Matewan Before the Massacre: Politics, Coal and the Roots of Conflict in a West Virginia Mining Community

West Virginia and Appalachia

by Rebecca J. Bailey

On May 19, 1920, gunshots rang through the streets of Matewan, West Virginia, in an event soon known as the “Matewan Massacre.” Most historians of West Virginia and Appalachia see this event as the beginning of a long series of tribulations known as the second Mine Wars. But was it instead the culmination of an even longer series of proceedings that unfolded in Mingo County, dating back at least to the Civil War? Matewan Before the Massacre provides the first comprehensive history of the area, beginning in the late eighteenth century continuing up to the Massacre. It covers the relevant economic history, including the development of the coal mine industry and the struggles over land ownership; labor history, including early efforts of unionization; transportation history, including the role of the N&W Railroad; political history, including the role of political factions in the county’s two major communities—Matewan and Williamson; and the impact of the state’s governors and legislatures on Mingo County.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Labor

224 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2008

Reviews

[Jennie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Becky Bailey takes a fresh look at an event that has been told the same way for a long time. She takes the time to look at the personalities and existing conditions present in Mingo County before the mine wars, and then she manages to intertwine them with the industrial history so many of us have read.

This book is recommended to anyone who is interested in the history of southern West Virginia, American labor history, or oral history used in academic historiography. Bailey writes well and brings a newness to a very old topic.

[Martha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating (and successful) effort to prove that, rather than an inevitable explosion of violence b/n labor and capital in the land of the Hatfields and McCoys, the Matewan Massacre was, in fact, the result of very specific local political tensions and economic issues, and something that could only have happened when and where it did. Needless to say, a book like this is built upon a ton of names and boatloads of minutiae, but anyone who doesn't dig that stuff isn't going to put it up the first place; I had a few small issues with what felt like convenient representations of the aftermath of the mine war of the early 1920s, but for the most part, it's an impressive work of hyper-local history.

[Katy · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the past year, I've so much about the coal miners of Appalachia and their struggle to have a labor union representation from the coal operators. The story is similar, whether it is West Virginia, Alabama, Colorado or Pennsylvania. It's the same whether it in 1913 West Virginia, 1914 Colorado, or 1920.

The Matewan Massacre became the scene for the 1987 movie by John Sayles. The tempers were high on both sides; shots were fired by both sides.

Definitely a read for a student of labor relations or for someone interested in the era