'Matewan' Massacre, Miners Strike, May 19, 1920, Key Struggle for Workers Rights, Unionization

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Last edited Sun May 21, 2023, 12:15 PM - Edit history (3)

- "You work, they don't." Matewan' (1987), movie written and directed by John Sayles. Chris Cooper portrays Joe Kenehan, an outside UMW organizer who comes to a small southern WV coalfield town, Matewan to help miners form a union for better conditions and wages. The film dramatizes the true events of the Battle of Matewan, the miners' strike there in 1920. James Earl Jones plays a local miner based on the character, 'Few Clothes.' Matewan was a key part of the WV history of mine wars, 1912-1921. Solidarity.

May 19, 1920, a shootout in Matewan, West Virginia, between agents of the Baldwin-Felts and local miners, who later joined the United Mine Workers of America, sparked what became known as the Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest insurrection in the United States since the American Civil War...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matewan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_coal_wars
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- 'Matewan Massacre' a century ago embodied miners' struggles,' John Raby, AP, May 18, 2020. (AP) — The bullet holes in the brick wall of a former post office serve as a reminder of how Appalachian coal miners fought to improve the lives of workers a century ago. Ten people were killed in a gun battle between miners, who were led by a local police chief, and a group of private security guards hired to evict them for joining a union in Matewan, a small “company town” in West Virginia. Plans to publicly commemorate what became known as the Matewan Massacre have been delayed by the pandemic until Sept. at least.

But historians consider the bloodshed on May 19, 1920, memorialized in the 1987 film “Matewan,” to be a landmark moment in the battles for workers’ rights that raged across the Appalachian coalfields in the early 20th century. “The company town system was extremely oppressive," said Lou Martin, a history professor at Chatham University in Pittsburgh and a board member of the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum in Matewan. "The company owned the houses, the only store in town, ran the church and controlled every aspect of the miners’ lives.”...
https://www.chron.com/news/article/Matewan-Massacre-a-century-ago-embodied-miners-15277585.php
https://democraticunderground.com/1016255879

- MORE, The Matewan Massacre: Images, Articles, Smithsonian, PBS, NPS; 'Matewan' Movie & director John Sayles.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016293711

- COMPANY SCRIP. For decades, many coal companies paid their miners primarily in privately- issued currency known as scrip rather than US currency. Typically minted in inexpensive metals, these specialized coins were only redeemable at stores owned by the company that issued them. Companies often claimed that the "scrip system" smoothed over the process of payment in isolated rural areas, but more often than not it also created a kind of debt bondage that kept miners & their families tied to their employer for almost everything they needed to survive. [West Virginia Mine Wars Museum, Matewan, WV].

- West Virginia Mine Wars Museum, Matewan, WV. https://wvminewars.org/

- Company scrip, a history, Central Florida series.