Anne T. Lawrence Mine Workers Oral History Collection

In the 1920s-1930s, the central Appalachian coal fields were the scene of heavy industrial warfare. The coal operators believed that maintaining the open shop while under pricing their competitors would preserve their share of a dwindling market. The United Mine Workers (U.M.W.A.) needed to solidify the coal fields or face potential losses of previously unionized mines and operators. After World War I, union membership was at an all time high but the companies began implementing open shop techniques: labor injunctions, “yellow-dog” contracts, company spies, imported strikebreakers, company unions, and bribing local authorities. The union had always been strong in the hard coal fields in eastern Pennsylvania and the “Central Competitive” soft coal fields of Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, and western Pennsylvania. Due to lack of rail facilities and infrastructure, the southern fields of West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, were late to develop and the union did not have a historical presence. As the demand for coal leveled off, the industry became plagued with chronic overproduction. Wages not protected by the union fell with the price of coal. In that economic market, the operators paying non-union wages maintained a competitive advantage over the union mines.

As more of the union mines were either bankrupting or repudiating their contracts, the U.M.W.A. decided that consolidating the Appalachian coal fields was of primary concern. Coal operators in that region, backed by private detective organizations, such as the Baldwin-Felts Agency, intimidated union organizers, blacklisted, fired, or physically assaulted miners, and maintained a strict control of the working conditions. In addition, operators typically paid the salaries of local sheriff offices, typically in the tonnage rate. With travel difficult, miners were very isolated from other mines and other labor movements.

Violence between the coal operators and miners during that time was extreme. Countless union organizers and sympathetic miners were murdered and beaten and eventually retaliated. The Matewan Massacre in Mingo County, West Virginia; the Battle of Blair Mountain in Logan County West Virginia; and the Battle of Evarts in Harlan County, West Virginia are all examples of this working class violence. The skirmishes mostly ended with the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and the efforts of then U.M.W.A. president John L. Lewis.