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The Working Class in American History
Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields: The Southern West Virginia Miners, 1880-1922 2nd Edition (Volume 16)
Between 1880 and 1922, the coal fields of southern West Virginia witnessed two bloody and protracted strikes, the formation of two competing unions, and the largest armed conflict in American labor history—a week-long battle between 20,000 coal miners and 5,000 state police, deputy sheriffs, and mine guards. These events resulted in an untold number of deaths, indictments of over 550 coal miners for insurrection and treason, and four declarations of martial law. Corbin argues that these violent events were collective and militant acts of aggression interconnected and conditioned by decades of oppression. His study goes a long way toward breaking down the old stereotypes of Appalachian and coal mining culture. This second edition contains a new preface and afterword by author David A. Corbin.
328 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
February 7, 2019
After reading a half-dozen of these historical accounts of the mine wars I've come to a consensus on them. There is little positive to say about mine owners. Their greed and disregard for the condition of their workers drove these men and their families to the breaking point. This area of West Virginia is most justified in their distrust of government and strong support of gun rights. Lessons for today? Will the burgeoning gap between the haves and have-nots lead to a similar schism?
June 22, 2018
This book was interesting in that although it's dated, it goes over class issues versus so-called cast, as well as connections with earlier strikes and it reminded me very much of the general strike of 1926 in all of England.
July 24, 2020
Originally published in 1981, this is a fascinating examination of the transition of the coal miners of southern West Virginia from individuals who had no interest in unionization to a group ready to engage in pitched battle in defensive union ideals. Particularly compelling is Corbin's contention that it was the policies and actions of coal company owners that pushed a diverse collection of people toward a powerful unity they would not have achieved on their own.
To his credit, Corbin acknowledges in the intro to the new edition of his book that subsequent research has in some cases weakened parts of his argument (he particularly points to Joe Trotter's work on class and race in mining towns), Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields nevertheless remains a well-argued, thought-provoking resource.
To his credit, Corbin acknowledges in the intro to the new edition of his book that subsequent research has in some cases weakened parts of his argument (he particularly points to Joe Trotter's work on class and race in mining towns), Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields nevertheless remains a well-argued, thought-provoking resource.
November 13, 2021
Used this for a college research project on the Mine Wars and this was my easiest-to-use source by far. Wonderfully organized, with a detailed index and bibliography. Thank you Dr. Corbin.
December 6, 2023
Absolute classic for understanding southern WV. Comprehensive. Must read for WV history.
February 23, 2025
Gave new life to my grandfather's stories of using "script" in the company store to "buy" what he needed to sustain his family.
September 27, 2024
Impressively well researched. You won’t find a more comprehensive and well documented look at West Virginia coal mining in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Overall Corbin’s work is definitive, insightful, and invaluable. If you are going to read only one recently written history of the mines, Corbin’s work is far and away the work to choose.
Like any comprehensive work, some conclusions or details may not be universally agreed upon:
1. Prior to 1880 no black miners in the state. (P8) There may have been very few, and none listed in the census, but Longacre Mine in Fayette County, at least, had enslaved miners prior to the Civil War and some slave descendents working there later. Most black miners of the early 1900’s were refugees from the south, but perhaps not all. (Smithers West Virginia by John Cavalier p 62)
2. The West Virginia Miners strikes did not have a clear ideology. Corbin spends his last chapter explaining what philosophy the movement did have. I may be splitting hairs here, but I see a clear ideology laid out in the words and actions of leaders from this period. My experience and the research of Charles Keeney suggests that Frank Keeney and other leaders did have a clear ideology that supported their concrete goals, but that this ideology did not line up neatly with national or international goals or groups. He spends some time showing that they did not adhere to “isms” as Keeney called them.
While they did not read Marx nor seek to bring about a broadly socialist society, many miners had sympathy with socialist cause believing that workers should have a greater share in the profits of the companies they worked for. The Paint and Cabin Creek war, at least, had strong socialist overtones and socialist involvement at a time when socialism was on the rise in the US and worldwide.
Striking miners also took seriously the American idea that the purpose of government was to “promote general welfare” and also to protect individual rights. Strong beliefs that workers should be able to own their own homes, be free of corporate policing and to run their own communities and lives meshed with these underlying principles. That belief extended to private ownership of property with regulations and laws that elevated and protected individual constitutional and natural rights over those of corporations and oligarchs. In short they believed in a government and constitution that by default protected individual rights over state and corporate rights and that recognized the rights of citizens to obtain education, freely assemble, organize, speak, elect officials, and act in all aspects of life.
In union and collective action they supported local rather than national determination when conflict arose between the two because local action was more responsive to their needs and more attuned to the local miner’s circumstances. Race was irrelevant, what mattered was equal protection under the law--whose rights were being abrogated and how.
It is true that their ideology was not academic, nor widely founded upon philosophic reasoning and debate. Strong pre-Hatfield Settlement alliances with the Socialist Party of America were not uniform and were likely largely pragmatic. However they had a clear practical ideology and left ample evidence for it. It can be found in the speeches of Frank Keeney and Mother Jones. It can be found in the political work and legacy of CC Gillespie, a young orphan miner, local union official, barber, and politician. And it can be found in the placards carried at the beginning of the Paint Creek Strike: Mountaineers are always free.; Out of the State with the Baldwin murderers.; No Russia for us. To hell with the guard system.; Governor, Why don't you send the Baldwin bloodhounds out of the state.; We have been sacrificed to the gods of greed.
The call to sacrifice to create a better world for their children was a common appeal. Calls for respecting and supporting brothers in this struggle went hand in hand with this eye to the future. In this case, political and even militant pragmatism is not due to a lack of coherent ideology, but rather an indication of determination to achieve the promise of liberty and justice for those to whom it was denied.
No, when viewing mining labor history over the course of several decades, miners as a whole weren't consistently socialist as both socialists and capitalists frequently claimed. They weren't consistently anything on a national, international, or academically philosophical level--and perhaps that is Corbin's point. If it is, then I concur.
As an old miner from Mossey WV said in 1913: "We’re only askin’ for what the law says is ours.”I would argue though, that they did have a consistent practical philosophy drawn from experience and a a belief in human rights aspired to in U.S founding documents and acted on it.
Like any comprehensive work, some conclusions or details may not be universally agreed upon:
1. Prior to 1880 no black miners in the state. (P8) There may have been very few, and none listed in the census, but Longacre Mine in Fayette County, at least, had enslaved miners prior to the Civil War and some slave descendents working there later. Most black miners of the early 1900’s were refugees from the south, but perhaps not all. (Smithers West Virginia by John Cavalier p 62)
2. The West Virginia Miners strikes did not have a clear ideology. Corbin spends his last chapter explaining what philosophy the movement did have. I may be splitting hairs here, but I see a clear ideology laid out in the words and actions of leaders from this period. My experience and the research of Charles Keeney suggests that Frank Keeney and other leaders did have a clear ideology that supported their concrete goals, but that this ideology did not line up neatly with national or international goals or groups. He spends some time showing that they did not adhere to “isms” as Keeney called them.
While they did not read Marx nor seek to bring about a broadly socialist society, many miners had sympathy with socialist cause believing that workers should have a greater share in the profits of the companies they worked for. The Paint and Cabin Creek war, at least, had strong socialist overtones and socialist involvement at a time when socialism was on the rise in the US and worldwide.
Striking miners also took seriously the American idea that the purpose of government was to “promote general welfare” and also to protect individual rights. Strong beliefs that workers should be able to own their own homes, be free of corporate policing and to run their own communities and lives meshed with these underlying principles. That belief extended to private ownership of property with regulations and laws that elevated and protected individual constitutional and natural rights over those of corporations and oligarchs. In short they believed in a government and constitution that by default protected individual rights over state and corporate rights and that recognized the rights of citizens to obtain education, freely assemble, organize, speak, elect officials, and act in all aspects of life.
In union and collective action they supported local rather than national determination when conflict arose between the two because local action was more responsive to their needs and more attuned to the local miner’s circumstances. Race was irrelevant, what mattered was equal protection under the law--whose rights were being abrogated and how.
