Historical Events Mentioned in the Play Harlan County War

The Harlan County War was a series of coal mining‐related skirmishes, executions, bombings, and strikes (both attempted and realized) that took place in Harlan County, Kentucky, during the 1930s. The incidents involved coal miners and union organizers on one side and coal firms and law enforcement officials on the other. The question at hand: the rights of Harlan County coal miners to organize their workplaces and better their wages and working conditions. It was a nearly decade‐ long conflict, lasting from 1931 to 1939. Before its conclusion, two acclaimed folk singers would emerge, state and federal troops would occupy the county more than half a dozen times, an indeterminate number of miners, deputies, and bosses would be killed, union membership would oscillate wildly, and workers in the nation’s most anti‐labor coal county would ultimately be represented by a union.

Colorado Coal Strikes of 1914 – Ludlow Massacre

The Ludlow Massacre was an attack by the Colorado National Guard and Colorado Fuel & Iron Company camp guards on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colorado, on April 20, 1914. Thirty‐nine people, including women and eleven children, were killed; John D. Rockefeller Jr., the chief mine owner, was pilloried for what happened. The massacre, the culmination of a bloody widespread strike against Colorado coal mines, resulted in the violent deaths of between 19 and 26 people; reported death tolls vary but include two women and eleven children, asphyxiated and burned to death under a single tent. The deaths occurred after a daylong fight between militia and camp guards against striking workers. Ludlow was the deadliest single incident in the southern Colorado Coal Strike, lasting from September 1913 through December 1914. The strike was organized by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) against coal mining companies in Colorado. The three largest companies involved were the Rockefeller family‐owned Colorado Fuel & Iron Company (CF&I), the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company (RMF), and the Victor‐American Fuel Company (VAF). In retaliation for Ludlow, the miners armed themselves and attacked dozens of mines over the next ten days, destroying property and engaging in several skirmishes with the Colorado National Guard along a 40‐mile front from Trinidad to Walsenburg. The entire strike would cost between 69 and 199 lives. Thomas G. Andrews described it as the "deadliest strike in the history of the United States"

Aftermath:

Hamlet Chicken Processing Plant Fire

The Hamlet chicken processing plant fire was an industrial fire in Hamlet, North Carolina, at the Imperial Foods processing plant on September 3, 1991, resulting from a failure in a hydraulic line. Twenty‐five were killed and 55 injured in the fire, trapped behind locked fire doors. In 11 years of operation, the plant had never received a safety inspection. Investigators believe a safety inspection might have prevented the disaster. A federal investigation was launched, which resulted in the owners receiving a 20‐year prison sentence. The company received the highest fine in the history of North Carolina. As a result, the state passed several worker safety laws. Survivors and victims' families accused the fire service and city of Hamlet of racism, leading to two monuments to the tragedy being erected. The plant was never reopened. The fire was North Carolina's worst industrial disaster. Higher fatalities occurred at the 1947 Texas City disaster, the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, and the 1860 Pemberton Mill collapse. Some mining disasters have been worse: 53 miners died in 1925 in North Carolina in the Coal Glen mine disaster.

Floor plan of the factory showing the locations of the origin of the fire and of the killed and injured.

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City on March 25, 1911, was one of the deadliest industrial disasters in the history of the city of New York and resulted in the fourth highest loss of life from an industrial accident in U.S. history. It was also one of the deadliest disasters that occurred in New York City – after the burning of the General Slocum on June 15, 1904 – until the destruction of the World Trade Center 90 years later. The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers – 123 women and 23 men – who died from the fire, smoke inhalation, or falling or jumping to their deaths. Most of the victims were recent Jewish and Italian immigrant women aged sixteen to twenty‐three; of the victims whose ages are known, the oldest victim was Providenza Panno at 43, and the youngest were 14‐year‐olds Kate Leone and "Sara" Rosaria Maltese. Because the owners had locked the doors to the stairwells and exits – a common practice at the time to prevent pilferage and unauthorized breaks – many of the workers who could not escape the burning building jumped from the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors to the streets below. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, which fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers.