New Mexico Historical Review Volume 76 Number 4 Article 4 10-1-2001 Salt of the Earth and Free Expression: The Mine-Mill Union and the Movies in the Rocky Mountain West James J. Lorence Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmhr Recommended Citation Lorence, James J.. "Salt of the Earth and Free Expression: The Mine-Mill Union and the Movies in the Rocky Mountain West." New Mexico Historical Review 76, 4 (2001). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/ nmhr/vol76/iss4/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in New Mexico Historical Review by an authorized editor of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. THE KEY FIGURES IN THE INDEPENDENT PRODUCTIONS CORPORATION ON LOCATION DURING FILMING OF SALT OF THE EARTH, 1953. Extreme left, Paul Jarrico; center in front ofrooftop camera, Herbert Biberman; lower right, Michael Wilson. (Collections ofthe Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Reasearch.) Salt ofthe Earth and Free Expression THE MINE-MILL UNION AND THE MOVIES IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN WEST James f. Lorence n Grant County, New Mexico, a lonely corner ofa forgotten place, events I ofthe 1950S dramatized the anticommunist hysteria ofthe early postwar era. In 1950 the Bayard, New Mexico, Local 890 ofthe International Union ofMine, Mill, and Smelter Workers (Mine-Mill) struck against the Empire Zinc Corporation over economic, social, and safety issues. In this small worker community far from the modern industrial city, the union took steps to influence the definition ofcommunity and the pattern ofgender relations in ways that would alter the social structure and challenge the distribution of power in the emergentcorporate state.