It is true that their ideology was not academic, nor widely founded upon philosophic reasoning and debate. Strong pre-Hatfield Settlement alliances with the Socialist Party of America were not uniform and were likely largely pragmatic. However they had a clear practical ideology and left ample evidence for it. It can be found in the speeches of Frank Keeney and Mother Jones. It can be found in the political work and legacy of CC Gillespie, a young orphan miner, local union official, barber, and politician. And it can be found in the placards carried at the beginning of the Paint Creek Strike: Mountaineers are always free.; Out of the State with the Baldwin murderers.; No Russia for us. To hell with the guard system.; Governor, Why don't you send the Baldwin bloodhounds out of the state.; We have been sacrificed to the gods of greed.
The call to sacrifice to create a better world for their children was a common appeal. Calls for respecting and supporting brothers in this struggle went hand in hand with this eye to the future. In this case, political and even militant pragmatism is not due to a lack of coherent ideology, but rather an indication of determination to achieve the promise of liberty and justice for those to whom it was denied.
No, when viewing mining labor history over the course of several decades, miners as a whole weren't consistently socialist as both socialists and capitalists frequently claimed. They weren't consistently anything on a national, international, or academically philosophical level--and perhaps that is Corbin's point. If it is, then I concur.
As an old miner from Mossey WV said in 1913: "We’re only askin’ for what the law says is ours.”I would argue though, that they did have a consistent practical philosophy drawn from experience and a a belief in human rights aspired to in U.S founding documents and acted on it.
July 6, 2025
This book is fantastic not only in its detailed research, but in capturing the experiences of miners in their own struggle for dignified treatment for their labors. The author details the struggle by miners for basic liberties without draping it in the language of communist academics and subversive labor-cosplayers who hijack labor organization into the class-struggle for their mindless failed ideology.
Further the author does something that is unfortunately uncommon in these sort of accounts of labor progress and that is he spoke to the miners and read their own personal accounts. In his afterward Corbin talks about how often the research fields dismiss these accounts as anecdotal or ill educated in their writings as to make the personal accounts suspect in their value. Their accounts show a fight, not for higher wages or the abolition of property, but for dignified lives for their labor and their full share of liberties, guaranteed by a constitution but stripped away by owners\operators. It highlights the true failing of governments to watch with a scornful eye the owners, operators, and even union leaders who betrayed miners of West Virginia.
Further the author does something that is unfortunately uncommon in these sort of accounts of labor progress and that is he spoke to the miners and read their own personal accounts. In his afterward Corbin talks about how often the research fields dismiss these accounts as anecdotal or ill educated in their writings as to make the personal accounts suspect in their value. Their accounts show a fight, not for higher wages or the abolition of property, but for dignified lives for their labor and their full share of liberties, guaranteed by a constitution but stripped away by owners\operators. It highlights the true failing of governments to watch with a scornful eye the owners, operators, and even union leaders who betrayed miners of West Virginia.
March 1, 2014
The coal miners fought for justice, liberty and fraternity. They desired freedom of speech and assembly. What they were up against was a government controlled by the coal operators. Money bought judges, sheriffs, governors, legislators who acted solely in the interest of the coal operators. The miners wanted to do away with the company store, being paid in company script, having to live in company towns. With the 'churches' controlled by the operators, the schools owned and controlled by the operators, any talk of union in either of these institutions led to firing of ministers and teachers. When World War I came about several miners joined the service but others were exempted and required to mine. They increased production because they were told they were fighting to make the world safe for democracy. However, they soon learned they lived in a state where autocracy worse then they had fought against in the war was rampant.
This book goes into the social and political history and background of the workers fight to unionize. Having read a bit of labor history, I can understand why not much of it is taught in the schools. The powers that be do not want to show the dirty linen of American history. Except for brief periods, the government has taken the side of the businesses that have purchased it over that of the people.
This book goes into the social and political history and background of the workers fight to unionize. Having read a bit of labor history, I can understand why not much of it is taught in the schools. The powers that be do not want to show the dirty linen of American history. Except for brief periods, the government has taken the side of the businesses that have purchased it over that of the people.
November 14, 2011
It is my opinion that David Corbin gives some great arguments as to the Southern West Virginian miners' reasons for the violence and rebellion in the coal fields. It really is common sense once you hear Corbin's arguments; however, I was very happy to read through these explanations and receive that sense of "Oh, yeah....."
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews