Today's film is this 1974 British documentary on the horrors of strip mining for coal in Appalachia. Good thing we've learned so, so much in the last 47 years that I've been alive. The film is focused on a British firm responsible for some of...
Coal
There's nothing Republicans won't turn into a full culture war these days, as this is really all they have. That includes in West Virginia, where the state legislature is considering.
Clean coal may be the most absurd right-wing euphemism since right to work. There ain't nothing clean about clean coal. It's nasty and horrible. And in fact, it may actually.
These are the graves of Thomas Hatton, Lewis Davies, and other victims of the Avondale Colliery coal mine fire. What I'm going to do here is paste my Labor History on Avondale with some additional thoughts at the end. By the end of the Civil...
On January 2, 2006, a coal mine near Sago, West Virginia exploded. Thirteen miners were trapped inside and only one of those survived the two days it took to get.
On September 30, 1899, Mary "Mother" Jones organized the wives and daughters of striking coal miners in Arnot, Pennsylvania to descend on the mine and intimidate the scabs working there..
I can see why Appalachian white workers are so hopped up on their Democrat War on Coal signs and bumper stickers. After all, when has the coal industry not paid off for the everyday worker? It's pure gold! And if there's one thing you can...
On August 29, 1933, the National Miners Union shut down mines in Gallup, New Mexico. This labor action, which in many ways pitted Mexican miners against Navajo miners, demonstrates the.
This is such a weird story. Mountaintop removal is a horrible, nasty, awful thing, one that reshapes an entire region's geology, some of the oldest mountains in the world, and.
On December 6, 1907 the Monongah Mining Disaster in West Virginia killed at least 362 workers but probably over 500. This remains the most deadly mining disaster in American history. Coal mining was a tremendously dangerous industry. It also required a lot of workers in...
On October 12, 1898, a racialized battle over strikebreaking broke out in the southern Illinois coal mining town of Virden, Illinois. The so-called Battle of Virden demonstrates the ways that.
Donald Trump may get the love of West Virginians, but there's not too much he can do about the fact that coal is increasingly just not worth turning into power..