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Wow thank you!!

My great grandfather was actually part of a union movement in a Virginia company town right after he immigrated. They had a wealthy benefactor who was supporting them but it was so dangerous for him that he would have to come to meetings under a mask because they were worried about the company goons or Pinkerton types trying to assassinate him.

Not Appalachia, but there’s a fair amount of research on the Ludlow Massacre in Colorado. Similar dynamics, I’d imagine, in a lot of ways.

Little known fact, it was the first use (I think) of an armored car, and the creation of Rockefeller Plaza was part of the Rockefeller family damage control.

You’d think I’d know more about Appalachia, though, my great great grandfather started in America as a coal miner in SE PA. Ended up getting transferred to clerk in the company store after he developed sudden-onset claustrophobia after getting caught in a mine collapse.

Similarly, the Bisbee Deportationin Bisbee Arizona are another horrifying and fascinating, but often forgotten moment in labor relations and company towns during the 20th century

In The Jungle, Chicago meat packing workers live in company housing, shop in company stores, work in appalling conditions, and can never get ahead. Explains why unions were started…

You might want to look up Cumberland, British Columbia, Canada. Early 20th C. Company mining town at the time. Famous labour leader Ginger Goodwin was eventually hunted down in his forest hiding spot and killed.

I'd suggest browsing some of the books put out by WV University press, I've not read much on this subject, but they've been putting out some great labor history books. This one looks good https://wvupressonline.com/node/577

:) Well a few skirmishes every month in the first week then nothing for a few weeks? I’m trying to make the sentence work, I don’t know the truth.

I can't find the story, but years ago I read an article where they relayed a story from a miner encampment around that same time period. During that time they went on strike and the miners expected the company would run another armored train through their encampment. So a bunch of them walked about a mile up the tracks, pulled up the rails and rolled them down an embankment so when the train came through, it couldn't continue to the encampment for the attack, and the rails were too heavy for the mercenaries to bring back up the hill. I'll keep trying to find it though. It was an interesting read.

This is the one I came looking for.

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Your desperate prevarications don't change reality.

1. Cuba trades with many countries in the world that are major trading partners with the USA. Canada is Cuba's largest source of exports.

https://www.britannica.com/place/Cuba/Trade

2. Has it ever occurred to you that the CPUSA is weak and tiny because they have no popular support? Regardless, they operate legally and are NOT repressed, unlike ALL non-communist Cuban parties.

3. Freedom from whom? freedom to do what?"

Freedom from an oppressive government that brooks no opposition.

"Freedom to do what?

I realize that given your ideological proclivities, you're not very creative....but how about the freedom to vote in fair elections!...the freedom to start political parties, engaging in freedom of the press, and most importantly, having the freedom to criticize the government without being arrested (which is currently NOT the case; hundreds of human rights activists are languishing in Cuban jails, and you, purveyor of all that is good and righteous, could not care less).

You see.... your arguments can't stand the light of day....because they are constructed on intellectual and moral bankruptcies. Isn't it time to grow up and stop believing in chimera's like communism? It's been an economic and political nightmare everywhere it's ever been tried.

I've said my piece. Experience has taught me that the mind of a radical leftist is so ideologically straight-jacketed that a constructive dialogue is impossible. Therefore, I will neither respond to your reply...nor bother reading it.

Have a great night friend.

Battle of Blair Mountain. West Virginia

Battle of Blair Mountain. Lead by Bill Blizzard in West Virginia. Great story and history.

The Bull Moose Express is another wild story from the WV coalfields. It wasn't a huge event, and I don't think anyone died, but firing a machine gun from a company train car into a camp full of families is a bit terrifying.

Sorry, one death: https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/707

Ooh! I was about to mention this, and I'm impressed that someone beat me to it. My great grandfather worked in the mine at Estevan during that time. My great grandmother took shelter with my great aunt, her infant daughter, behind a façade on a roof. Good thing she did, too. My great grandfather was not hurt. He was actually one of a couple of people who stayed behind at the mine to operate some piece of equipment that could not be left alone for safety reasons (not sure what it was exactly).

Edit: Another detail I remember is that the people who were shot dead by the RCMP (six people, I believe) were all buried in the same spot. People put up grave markers that said "shot by the RCMP." The markers kept getting taken down, and people kept putting up new ones to replace them.

Edit 2: That great aunt is still alive. I can actually call her up and see what she remembers.

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Great song, Big ups to Butters from South Park for introducing me back in the day

Besides striking?

I’m areas where unions were technically or just outright illegal, one of the things workers would do is wear a red bandana or just cloth around their necks or over their mouth and nose. This was meant to show solidarity with other workers, even if they couldn’t openly have a union.

A lot of people think this is where the term “redneck” comes from but this is actually false. The term “red neck” originated in the American South during the reconstruction as a semi-derogatory name for southern farmers.

Researching the Pinkerton Detective Agency and companies like it, who were hired by the companies to suppress strikes and rebellion, might help you infer what the miners were up to by learning what activities the company was hired to protect against.

Excellent call here. Turner Classic Movies will show this on occasion. Great documentary.

I wonder who buried them and why. Did they change their cult/ religion and throw them away?

This seems appropriate

Battle of Blair Mountain

“Where the lead lies still and the smoke still rises, on the Blair mountainside.”

• Charles Wesley Godwin, Coal Country