By dusk on May 19, 1920, ten men lay dead in the coal mining town of Matewan, West Virginia, due to a weapon fight between striking coal excavators and Baldwin Felts investigators procured by the Stone Mountain Coal Corporation. The Matewan Massacre, as it was later called, ended up noticeably as a standout amongst the most renowned occasions in West Virginia and Appalachian history. It was likewise an exciting point for the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). The occasion has frequently been conjured as an image of work battle or as the result of outside unsettling. Yet, in “Matewan Before the Massacre: Politics, Coal, and the Roots of Conflict in a West Virginia Coal Mining Community”, public historian Rebecca J. Bailey returns the story and memory of the Matewan Massacre to Matewan's citizens, Bailey examines nearly ninety oral histories (many of which she conducted) from the 1989 Matewan Oral History Project and other documents previously unavailable to scholars, as well as local newspaper clippings, coal industry documents, and correspondence with witnesses. The questions that began Bailey's scholarly study cut to the heart of the Matewan myth: If the …show more content…
She starts at the turn of the 20th century when Mingo County was cut out of the southern segment of Logan County. Crunched between bigger, more effective operations and rising transportation costs, organizations in Mingo County relied on their operations in order to stay focused. In the meantime, the excavators became progressively fretful, their earnings pressed by higher sustenance costs, bring down wages, and occupation rivalry from new transplants. Furthermore, the town's chosen authorities, twistedly, felt for the UMWA, setting Matewan in the one of a kind condition of being the weakest connection in the coal administrators' hang on the
What would one expect to be the sentiment of a young women who worked in the Lowell textile mills? It is just such a depressing story; and the sad heroines are the young women of Lowell - Lucy Larcom- who Stephen Yafa portrays in his excerpt “Camelot on the Merrimack.” A perception through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old Lucy Larcom reveals that, “For her and the other young girls, the long and tedious hours they spent tending to demanding machines robbed them of their childhood.” The imagery in “Camelot on the Merrimack,” from Big Cotton by Stephen H. Yafa disclose the working conditions in those sordid mills.
Sherene H. Razack’s article The Murder of Pamela George introduces the idea of colonial violence within a spatialized justice system by exploring the trial of a murder of a native woman who worked as a prostitute.
McMurtry, Larry. 2005. Oh What a Slaughter: Massacres in the American West: 1846-1890. 10th Ed. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
Withers, Alexander Scott., Reuben Gold Thwaites, and Lyman Copeland Draper. Chronicles of Border Warfare: Or, a History of the Settlement by the Whites, of Northwestern Virginia, and of the Indian Wars and Massacres in That Section of the State, with Reflections, Anecodotes, &c. Parsons, WV: McClain Print., 1961. Print.
There are many ways in which we can view the history of the American West. One view is the popular story of Cowboys and Indians. It is a grand story filled with adventure, excitement and gold. Another perspective is one of the Native Plains Indians and the rich histories that spanned thousands of years before white discovery and settlement. Elliot West’s book, Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to Colorado, offers a view into both of these worlds. West shows how the histories of both nations intertwine, relate and clash all while dealing with complex geological and environmental challenges. West argues that an understanding of the settling of the Great Plains must come from a deeper understanding, a more thorough knowledge of what came before the white settlers; “I came to believe that the dramatic, amusing, appalling, wondrous, despicable and heroic years of the mid-nineteenth century have to be seen to some degree in the context of the 120 centuries before them” .
Christina Snyder, who was a student of South history, focused on Oglethorpe and colonization, slavery and the Civil War. However, when she learned of an older South, which was once dominated by Native people, she was fascinated by the region’s Native history. Although there were much warfare occurred at the region, she concluded the region as “… I also learned that these two Souths were never really separate, that the region was and is diverse and contested.” (Snyder 317) In the book “Slavery in Indian Country”, she explored the long history of captivity. I will write a book review of this book in the following.
While the western frontier was still new and untamed, the western hero often took on the role of a vigilante. The vigilante’s role in the frontier was that of extralegal verve which was used to restrain criminal threats to the civil peace and opulence of a local community. Vigilantism was typical to the settler-state societies of the western frontier where the structures and powers of government were at first very feeble and weak. The typical cowboy hero had a willingness to use this extralegal verve. The Virginian demonstrated this throughout with his interactions with Trampas, most notably in the interactions leading up to the shoot out and during the shoot-out itself. “Others struggled with Trampas, and his bullet smashed the ceiling before they could drag the pistol from him… Yet the Virginian stood quiet by the...
