Remembering a Workplace Disaster
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Remembering a Workplace Disaster: Different Landscapes—Different Narratives? A thesis submitted To Kent State University in partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Glenn E. Stubbs May 2015 © Copyright All rights reserved Except for previously published material Thesis written by Glenn Eugene Stubbs B.A., Kent State University, 2008 M.A., Kent State University, 2015 Approved by Christopher W. Post, Associate Professor, Ph.D., Geography, Masters Advisor Mandy Munro-Stasiuk, Chair, Ph.D., Department of Geography James L. Blank, Dean, Ph.D., College of Arts and Sciences TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………………….…..iii LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………..…..iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………….…..v CHAPTERS I. Introduction…………………………………………………..…......1 II. Memory, Landscape, and the Working Community…………............5 Cultural Landscape of Memories and Memorials…………….…..….5 Sense of Relocated Place in the Industrial Revolution......................12 Methods of Research……………………………………………….16 III. Historic Background of a Mining Disaster………………………....20 Millfield…………………………………………………………….20 Sunday Creek Mine #6 Explosion……………………………….....26 The Aftermath of the Explosion……………………………………28 IV. Landscapes of Memory and their Narratives….…………………....35 The Mine Site……………………...……………………………......35 Monument Site in Millfield……...……………………….…………42 V. Exploration of a Mine’s Landscapes………...………..………….....52 VI. Conclusion…………………………………………………………..61 REFERENCES……………………………………………………………….…….64 APPENDICES A. Safety Recommendations for Sunday Creek Mine #6……….…….…...69 B. The closing of Sunday Creek Mine #6……………………….………...70 iii LIST OF FIGURES 1. Mill at Millfield around 1900………………………………………………21 2. The hocking coal field……………………………………………………...22 3. Community awaiting news on day of explosion……………………………29 4. Recovery of victims.......................................................................................30 5. Millfield mine #6 complex……………………………….…………………34 6. Company housing in modern-day East Millfield……………...…….……...36 7. Roadside Marker at the Mine Site …………...………………………....…..36 8. Condition of Mine structures in 1969………………………...……...……..38 9. Condition of Mine structures in 2010………………...………………...…..38 10. Operational tipple at Millfield…………………………………………....…42 11. Roadside marker at mine site……………………………...……….……….44 12. Millfield company store………………………………………………....….46 13. Millfield Memorial Disaster Memorial Monument………………….....…..48 14. Placing of the wreath……………………………………....…………...…..49 15. Memorial monument top detail………………………………………...…..50 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am truly grateful to Dr. Chris Post for being my advisor for this project. Thank you for sharing your insight and library. Thank you for swiftly answering poorly asked questions via e- mail. Mostly, thank you for your patience and understanding through a difficult time in my life. I send a special thank you to my committee members, Dr. Thomas Schmidlin and Dr. Jennifer Mapes, for blending your professional perspectives in a way to form a unique direction for this thesis. I dedicate this thesis to my father who passed away while I was doing research. I miss you. I would not be at this point without any of you. Above all, thank you to my wife, Dr. Karen Powers for your love and faith in me. I would not be here at all without you. v CHAPTER 1 Introduction The landscape of contemporary America is awash with public memorials constantly reminding its population of selected events from their past. Types and purposes of memorials are wide-ranging. National government sanctioned landscapes of memory, like the National Mall in Washington D.C., focus on inspiring patriotism and nation building through memorials to national heroes and historic events. At the state level, one common method of remembering places, people and events of historic significance is a roadside marker program. Spontaneous memorials, placed directly by the public, are a method for local communities to self- memorialize. Events that trigger humans to respond emotionally in favor of memorialization are wide ranging. One such trigger is tragic or disastrous events. Humans emotionally response to a tragic workplace accident was, and still is, evident in the southeastern Ohio community of Millfield, where, on November 5 1930, an explosion deep in the local coal mine killed eighty-two, the most ever to parish in a mining accident in Ohio. Attendees at the 2012 annual Millfield mine memorial service recounted that while rescue efforts were underway, members of the community vowed they would remember that day with an annual service. Indeed, there was a large memorial service within the month, but it