through an especially frightening episode of United States domestic history.”
Andre Kuczewski, Journal of American Culture

“This is an excellent work that should be in most academic and large public libraries.”
Kevin M. Rosswurm, Library Journal

"Corbin has painted a bold portrait of life, labour, and rebellion in the coalfields, and presented a compelling analysis of indigenous American labour radicalism.”
Allen Seager, Labour/Le Travail

"The coal miners of southern West Virginia have found a historian worthy of their militant traditions. He has sifted an amazing quantity and variety of sources to recover West Virginia miners’ self-expressed views of their experiences."
Peter Gottlieb, International Labor and Working-Class History

“Corbin's study offers detailed insights into the intricacies of life in both the coal camps and among the operators, with deserved attention given to a documentation of operators' strategies of control through company towns, control of the legislature and influence in the judicial system. As such his study provides a much needed analysis both of a particular region during a crucial stage of its socio-economic transformation, and the growth of unionization as a manifestation of occupational consciousness and the struggle to assert power by a major section of the region's labor force.”
Ian M. Taplin, Journal of Social History



“David Corbin has provided us with an original and well written history of the southern West Virginia miners, as well as reminded us of the central lessons of labor history.”
 Alexander MacKenzie Thompson III, The Journal of Economic History



“This is excellent. Corbin analyzes the coal miners’ culture splendidly, focusing on the sense of regionwide solidarity produced by high levels of geographic mobility, the prominence and self-reliance of black miners, and the generation of miner-preachers as rival to the contemptible ministry of the company-sponsored churches. . . .a fine polished piece of work.”
David Montgomery, author of Beyond Equality

From the Publisher