The Mine Wars

[Dwight Rousu]

This is a PBS film,  2016,  120 minutes.    Just as Howard Zinn published the history of the American people, to inform citizens of social history that did not get in the mainstream school history books, this movie tells the story of coal mining, corporate corruption of government, labor organizing, and a history of a citizen military uprising that was new information to me.  The historical archival footage is striking, as well as new stories about Mother Jones.

Here is a bit of description off the web site:

In the first two decades of the 20th century, coal miners and coal companies in West Virginia clashed in a series of brutal conflicts over labor conditions and unionization. Known collectively as the “Mine Wars,” the struggle included strikes, assassinations, marches, and the largest civil insurrection in the United States since the Civil War.

There is more at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/introduction/minewars-introduction/

 

[Author]

Posts