May of 1855, a lonely miner was murdered and it was suspected to be the Takelmas who did it. Two militia companies marched on the Kerbyville for reven...
Throughout history, it is not uncommon for stories to become silenced; especially, when such a story is being told by the voice of a slave's. Slaves were not granted the same equal rights as the free men. They also were not seen as whole individuals -- worth less than the average citizen, to be sold and traded as property. Abina Mansha was a female slave whom once lived in Asante but came to live in the British Gold Coast Colony during 1876, after being sold to Guamin Eddoo by her husband, Yawawhah. As Abina claims in her testimony, her purchase was no accident. "Slavery had been abolished throughout the British Empire, a law extended into the Gold Coast in 1874. Yet ironically, the demand for laborers on the growing palm oil plantations and in the houses of those who own them means that the trade in slaves into the Gold Coast does not dry up following the war" (Getz and Clark, 2011, p. 6). Abina And The Important Men: A Graphic History written by Trevor R. Getz and Liz Clarke, but spoken in different perspectives, helps shed light on Abina's personal lifestyle; while the date and location provides us with further insight on how the world reacted to 19th century Western culture.
Alex Vernon. "Staging Violence in West's "The Day of the Locust" and Shepard's "True West"." South Atlantic Review 65.1 (2000): 132-151. Print.
In my paper I examined an article by Alexander Saxton. In his writing he discussed the formation of unions in the Alabama coalfields. The make up of the coal unions were very similar to the make-up of America and unions today. This was very peculiar to have such a conglomeration of workers because of the racial sentiment amongst the races of that day. The workers in the coalfields had the same background generally, except for their racial roots. These miners were brought toget...
The West has always held the promise of opportunity for countless Americans. While many African Americans struggled to find the equality promised to them after the Civil War, in the West black cowboys appeared to have created some small measure of it on the range. Despite this, their absence from early historical volumes has shown that tolerance on the range did not translate into just treatment in society for them or their families.
In mid- August 1908, in Springfield Illinois there was a report that a white woman had been assaulted in her home by a black man, shortly afterward, a second report came in stating there was an assault on another white woman by a black man. These incidents coming within hours of each other inflamed a large white mob. The Springfield police arrested Joe James for the first offence, and George Richardson for the second, meanwhile the gathering mob met at the county courthouse ready to lynch the two men in custody. Not able to get to the men the sheriff had in custody, the mob turn their attention on two other black men in the area. Scott Burton and William Donegan where taken by the angry mob and were quickly lynched. This angry mob violence spread throughout the community and the city lim...
In 1931, on a freight train bound for Memphis, around twenty-five young men, both black and white, were hoboing, looking for work. The whites began to act spitefully at the blacks, picking up rocks to throw at them, stepping on their hands, and calling them names. The blacks, wanting to keep their pride, came back at them. In the brawl that followed, all but one of the whites were thrown off the train. These whites, sore about being beaten, ran back to the nearest rail station, who phoned ahead to the next station, in Paint Rock, Alabama. A mob of whites were waiting there, armed to the teeth. They took everyone off the train and rounded them up. Nine of them were blacks. These men: Roy and Andy Wright, Eugene Williams, Haywood Patterson, Olen Montgomery, Willie Roberson, Charlie Weems, Clarence Norris, and Ozie Powell were brought to the Scottsboro jail, and charged with the rape of two young white women, also hoboing, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates (Patterson 13-17). They were tried for rape, convicted, retried, convicted again, retried again, and convicted a third time (Patterson 9). These trials and retrials of these nine young men, who became know as the “Scottsboro Boys,” were not fair.
The Rape of Nanking, also known as the Nanking Massacre was a six week period when mass numbers of Chinese men and woman were killed by the Japanese. Embarrassed by the lack of effort in the war with China in Shanghai, the Japanese looked for revenge and finally were able to win the battle. The Japanese moved toward the city of Nanjing also known as Nanking and invaded it for approximately six months. Even though the people of Nanjing outnumbered the 50,000 Japanese, they were not as masterful in warfare as their opponents. Chinese soldiers were forced to surrender to the Japanese and the massacre began in which around 300,000 people died and 20,000 women were raped. The Japanese leaders had different methods of killing that were instructed to the soldiers. However, the prisoners of this “City of Blood” soon found their liberation and their justice was served.