“I want to say make no settlement until they sign up that every bloody murderer of a guard has got to go.”
This is the story of the largest uprising in the United States since the Civil War.
As unions spread across the Progressive-Era United States, West Virginia mine owners manage to keep them out. They have some good reasons (tough margins) and some less savory ones … like their preference for an oppressive “mine guard system” in “company towns” that effectively removes civil government and private ownership, and reduces the American citizens working in their mines to serfdom. Mother Jones inspires the miners to push back.
Over the course of a decade, that pushback turns bloody – especially in Mingo County. But the worst of it comes just after the Great War, as the miner’s hero, Police Chief Sid “Two Gun” Hatfield, is murdered in cold blood at McDowell County Courthouse. Now, all bets are off. 10,000 miners grab their guns, ready to get revenge and free incarcerated miners. But they’ll have to go through Sheriff Don Chafin’s forces first. The two sides clash at Blair Mountain as the US Army arrives with regiments and aviation squadrons.
____
Connect with us on HTDSpodcast.com and
HTDS is part of the Airwave Media Network.
Interested in advertising on the History That Doesn't Suck? Email us at advertising@airwavemedia.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
40: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention & the Explosion of Social Reform
39: The California Gold Rush and the Compromise of 1850
38: The (Early) Life and Times of Frederick Douglass
37: La Amistad Slave Rebellion and the Rise of Abolitionism
Volume III Epilogue
36: Mexican-American War (Part 4): Los Niños Héroes, St. Patrick’s Battalion, & the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
35: Mexican-American War (Part 3): Nuevo México and the Final Push from Vera Cruz
34: Mexican-American War (Part 2): The Pathfinder, the Bear Flag Revolt, y Los Californios
33: Mexican-American War (Part 1): From the Nueces River to the Rio Grande
32: Mormonism and the Mormon Trail
31: The California Trail: From the Donner Party to the Gold Rush
30: The Oregon Trail (“You Have Died of Dysentery”)
Christmas Special II: A Jackson White House Christmas
29: The Bank War, Whigs, & Revolution in Texas
28: Ushering in the Age of Jackson
Epilogue to Volume 2
27: The Last of the Founding Fathers
26: Peace in Ghent, War in New Orleans
25: From Lake Champlain to the “Defense of Fort M’Henry”
24: From Granny to Old Ironsides: The Campaigns of 1812 and 1813.
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Irish Songs with Ken Murray
History Obscura
Historycal: Words that Shaped the World
The Rest Is History
Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra