#the southern key

[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

[valentinewaif]

[heaveninawildflower]

Aberia caffra, Kei apple (1904) taken from 'Revue Horticole.'

Wikimedia.

[girlintodust]

⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡ about me ⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡

˖࣪ ໒꒱ my name's Jo, nini is a childhood nickname!

˖࣪ ໒꒱ i'm 20, aries, infp, bisexual

˖࣪ ໒꒱ i speak english, spanish and italian

˖࣪ ໒꒱ i'm a college student majoring in philosophy

˖࣪ ໒꒱ some things i love: books, reading, coffee, coke zero, going out for walks, music (especially discovering new music you know it'll become your favorite), classical music, people watching while smoking, pencil sketches, pinterest, old hollywood films, japanese culture, rain and winter, cats, pretty rings, listening to people talk.

˖࣪ ໒꒱ pls MDNI directly (explanation below) ⤵

⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡ important! ⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡

˖࣪ ໒꒱ this blog is destined to all things i love which is a mixture of a couple different aesthetics. however, i migth use this account to vent sometimes: i suffer from an eating disorder, depression and anxiety. while i DO NOT encourage eating disordes by ANY means (this is NOT a pr0 an@ acc) i might talk about it or reblog things related, so please be advised. my dm's are always open to anyone who wants to talk, but i will not be giving advice or stats. i might also reblog or post +18 content.

⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡ my favorites ⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡

˖࣪ ໒꒱ books: the secret history (henry winter apologist), the solitude of prime numbers, to the light house and mrs dalloway by virginia woolf, anne frank's diary, kafka's metamorphosis, the stranger by albert camus, jane eyre, wuthering heights, madame bovary, the bell jar, simone de beauvoir's memoirs of a dutiful daughter, alejandra pizarnik's diaries, prozac nation.

˖࣪ ໒꒱ movies: crimson peak, pride and prejudice (2005), into the wild, amelie, the grand budapest hotel, leon the professional, chungking express, all about lily chou-chou, howl's moving castle, the wind rises, marie antoinette, girl interrupted, edward scissor hands, alice in wonderland.

˖࣪ ໒꒱ music: lana del rey, fiona apple, ethel cain, ichiko aoba, her's, the smiths, plums, mazzy star, the cranberries, beach fossils, radiohead, the cure, kate bush.

˖࣪ ໒꒱ people: matthew gray gubler, nana komatsu, sylvia plath, jane birkin, hope sandoval, tim burton, humphrey bogart, audrey hepburn, gregory peck, keira knigthley, kirsten dunst, sofia coppola, anya taylor joy, elle fanning, pheobe tonkin, fiona apple, aaron hotchner, spencer reid, theo james, kate moss, franz kafka, vladimir nabokov, albert camus.

[babybluebellee]

reminds me of lana's poem my bedroom is a sacred place now <3

[lxvenderghost]

come on down 2 florida

[misathinks]

Starting to binge Castleaudios today… Rose literally being Pearl from SU is affecting me greatly

[neonfeel]

The Skeleton Key (2005)

[rupertbbare]

Some of the proposed new New Zealand flags

[lowcountry-gothic]

All Together Now: 25 Years of Photographing American Music by David McClister

[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

[valentinewaif]

[datdisney]

That you, Sandy Claws!? A haunted mansion holiday finally arrives. I cannot wait.

[v-arbellanaris]

here's the thing, right. like. okay, let's take everything up to the title showing up as the 'origin' style opening for dai, where you establish character. but like. literally what about that opening establishes character. you get brought to the chantry in haven where they briefly discuss executing you before declaring the inquisition. you can either begrudgingly support the people who have actively threatened you repeatedly or you can go uwu i'd love to help you guys out im so excited to be working with you. like. hello.

[tomsmusictaste]

Yellowcard // Always Summer

[trashycherubx]