was the last formal service for the next forty-four years. Commemorating this event has proven to be a long and difficult process and thereby invites study. At the beginning of the twentieth century, major changes came to the Millfield community with the onset of corporate coal mining. Just to the east of town, the coal company 1 built housing for its workers and ultimately gained control of Millfield. Therefore, it is impressive that both areas continue to exist seven decades after the mine closed (Mould 1985). Even to this day, many residents still consider the Millfield area to be a mining community. However, since the massive explosion of November 5, 1930, Millfield is a mining community unique in Ohio’s Appalachian coal region. On that day, the infamous mine explosion cast a defining shadow over the community that continues to linger. Thus, it is safe to say the two mine disaster specific landscapes of this community, the site of the mine and the site of the monument in Millfield, reflect the culture of a unique community. By exploring the landscapes of Millfield’s coal mine-related memory, I strived to understand what they divulge about local emotions concerning the mines and the infamous accident. On the surface, these cultural landscapes appear to tell conflicting and contrasting narratives about the community and its emotional connection to the mining disaster. To determine if my initial impressions of the cultural landscapes are accurate, I focus on the history of those landscapes, on how they were developed and on how they evolved into their modern- day states. More specifically, what do these different narratives reveal about the community’s historic and contemporary emotions surrounding the mine and the accident? Remembering a person or event is the most obvious reason for memorialization. However, memorials do more than only remember they also define memory through the narrative(s) they tell. So who gets to determine the narrative of a memorial? Who gets to answer the critical question of what is included, and what is not, determines, “the way we look at the world… how we relate to it” and what future generations will know of us (AAG 2013). This thesis consists of six chapters. After the introduction, chapter two examines the scholarly background of this thesis. I consider established discourse pertaining to the topics 2 essential for this project: sense of place, cultural landscapes of memory and memorials, and sense of relocated place during the industrial revolution. Chapter three describes the history of the case study of this thesis, the southeastern Ohio areas of Millfield, East Millfield and Poston/Sunday Creek Coal Company’s #6 Mine site. Chapter four considers the cultural landscape of the mine site and the monument site in the town and the narratives each site tell. In chapter five, I link my geographical erudition to my working class background as I analyze these two landscapes of memory. Chapter six is a conclusion. 3 CHAPTER 2 Memory, Landscape, and the Working Community Cultural Landscape of Memories and Memorials For all of recorded history, humans have demonstrated a need to accumulate their memories and to share them with others. These shared memories create a collective memory within a group. Evidenced by ancient hieroglyphic symbols, humans were relaying their collective memories on the durable landscape and thereby building collective histories for as long as they have been communicating (Foote 2003; Doss 2010; Schama 1995; Kammen 1991; Harvey 1985). Regardless the physical structure, collective memories entrusted to memorials and the associated monuments narrate and preserve collective memories about events significant to a community. Personal and group sacrifice, tragic and/or violent events, and heroic individuals are a few types of events that are commonly memorialized (Savage 2009; Foote 2003; Doss 2010; Loewen 1999). Despite brief periods of resistance, the popularity of memorials has grown and continues to grow (Doss 2010). Rationales underlying memorialization’s popularity are multi-faceted. Temporary memorials provide an instantaneous outlet for grief and mourning while permanent memorials provide a means of honoring specific events. However, permanent memorials always tell a distorted, often blatantly so, narrative (Foote 2003; Doss 2010; Hoelscher and Alderman 2004; Harvey 1985; Loewen 1999). Some memorials become honored sites, well remembered for their cultural and economic benefits and others become forgotten, outdated, and detrimental to their locales (Foote 2003; Post 2009; Doss 2010). Therefore, understanding the narrative a 4 memorial communicates about the collective memory of those who created it requires more than an understanding of memorials and the remembered event; it is also necessary to consider the people and cultural landscape of