DOCSLIB.ORG

“Mixed up in the Coal Camp”: Interethnic, Family, and Community Exchanges in Matewan During the West Virginia Mine Wars, 1900-1922

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
“Mixed up in the Coal Camp”: Interethnic, Family, and Community Exchanges in Matewan During the West Virginia Mine Wars, 1900-1922 Old Dominion University ODU Digital Commons History Theses & Dissertations History Spring 2019 “Mixed Up in the Coal Camp”: Interethnic, Family, and Community Exchanges in Matewan During the West Virginia Mine Wars, 1900-1922 Lela Dawn Gourley Old Dominion University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/history_etds Part of the Labor History Commons, Labor Relations Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Gourley, Lela D.. "“Mixed Up in the Coal Camp”: Interethnic, Family, and Community Exchanges in Matewan During the West Virginia Mine Wars, 1900-1922" (2019). Master of Arts (MA), thesis, History, Old Dominion University, DOI: 10.25777/83vh-2m96 https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/history_etds/26 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the History at ODU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ODU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “MIXED UP IN THE COAL CAMP”: INTERETHNIC, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY EXCHANGES IN MATEWAN DURING THE WEST VIRGINIA MINE WARS, 1900-1922 by Lela Dawn Gourley B.A. May 2013, University of Charleston B.S. May 2013, University of Charleston A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Old Dominion University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS HISTORY OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY May 2019 Approved by: Elizabeth Zanoni (Director) John Weber (Member) Maura Hametz (Member) ABSTRACT “MIXED UP IN THE COAL CAMP”: INTERETHNIC, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY EXCHANGES IN MATEWAN DURING THE WEST VIRGINIA MINE WARS, 1900-1922 Lela Dawn Gourley Old Dominion University, 2019 Director: Dr. Elizabeth Zanoni The West Virginia Mine Wars are etched in the popular memory of West Virginians, who view these events as an important part of their identity as Mountaineers; yet, there is still much historians do not know about the Mine Wars, especially when concentrating on the perspectives and experiences of the working-class miners. These everyday miners and their families are the topic of this thesis. Using oral histories from the Matewan Development Center Records housed in the W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, this thesis argues that community-building across ethnic and racial lines within Matewan’s coal camps was not only possible, but occurred at a degree unmatched by other West Virginia industrial communities. In these camps, miners lived less segregated lives than their counterparts, presenting a fairly mixed community in which inter-ethnic exchanges laid an early foundation for cross-ethnic organization and resistance against the coal operators. As miners in southern West Virginia struggled to unionize against pro-coal forces and their attempts to divide miners and the larger community along racial and ethnic lines, miners turned to their foundation of community in the coal camp to withstand strike tactics, including their almost two year banishment to tent colonies. Tent colonies presented opportunities for informal exchanges between miners – exchanges that were just as valuable as formal exchanges in their day to day lives. By examining both formal and informal exchanges between Matewan’s mining population, this thesis argues that the “mixed up” quality of Stone Mountain Coal Corporation’s coal camps stimulated a shared working-class identity that was then mobilized by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) on a scale previously not achieved in West Virginia’s southern coalfields. iv Copyright, 2019, Lela Dawn Gourley, All Rights Reserved. v This thesis is dedicated to my parents, Lewis and Cindy Reedy, for always placing education at the forefront of our lives; to my husband, Joseph, for constant support – and proofreading! – while pursuing my M.A.; and to my son, Sullivan, for being my driving force while completing the thesis writing process. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many people who have contributed to the successful completion of this thesis. I extend thanks to my committee for their guidance during the editing of this manuscript. To my advisor, Dr. Elizabeth Zanoni, I say thanks, for her patience, guidance, and dedication through multiple drafts and numerous life changes that, at the time, seemed to derail the entire process. Without the tireless work of the Old Dominion University Perry Library Interlibrary Loan staff – from finding obscure 1920s publications to elusive microfilm copies of newspapers – this project would not be what it is today without their keen efforts. The staffs of the West Virginia State Archives at the West Virginia Division of Culture and History, the Eastern Regional Coal Archives at the Craft Memorial Library, and the W.L. Eury Special Collections at Appalachian State University offered valuable aid as I scrounged through archival records, oral history interviews, and file cabinet after file cabinet of microfilm rolls. On a more personal note, to my husband, Joseph, thank you for pushing me when I was ready to quit a hundred times over. Thank you for using vacation time to travel to archives with me. And thank you for sharing the responsibility of our new son this last year; without your help, this project would not have reached completion. To my cousins, Stephen Reedy and Brenna Craig, thank you for loaning books from your collections to kickstart the research process and never complaining about the length of time in which they have remained in my possession. My closest and oldest friends, Breanne Meadows and Miranda Smalley, thank you for being my shoulder on which to cry in tough times, the ears on which fell my complaints, and for taking the time to put fresh eyes on this paper in the final hours. