“no fan of American workers”
Absolutely WRONG!
I am NO FAN of labor unions.
My Great-Grandfather was a copper miner in Michigan U.P.
He went out west to Butte, Montana to find work miner.
Butte was called the Gibraltar of Unionism, and its first miners’ union, established June 13, 1878, ultimately became Local #1 of the Western Federation of Miners.
Labor strife led union organizer Frank Little to Butte in 1917, on behalf of the radical Industrial Workers of the World.
The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), American labor union, founded in 1890, that engaged in bitter, though often successful, disputes with coal mine operators.
PERSONAL ANECDOTE:
My Grandfather LEFT Butte, Montana to come to Detroit to work at Ford’s. He said that: “if you NOT support the union in Butte, you were shot dead.”
** Incidentally, From the 1880s to the 1920s, Butte was the single largest producer of copper, not just in the U.S., but in the world. From about 1905 to 1917, Butte produced between a quarter and a third of all the copper on earth. Butte certainly contributed significant copper to U.S. war efforts, from the Spanish-American War to Viet Nam.
There are even possible beneficial organisms living in the Berkeley Pit water and nowhere else on earth, extremophile organisms that show potential against some kinds of cancer.
https://westernmininghistory.com/towns/montana/butte/
If interested, this movie is an great movie of life within a Welsh mining town:
“How Green Was My Valley” (1941) Family viewing
John Ford “masterpiece”
CAST MEMBERS:
Maureen O’Hara, Roddy McDowall, Sara Allgood, Donald Crisp, John Loder, Walter Pidgeon, and Evan S. Evans
1942 ACADEMY AWARDS: 13 Nominations with 6 wins for 1942 Winners of Oscar
• 1942 Winner Oscar - BEST PICTURE
• 1942 Winner Oscar - Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Donald Crisp
• 1942 Nominee Oscar - Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Sara Allgood
• 1942 Winner Oscar - Best Director
John Ford
• 1942 Nominee Oscar - Best Writing, Screenplay
Philip Dunne
• 1942 Winner Oscar - Best Cinematography, B&W-
Arthur C. Miller
• 1942 Winner Oscar - Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration,
Richard Day
Nathan Juran
Thomas Little
• 1942 Nominee Oscar - Best Sound, Recording
Edmund H. Hansen (20th Century-Fox SSD)
• 1942 Nominee Oscar - Best Film Editing
James B. Clark
• 1942 Nominee Oscar - Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture
Alfred Newman
AVAILABLE:
1. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p4432023.m570.l1311&_nkw=how+green+was+my+valley+dvd&_sacat=11232
Incidentally, I used “How Green Was My Valley” while homeschooling. We also watched another excellent movie “Friendly Persuasion” (1956) with Gary Cooper & Dorothy McGuire. Issues for our family discussion: Quaker early farm-life & issue of conscientious objectors.
FACTOID: “Friendly Persuasion” was President Ronald Reagan’s favorite film. In May 1988 he presented Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev with a VHS copy.