#goldfields

[thelethalsilence]

[rinibayphoto]

[eopederson]

Gil's Place and abandoned motel, Hawthorne, Nevada, 2020.

[beguines]

West Virginia miners, for various reasons, were slower to unionize than their counterparts in other states. This was true not only in comparison with northern Appalachian miners in the states of Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, and Indiana (labeled the Central Competitive Field), but also in comparison with those in Alabama and other parts of southern Appalachia. They gave only partial support at best to national strikes in 1894, 1897, and 1902–​1903. However, as many analysts have noted, they were eventually to become the most fervent of union supporters. There were several interrelated reasons for these two characteristics. First, a larger percentage of West Virginia miners in the early 1930s lived in small, isolated towns (93% in towns with fewer than twenty-​five hundred residents) and in company housing (75%) than in other coal mining states. Second, fear of the union led coal miner associations to hire hundreds of Baldwin-​Felts guards and "detectives," so that by 1910, there was not a coal town in West Virginia in which they were not stationed. Whereas in earlier periods, union organizers moved around relatively freely in West Virginia, by this time not only union organizers but sympathetic miners were commonly harassed, brutalized, and murdered.

The growing militancy and solidarity of West Virginia miners was on full display when, in April 1912, Paint Creek and Cabin Creek miners struck. It was objective conditions (unsafe work, cheating on pay, company control, and sheer brutality), not southern or mountaineer culture, that led them to become a model of solidarity (a class solidarity so paradigmatic that it stimulated IWW (Industrial Workers of the World or Wobblies) songwriter Ralph Chapin to write the union anthem "Solidarity Forever". The mine owners were determined to crush the 1912 strike with force. Baldwin-​Felts guards "built iron and concrete forts that they equipped with machine guns throughout the strike districts," evicting miners from company housing and destroying their furniture. They then began to murder striking miners singly and in groups. In the most celebrated instance, they drove an armored train, dubbed the "Bull Moose Special," through the mining districts, machine-​gunning strikers and their families in tent colonies near the tracks. The miners, to be sure, fought back in kind, shooting mine guards and detectives with six machine guns and one thousand high-​powered rifles supplied by the national union. Women in the company towns were equally combative, engaging in gun battles alongside the men. It was women who prevented the "Bull Moose Special" from returning by tearing up the railroad tracks and who often attacked strikebreakers, driving them away. According to Wobbly Ralph Chapin, this was the appeal of famed United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) organizer Mother Jones, "who might have been any coal miner’s wife ablaze with righteous fury". Mineworker families not only fought, but in the tent colonies sang and danced, creating a new union solidarity culture, making the union "an intense, emotional unity".

The Paint Creek/​Cabin Creek strike lasted a year and was never broken, despite the declaration of martial law and the arrest and jailing, without trial, of hundreds of miners, while the mine operator and gunmen who drove the "Bull Moose Special" were never even questioned, much less indicted. Rank-​and-​file coal miners and their local leaders rejected a settlement brokered by district officials, UMWA national president John White, and Governor Henry Hatfield, continuing to strike until all their demands were met. They then demanded the replacement of all their district leaders, finally forcing the national union to call elections.

Michael Goldfield, The Southern Key: Class, Race, and Radicalism in the 1930s and 1940s

[seismic-tartness]

[the-star-knight]

Happy birthday, Jake!

I drew the scene from my fic, where Jake invites Star and Varian to his birthday. Drew that once scene after Nate crashed his party.

[earthymama95]

California Love

In California's golden light,

Poppies sway, a delicate sight.

Orange, red, or yellow, they shine,

Dancing in breezes, so divine.

Among lupines' spiky towers high,

Irises unfold, a purple sky.

Marigolds smile, bright and bold,

Yellow yarrow's sunshine to behold.

In poppy fields, we find our way,

Through California's vibrant display.

Goldfields stretch, a radiant sea,

Poppies' beauty, forever free.

- Earthy Mama

[uwmspeccoll]

It's Fine Press Friday!

For today’s Fine Press Friday post, our subject is Bound for the Goldfields, published by the Australia-based Wayzgoose Press in 1990 in an edition of 55 copies, another gift from the estate of book artist and collector Dennis Bayuzick. The original story was written by Charles Dickens for his weekly journal Household Words in June 1855 and the Wayzgoose edition was designed and illustrated with linocuts and wood engravings by Wayzgoose founder Mike Hudson (1939-2021). Ours is a review copy, meaning that this specific book was originally sent out to someone to be reviewed for publication before it was actually distributed.