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... ix Chapter I. PERPETUATING A FALSE NARRATIVE: MATEWAN’S PLACE IN THE OVERSIMPLIFICATION OF WEST VIRGINIA HISTORY .......................................................4 INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................4 HISTORICAL CONTEXT ..................................................................................................7 MATEWAN IN POPULAR HISTORY ............................................................................15 LITERATURE REVIEW AND HISTORICAL CONTRIBUTION .................................18 METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................29 II. “JUST MIXED UP IN THE COAL CAMP”: INTERETHNIC INTERACTIONS IN MATEWAN COAL FIELDS ........................................................................................................37 LIVING ARRANGEMENTS WITHIN THE COAL CAMP ...........................................41 THE COMPANY STORE AND SOCIAL ACTIVITIES WITHIN THE CAMP ............55 CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................62 III. STRUGGLE TO FORM THE UNION: COAL COMPANIES’ SUPPRESSION OF UNIONIZATION, 1912-1920 .................................................................................................64 THE BALDWIN-FELTS DETECTIVES AGENCY AND THE PAINT CREEK AND CABIN CREEK STRIKES OF 1912 .................................................................................68 THE LOGAN BANNER: CORPORATE PARTERNALISM AND THE INFILTRATION OF POPULAR OPINION ..................................................................................................75 THE PAINT CREEK AND CABIN CREEK STRIKES: LABOR LESSONS LEARNED ............................................................................................................................................90 CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................97 IV. “TO MAKE THE COMPANY COME TO THEIR MILK”: MAKING COMMUNITY IN TENT COLONIES DURING THE 1920 STRIKE .....................................................................100 SURVIVAL MODES UNDER HARSH CONDITIONS................................................108 CREATING COMMUNITY BONDS IN A TIME OF STRUGGLE .............................114 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................122 V. CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................123 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................127 APPENDICES .............................................................................................................................136 INTERVIEWEE PROFILES ...........................................................................................136 viii Page PERMISSION FOR REPRODUCTIONS OF MAPS .....................................................144 PERMISSION FOR REPRODUCTIONS ORAL HISTORY TESTIMONY.................145 VITA ............................................................................................................................................146 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. “R. L. Polk and Company's map of West Virginia 1900.” R. L. Polk and Company Published by: Buffalo, NY, Matthews-Northrup Co., 1900 ............................................................1
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Proceedings 2012
    TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction iv Beacon 2012 Sponsors v Conference Program vi Outstanding Papers by Panel 1 SESSION I POLITICAL SCIENCE 2 Alison Conrad “Negative Political Advertising and the American Electorate” Mentor: Prof. Elaine Torda Orange County Community College EDUCATION 10 Michele Granitz “Non-Traditional Women of a Local Community College” Mentor: Dr. Bahar Diken Reading Area Community College INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES 18 Brogan Murphy “The Missing Link in the Puzzling Autism Epidemic: The Effect of the Internet on the Social Impact Equation” Mentor: Prof. Shweta Sen Montgomery College HISTORY 31 Megan G. Willmes “The People’s History vs. Company Profit: Mine Wars in West Virginia, the Battle of Blair Mountain, and the Ongoing Fight for Historical Preservation” Mentor: Dr. Joyce Brotton Northern Virginia Community College COMMUNICATIONS I: POPULAR CULTURE 37 Cristiana Lombardo “Parent-Child Relationships in the Wicked Child Sub-Genre of Horror Movies” Mentor: Dr. Mira Sakrajda Westchester Community College ALLIED HEALTH AND NURSING 46 Ana Sicilia “Alpha 1 Anti-Trypsin Deficiency Lung Disease Awareness and Latest Treatments” Mentor: Dr. Amy Ceconi Bergen Community College i TABLE OF CONTENTS (CONTINUED) SESSION II PSYCHOLOGY 50 Stacy Beaty “The Effect of Education and Stress Reduction Programs on Feelings of Control and Positive Lifestyle Changes in Cancer Patients and Survivors” Mentor: Dr. Gina Turner and Dr. Sharon Lee-Bond Northampton Community College THE ARTS 60 Angelica Klein “The Art of Remembering: War Memorials Past and Present” Mentor: Prof. Robert Bunkin Borough of Manhattan Community College NATURAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 76 Fiorella Villar “Characterization of the Tissue Distribution of the Three Splicing Variants of LAMP-2” Mentor: Prof.
