...Paid half in 'clackers'...Paid half in 'clackers'Who rounded up all these poor people and marched them off to these horrible places? How many thousands of guards, cattle cars, and German shepherds were required to keep the hundreds of thousands of doomed coal workers moving toward their hellish fate?
when unions had a purpose.
If I had to choose between a “coal town” and government housing project (Cabrini Green anyone?) I would choose the coal town any day.
My uncle Frank lived in Dehue, WV, I think Youngstown Mining Co., for over 55 years. He is in the coal miners hall of fame, having worked 48 years. Most of it outside the entrance in charge of equipment.
My grandfather was one of about 100 Italians who came to Logan Co to work the mines. He was in the battle of Blair Mountain. Blair Mt. is slated for mining the top and leveling it off. This is a sacred place to most coal miners and in Logan Co. It is the scene of the most deaths in civilian actions in the US, like labor incidents.
Sheriff Chaffin was in the pocket of the mining companies and was given part ownership of a mine when he retired. He led the battle against the union. (see the movie Matewan) Also, he may have killed my grandfather in a separate incident. They threw him in the Guyandotte River and the deputies shot at him.
When I was a kid in the 50’s my aunt worked at the company store in Dehue. My grandfather and father had left the mines and opened a grocery store. We delivered groceries up Hwy 10 from Logan through Dehue and Man. My dad would buy me a cherry coke at the company store in Dehue.
My uncle ran the cable TV system after he retired. He made a lot of money setting up service via his phone.
During the depression, my grandfather had vegetables, pigs, chickens and a cow behind the house in Dehue. They didn’t have problem getting food. They still had the same set up in the 0’s taken care of by my uncle.
I went to see my uncle during a strike in the 90s. When you turned off HWY 10 and turned into Dehue, there were men with shotguns blocking the road. My mom had let me use er car and it had a yellow ribbon on the antenna signifying support of the strike. They asked me what I wanted and I said I’m here to see my uncle Frank. The guy shouted, “Let him in, he’s one of Frank’s boys.”
Recently, the company pulled out and all of the houses were destroyed. They had let the folks buy them for a few hundred dollars in the 90s.
I miss those days, but I never once regreted when our family moved to Cal and I didn’t need to work in the mines for a job.
In many cases like these, the two institutions were basically one and the same.
Coal mining today has changed a LOT from the old days. In 2013, coal mining is highly mechanized and require a very different set of skills than in the past—as a result, there are a lot less people working the mines extracting out the same amount of coal. Also, coal mining in Appalachia has dropped because EPA rules require cleaning burning coal, and the low-sulfur coal from the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana are surface-mined all by heavy machines.
1. The coal miners were paid in script redeamable only at the company store. They had to buy all their mining supplies (picks, carbide, lights, etc) from the company store at inflated prices. The also developed black lung, which killed them.
2. This is why we have the United Mine Workers union.
A slice of Americana right here on this FR thread! Informative and quite riveting.
Leni
My Great Grandpa, Lars Gustav (known as LG)Johnson worked in a Penna. coal mine. He came from Sweden about 1880 and did lumber for a while. My Grandpa Albert was born in PA but they were able to move to Schenectady NY where GE was hiring. Three generations worked for GE there and lived in the same house from which they walked to work.
My $00.02!
My Maternal Great GrandFather and Kin worked the mines in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. As did my Paternal Great Grandfather and his Kin in Alabama(Jefferson and Walker Counties).
Link to Alabama mines
http://www.miningartifacts.org/AlabamaMines.html
miners houses birmingham