According to the title page, the story told in this book is a “true account of a journey from Melbourne to Castlemaine by a carrier of supplies to the goldfields.” A journey like this was long and harrowing, as described in the book’s text, which is printed vertically as part of the grassy landscape, and the wood/linocuts provide an excellent visualization of where the traveler physically is within the story being told. Readers will see many trees as the subject walks through forests, sees the night sky, and even the destination of the traveler as he arrives: the tents of those working in the gold fields.

This book was hand-set by Hudson's long-time partner and Wayzgoose Press co-founder Jadwiga Jarvis (1947-2021) in 14pt Monotype Baskerville and was printed on a Western Proof Press using Mohawk Letterpress Paper. Mike Hudson Bound the edition, 46 copies of which were in printed hessian fabric with leather thongs, as shown here.

View other books from the collection of Dennis Bayuzick.

View more Fine Press Friday Posts.

-- Sarah S., Special Collections Graduate Intern

[autistme]

sighing so loudly at the 46 real life dollars im about to spend to see anthony but i know ive been waiting for this tour for AGES so i NEED to get them before they sell out

[koofteh]

International Car Forest of the Last Church by reza fakharpour

[hegdetravelphotos]

The Lost Dutchman Mine

A view of the Superstition Mountains where the Lost Dutchman Mine is said to be hidden! Location: Goldfield Ghost Town, 4650 N. Mammoth Mine Rd, Apache Junction, about 35 miles east of Phoenix, Arizona, USA. Time and Date: Around 5 pm on September 28th, 2014.

[byseanbrown]

[rinibayphoto]

[eopederson]

Stone building with red trim, Goldfield, Nevada, 2020.

[beguines]

Union activities and correspondence from 1930 until 1933 clearly suggest that union leaders did not want to commit themselves to new organizing, especially in the South. They felt that anti-​union repression was so strong and labor market conditions so deplorable that it would be a waste of the dwindling resources of the union to make such an attempt. In 1930, as southern miners, particularly in Alabama, began to hold meetings and organize, District 20 (Alabama) director George Hargrove and President Lewis agreed that there would be no "bread wagon" (i.e., financial support) from the UMWA and no help for those discharged in such campaigns. They also agreed that organizing would have no positive effect at this time and would only result in discharges. As Lewis wrote to John Lillich of Carbon Hill, Alabama, "Under present circumstances the International Union is disinclined to spend any money in Alabama." Instead, union leaders' strategy in the early 1930s was to put their efforts into lobbying for support of the Davis-​Kelly coal bill, which they believed might make organizing coal miners easier. In attempting to mobilize such support, they also made appeals, and exposed the highly repressive conditions, to other AFL unions, which generally supported, at least on paper, the UMWA's legislative efforts. Lewis's lobbying emphasis switched, first in late 1932, to strengthening the labor provisions of the Black Bill, then to including 7(a) in the NIRA.

But a strange thing happened while the UMWA leaders were lobbying for their provisions. Miners throughout the country began to organize and form vibrant locals on their own. On May 27, 1933, Lewis appointed his loyal follower Van Bittner as the new president of District 17 (West Virginia), as well as other new districts in West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland. Lewis regularly informed Bittner of the progress of the NIRA and occasionally asked, almost incidentally, how things were going. At one point, Bittner replies that the miners have been organizing on their own, and there are no organizers to help and service them. Lewis telegrams back to say that he is reassigning organizers and that money is on the way. Van Bittner replies that miners have already organized a local in Ethel, the "heart of Logan County" (the most notoriously repressive of West Virginia counties). While Lewis was telling his officials that they would be in good stead to organize once the NIRA and 7(a) passed, the miners had already organized. Bittner describes this process in a report to Lewis on June 17. By June 22, 1933, Bittner writes to Lewis: "As I have reported to you heretofore, the work of organizing the miners in West Virginia is progressing more rapidly than I had ever dreamed of. The entire Northern field, as well as the New River, Winding Gulf, Kanawha field, Mingo and Logan are all completely organized. We will finish up in McDowell, Mercer and Wyoming counties this week." The same was true for Maryland and Virginia. "I feel that by the end of the week we can report a complete organization of these fields."

Michael Goldfield, The Southern Key: Class, Race, and Radicalism in the 1930s and 1940s

[madmanwonder]

Prompt Crossover

MK1 Intro

Issei Hyoudou vs. Alto Goldfield

Issei: Are you sure that you'll be okay with Vermeil-san?

Alto: I can handle Vermeil quite well but thank you for your concern