    [Show full text]
  • Viva La Raza Index.Pdf
    VIVA LA RAZA: A HISTORY OF CHICANO IDENTITY & RESISTANCE Employees, called in sick or used vacation leave rather than cross the picket lines. These workers had the solidarity their union lacked. Index 5. In 1985, as a direct outgrowth of the SROC exposé of the reclassification system’s ingrained discrimination, WFSE won a landmark lawsuit that established comparable worth for state employees in Washington. Classi- fied Staff Association later became District 925 Service Employees, the feminist-inspired union for office workers. 6. Higher Education Personnel Board, State of Washington, “Hearing A America (ACWA) 112–113 Examiner’s Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Recommended De- Abortion rights 244, 250, 256, 264, American Center for International 267 Labor Solidarity 41 cision,” HEPB Nos. 648 and 683 (6 Mar. 1978), 12. Acosta, Josie 268 American Civil Liberties Union 7. Ibid., 12. Acuña, Rodolfo 51, 122 (ACLU) 234, 296 8. Ibid., 14. Acuña y Rossetti, Elisa 95 American Federation of Labor (AFL) AFL-CIO 40–41, 165; and United 98–99, 109, 114, 121, 132, 133– Farm Workers 158, 161, 162–163, 134 208 American GI Forum 66, 124, 245 African American movement: American Indian Movement (AIM) activism at University of Washing- 267 ton 310; civil rights struggle 75– American Institute for Free Labor 76, 181; nationalism/separatism in Development 41 41, 74–76, 186, 189–190 American Labor Union 140 African Americans 37, 38, 65, 85, Anaya, Flores 215 90, 126, 208; nature of oppression Anderson, Benedict 30 75 Angel, Frank 226 Agricultural Labor Relations Act Anti-immigrant attacks 120, 121– (ALRA) 165–167, 169, 304 123, 163–165 Agricultural Workers Industrial Anti-Semitism 77–78, 174 League (AWIL) 139–140 Anzaldúa, Gloria 252, 273, 279 AIDS 67, 273, 278 Aragón, Paula 109 Alaniz, Ninfa Vasquez 289, 290– Archuleta, Manuel 226 292.
    [Show full text]
  • Sunshine State
    SUNSHINE STATE A FILM BY JOHN SAYLES A Sony Pictures Classics Release 141 Minutes. Rated PG-13 by the MPAA East Coast East Coast West Coast Distributor Falco Ink. Bazan Entertainment Block-Korenbrot Sony Pictures Classics Shannon Treusch Evelyn Santana Melody Korenbrot Carmelo Pirrone Erin Bruce Jackie Bazan Ziggy Kozlowski Marissa Manne 850 Seventh Avenue 110 Thorn Street 8271 Melrose Avenue 550 Madison Avenue Suite 1005 Suite 200 8 th Floor New York, NY 10019 Jersey City, NJ 07307 Los Angeles, CA 9004 New York, NY 10022 Tel: 212-445-7100 Tel: 201 656 0529 Tel: 323-655-0593 Tel: 212-833-8833 Fax: 212-445-0623 Fax: 201 653 3197 Fax: 323-655-7302 Fax: 212-833-8844 Visit the Sony Pictures Classics Internet site at: http:/www.sonyclassics.com CAST MARLY TEMPLE................................................................EDIE FALCO DELIA TEMPLE...................................................................JANE ALEXANDER FURMAN TEMPLE.............................................................RALPH WAITE DESIREE PERRY..................................................................ANGELA BASSETT REGGIE PERRY...................................................................JAMES MCDANIEL EUNICE STOKES.................................................................MARY ALICE DR. LLOYD...........................................................................BILL COBBS EARL PICKNEY...................................................................GORDON CLAPP FRANCINE PICKNEY.........................................................MARY
    [Show full text]
  • Class War in West Virginia Education Workers Strike and Win!
    Class War in West Virginia Education Workers Strike and Win! from the pages of suggested donation $3.00 Table of Contents Articles Page Education Workers Fighting Back in West Virginia! 1 By Otis Grotewohl, February 5, 2018 Statewide education strike looms in West Virginia 3 By Otis Grotewohl, February 20, 2018 Workers shut down West Virginia schools! 5 By Otis Grotewohl, February 26, 2018 Class war in West Virginia: School workers strike and win raise 8 By Martha Grevatt and Minnie Bruce Pratt, March 7, 2018 West Virginia education workers, teaching how to fight 12 Editorial, March 5, 2018 From a teacher to West Virginia educators: An open letter 14 By a guest author, March 5, 2018 Lessons of the West Virginia strike 16 By Otis Grotewohl, March 13, 2018 Is a ‘Defiant Workers’ Spring’ coming? 21 By Otis Grotewohl, March 20, 2018 Battle of Blair Mountain still rings true 23 By John Steffin, March 7, 2018 Solidarity Statements Page Harvard TPS Coalition Solidarity Statement 25 March 4, 2018 Southern Workers Assembly 26 March 1, 2018 USW Local 8751 29 March 5, 2018 Articles copyright 2018 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of entire articles is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved. ii Education Workers Fighting Back in West Virginia! By Otis Grotewohl, February 5, 2018 www.tinyurl.com/ww180205og Teachers and school support staff are currently in motion in West Virginia. On Feb. 2, roughly 2,000 teachers and service employees from Mingo, Wyoming, Logan and Raleigh counties staged a walkout and took their message to the capitol.
    [Show full text]
  • Remembering Ludlow but Forgetting the Columbine: the 1927-1928 Colorado Coal Strike
    Remembering Ludlow but Forgetting the Columbine: The 1927-1928 Colorado Coal Strike By Leigh Campbell-Hale B.A., University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 1977 M.A., University of Colorado, Boulder, 2005 A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado and Committee Members: Phoebe S.K. Young Thomas G. Andrews Mark Pittenger Lee Chambers Ahmed White In partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History 2013 This thesis entitled: Remembering Ludlow but Forgetting the Columbine: The 1927-1928 Colorado Coal Strike written by Leigh Campbell-Hale has been approved for the Department of History Phoebe S.K. Young Thomas Andrews Date The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we Find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards Of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline. ii Campbell-Hale, Leigh (Ph.D, History) Remembering Ludlow but Forgetting the Columbine: The 1927-1928 Colorado Coal Strike Dissertation directed by Associate Professor Phoebe S.K. Young This dissertation examines the causes, context, and legacies of the 1927-1928 Colorado coal strike in relationship to the history of labor organizing and coalmining in both Colorado and the United States. While historians have written prolifically about the Ludlow Massacre, which took place during the 1913- 1914 Colorado coal strike led by the United Mine Workers of America, there has been a curious lack of attention to the Columbine Massacre that occurred not far away within the 1927-1928 Colorado coal strike, led by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
    [Show full text]
  • Mining Wars: Corporate Expansion and Labor Violence in the Western Desert, 1876-1920
    UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones 2009 Mining wars: Corporate expansion and labor violence in the Western desert, 1876-1920 Kenneth Dale Underwood University of Nevada Las Vegas Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/thesesdissertations Part of the Latin American History Commons, Social History Commons, and the United States History Commons Repository Citation Underwood, Kenneth Dale, "Mining wars: Corporate expansion and labor violence in the Western desert, 1876-1920" (2009). UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones. 106. http://dx.doi.org/10.34917/1377091 This Dissertation is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by Digital Scholarship@UNLV with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Dissertation in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. This Dissertation has been accepted for inclusion in UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones by an authorized administrator of Digital Scholarship@UNLV. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MINING WARS: CORPORATE EXPANSION AND LABOR VIOLENCE IN THE WESTERN DESERT, 1876-1920 by Kenneth Dale Underwood Bachelor of Arts University of Southern California 1992 Master
    [Show full text]
  • Hillbillies Emerge from the Woods: an Unsociological Moment* in John Sayles’S Matewan by Jimmy Dean Smith
    123 Jimmy Dean Smith Hillbillies Emerge from the Woods: An Unsociological Moment* in John Sayles’s Matewan by Jimmy Dean Smith John Sayles’s 1987 film Matewan depicts a signal event in labor, social, and Ap- palachian history and thus the viewer feels the gravitational pull and satisfaction of a familiar trope—the myth enbodied in a familiar liberal morality tale. The movie can and does do good, but it resists that impulse at the same time. Good is not all it does, since Sayles takes a worthwhile chance on alienating his core audience. While the aesthetic precepts of social justice often limit the range of approaches an engaged but bourgeois artist can bring to politically and socially charged material, Sayles offers a scenario that toys with liberal good taste and questions whether politics that assumes a pre-fabricated response has the guts to recognize the tantalizing power of subversive mythology. Here are “the bare bones of the history [Sayles] started with” (Sayles 16): In 1920 the minefields in eastern Kentucky and southwestern West Virginia are totally nonunion . The United Mine Workers . target . several counties to be organized. The mine owners . hold Mingo and Logan counties in West Virginia in a military grip—controlling political officials and police, posting armed guards . sending spies into the midst of the miners and creating a “judicious mixture” of native miners, blacks and recent immigrants who they believe can never rise above their basic differences to resist collectively. A strike begins near the town of Matewan . The mayor and chief of police of the town, Cabell Testerman and Sid Hatfield, refuse a bribe offered by agents from the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, which functions as the enforcing arm of the state’s coal operators.
    [Show full text]
  • A Don West Reader West End Press
    Lincoln Memorial University LMU Digital Commons Copyright-Free Books Collection Special Collections 1985 In a Land of Plenty: A Don West Reader West End Press Don West Constance Adams West Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lmunet.edu/csbc Part of the Appalachian Studies Commons, and the Poetry Commons Recommended Citation End Press, West; West, Don; and West, Constance Adams, "In a Land of Plenty: A Don West Reader" (1985). Copyright-Free Books Collection. 1. https://digitalcommons.lmunet.edu/csbc/1 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Special Collections at LMU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Copyright-Free Books Collection by an authorized administrator of LMU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. With sketches Constance Adams West No Grants This book is not supported any grant, governmental, corporate or PS 3545 .E8279 16 1985 private. It is paid for, directly or indirectly, by the people who support and In a land of plenty have Don West's vision, and it both reflects and proves their best - The publisher No Purposely this book is not copyrighted. Poetry and other creative efforts should be levers, weapons to be used in the people's struggle for understanding, human rights, and decency. "Art for Art's Sake" is a misnomer. The poet can never be neutral. In a hungry world the struggle between oppressor and oppressed is unending. There is the inevitable question: "Which side are you on?" To be content with as they are, to be "neutral," is to take sides with the oppressor who also wants to keep the status quo.
    [Show full text]
  • The Fight to Save Blair Mountain
    ForumJournal SPRING 2017 | VOL. 31, NO. 3 Preserving Difficult Histories PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH The Fight to Save Blair Mountain CHARLES B. KEENEY III here is no piece of real estate in West Virginia more contested than the battlefield at Blair Mountain, the site of Tone of the largest—but also among the least widely known— armed uprisings in American history. The Battle of Blair Mountain, the culminating event of the West Virginia Mine Wars, took place in August 1921, when an estimated 10,000 miners, armed and wearing red bandanas around their necks, marched south from the state capital toward the anti-union counties of Logan, Mingo, and McDowell. They intended to force an end to the notorious Mine Guard System, which had enabled coal companies to rule the coalfields as a police state. As the miners marched south, company forces, led by Logan County Sheriff Don Chafin, set up 10 miles of defensive positions north of the town of Logan, along ridgelines stretching from Blair Mountain north to Mill Creek. The two forces fought for four days before federal troops intervened and the miners, unwilling to fight U.S. soldiers, laid down their arms. In the aftermath, more than 500 miners and their union leadership were arrested and charged with treason and murder. Among them was my great grandfather, Frank Keeney, then president of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) in West Virginia, and one of the central figures of the Mine Wars. The memorialization of the Battle of Blair Mountain has been, in some respects, every bit as contentious and complex as the event itself.
    [Show full text]
  • A Rip in the Social Fabric: Revolution, Industrial Workers of the World, and the Paterson Silk Strike of 1913 in American Literature, 1908-1927
    i A RIP IN THE SOCIAL FABRIC: REVOLUTION, INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD, AND THE PATERSON SILK STRIKE OF 1913 IN AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1908-1927 ___________________________________________________________________________ A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ___________________________________________________________________________ by Nicholas L. Peterson August, 2011 Examining Committee Members: Daniel T. O’Hara, Advisory Chair, English Philip R. Yannella, English Susan Wells, English David Waldstreicher, History ii ABSTRACT In 1913, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) led a strike of silk workers in Paterson, New Jersey. Several New York intellectuals took advantage of Paterson’s proximity to New York to witness and participate in the strike, eventually organizing the Paterson Pageant as a fundraiser to support the strikers. Directed by John Reed, the strikers told their own story in the dramatic form of the Pageant. The IWW and the Paterson Silk Strike inspired several writers to relate their experience of the strike and their participation in the Pageant in fictional works. Since labor and working-class experience is rarely a literary subject, the assertiveness of workers during a strike is portrayed as a catastrophic event that is difficult for middle-class writers to describe. The IWW’s goal was a revolutionary restructuring of society into a worker-run co- operative and the strike was its chief weapon in achieving this end. Inspired by such a drastic challenge to the social order, writers use traditional social organizations—religion, nationality, and family—to structure their characters’ or narrators’ experience of the strike; but the strike also forces characters and narrators to re-examine these traditional institutions in regard to the class struggle.
    [Show full text]
  • AUGUST, 1920 25 CENTS in This Issue
    AUGUST, 1920 25 CENTS Drawn by Cornelia Barns In this Issue: The "Wars of "West Virginia - By Robert Minor The fOllowiJJg advertisenlent w"Ub check for one hundred and ., fltty - s lx dollars was declined by tbe N e w York Time s : Robt. AmerlCa s For the first time we dare to adver tise this book! For the first time we can meet the w or ld' s eye and say, Come on with your orders-no matter how many, G. Mightiest we M'e r eady! Ingersoll THINKER "The Brass Check" A Study of American Journalism I By UPTON SINCLAIR i Read the record of this book to date: Published irl February ; first edition, 23,000 paper-bound copies, sold in two weeks. Second edition, 21,000 papbr-bound, sold before it could be put to press. Third edition 18,00011 just r eady, nearly all sold; fourth edition, 12,000, print,,1 ing; paper for fifth edition, 110,000, just shipped fronil the mill. The third and fourth editions are printed on' Ing ~ rsoll 18 not only America's mlg bt­ lest Intell<>ct but among tbe inlellec­ "number one news"; the fifth will be printed on a car­ tuals of all tbe w orld from Greece a nd load of lightweight brown wrapping paper-all we could R ome d own thru tbe centuries to the get in a hurry! pr ~se nt da y Inger s oll's 'Vorks Stand Like a Glllllt The first cloth edition, 16,500 copies, all sold; a car-' among tbe greatest writers of tlle load of paper for the second edition, 40,000 copies, has world.
    [Show full text]
  • Landscape and History at the Headwaters of the Big Coal River
    Landscape and History at the Headwaters of the Big Coal River Valley An Overview By Mary Hufford Reading the Landscape: An Introduction “This whole valley’s full of history.” -- Elsie Rich, Jarrold’s Valley From the air today, as one flies westward across West Virginia, the mountains appear to crest in long, undulating waves, giving way beyond the Allegheny Front to the deeply crenulated mass of the coal-bearing Allegheny plateaus. The sandstone ridges of Cherry Pond, Kayford, Guyandotte, and Coal River mountains where the headwaters of southern West Virginia’s Big Coal River rise are the spectacular effect of millions of years of erosion. Here, water cutting a downward path through shale etched thousands of winding hollows and deep valleys into the unglaciated tablelands of the plateaus. Archeologists have recovered evidence of human activity in the mountains only from the past 12,000 years, a tiny period in the region’s ecological development. Over the eons it took to transform an ancient tableland into today’s mountains and valleys, a highly differentiated forest evolved. Known among ecologists as the mixed mesophytic forest, it is the biologically richest temperate-zone hardwood system in the world. And running in ribbons beneath the fertile humus that anchors the mixed mesophytic are seams of coal, the fossilized legacy of an ancient tropical forest, submerged and compressed during the Paleozoic era beneath an inland sea.1 Many of the world’s mythologies explain landforms as the legacies of struggles among giants, time out of mind. Legend accounts for the Giant’s Causeway, a geological formation off the coast of Northern Ireland, as the remains of an ancient bridge that giants made between Ireland and Scotland.
    [Show full text]