The Essential Question:How is Kentucky’s economy impacted by the coal industry?

Kentucky in the 1900’s

1920’s-’30’s

The collapse of the first great industrial boom

Displaced workers move in with kin on farms, subsisting on poor farms (think River of Earth!)

Neglected coal camps: unemployment, hunger, disease

1940’s: War brings hope

WWII boom: WPA (roads and public buildings), TVA (electricity for factories that produced tents, uniforms, blankets, and aluminum) , coal, timber, and military (highest enlistment rates in nation)

19% of population leaves in ‘40-42

The Truck Mines

Indigenous entrepreneurs could open a seam of coal, construct a wooden bin down the hillside to load the coal into trucks and transport it to markets/tipples

5 or 6 men could produce 80-100 tons of coal/day

4,200 truck mines open in the ‘40’s Non-union, non-mechanized

Mechanization

Undercutting equipment: could produce many times more coal in an hour than a worker could in a day

Actually required more workers to load coal and operate haulage systems

But with conveyor belts and mechanical loading equipment, by 1950, 69% of nation’s coal was loaded by mechanical means=reducing need for workers

End of the boom

1948, coal demand began to level off Oil began to be used as a fuel source

1950 Wage Agreement: an incentive to mechanize, but protect workers benefits and wages

Between ’50-70, the region’s deep mines mechanized to increase productivity and reduce labor costs

The continuous miner made it possible for 10 men to produce 3 times the tonnage mined by 86 hand-loading coal miners

Loss of people…..

1960: fewer than half of the 475,000 miners in the region at the end of WWII still worked

1970: only 107,000 left

3,000,000 people left Appalachia between 1940-70

Out-migration

For jobs! (by word of mouth from relatives and friends)

“hillbilly highway” from Akron, Dayton, Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago

Clusters in urban areas (ex: in Ohio factory, sign that said

“Leave Morgan Co and enter Wolfe Co)

Big adjustments

Opportunities for education, health care Economic independence for women

(1st time!) BUT:

Cramped, ghetto living High rent, a “hostile world” to Appalachians “They are worse than the colored, vicious

and knife happy….I can’t say this publicly but you’ll never improve the neighborhood until you get rid of them.” --Chicago policeman

More problems:

1950’s: Appalachian KY lost 35% of its population

And birth rates began to decline Mechanization of coal mining displaced

thousands of families, unemployment, poverty and welfare dependence became a way of life in communities

Between ‘50-60: half of the farmers left the land; only 6% of mountain population was employed full-time in agriculture

Life in the ‘50’s:

1 in 3 Appalachians had running water/indoor plumbing

½ had access to a vehicle 92% had electricity Primary cash crop: TOBACCO Limited growth in manufacturing E KY had 20% unemployment rate 1 in 3 Appalachian families lived below

poverty level (national rate was 1 in 5) In Eastern KY, that rate was 2 in 3!!

The 1950’s boom was not happening here! After 3 decades of declining

opportunity, Appalachians lost hope An increase in dependency on public

assistance

Quotes on paternalistic nature of coal and welfare being intertwined

Surface Mining Begins

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6neSdVOh_BM

Bellwork quiz 1. What were the primary periods of “boom”

for the coal industry in the 1900’s? 2. Name 2 sources of work (outside of coal)

during the 1940’s. 3. Describe the change in population of

Appalachia in the 1950’s. 4. What increased coal production but

decreased the need for workers? 5. Explain how Appalachia’s history with the

coal companies may have predisposed them to a dependency on public assistance.

The old “broad form deeds” Original owners were left with land

ownership (and responsibility to pay taxes)

But now….mining companies sought access to mineral property without regard to rights of the surface owners: Roads needed to be built Farm families had little control over their

land

Reality hits in 1957

Floods in E KY, southern WVA and SW VA

a federal disaster, towns washed away because land was ravaged by strip mining and logging

Result: the beginnings of an environmental awareness

1960’s JFK’s campaign in West Virginia brings attention

to Appalachian poverty The importance of describing it as

“underdeveloped” rather than “depressed” Resource extraction, no infrastructure (schools, roads,

factories, public services) A symbol of growing disparity between poverty

and affluence in postwar America In 1961, the Area Redevelopment Act created an

administration to fund low-interest loans, grants for public facilities and worker training programs.

Nov. 22, 1963

JFK’s Appalachian Regional Commission: Transportation Human resources Physical resources Water Establishing ARC permanently

Images from Life magazine: http://life.time.com/history/life-in-app

alachia-photos-from-a-valley-of-poverty-1964/#1

ARC’s proposals

Highways, airports, flood control, sewage management, programs for agricultural improvement and cooperative timber marketing, recreational tourism, coal utilization and power production, funds for vocational schools, health centers and housing, literacy and nutrition programs

All to be coordinated by state, federal and private institutions

War on Poverty: “This administration declares here and now unconditional war on poverty.” Martin County, KY 1964

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1589660

The “Other America” The “Great Society”

Food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, etc.

Poverty level reduced from 20% to 11% in following decade

Today, it is 12%

Effects in the ‘60’s:

Influx of professionals and students that answer the call for public service who want to “develop” the region

Renewal in defining and appreciating Appalachian culture

Activists who blame coal industry for Appalachia’s issues Absentee-owned mining companies who

paid few taxes, extracted the resources, and left a poor, impoverished land behind

Oral History Interview

In about a page or so,Explain

1. Who you interviewed, how you know them, and what interesting or important things you learned by speaking with them.

2. Why is conducting oral histories important? What purpose do they serve?

War on Poverty’s goal in the ‘60’s: Extend social services to the poor,

training them to think/act like middle-class

Certainty that science, technology and free markets would bring affluence

Community of activists develops

But….world events interfere With the Vietnam War, funds for the

Great Society decrease and people’s attention is focused elsewhere

“Guns or butter”

What interferes w/ reform in App: Voter fraud and interference

Ex: Mingo Co, WVa Appalachian political machines

Ex: Turners in Breathitt Co

What causes struggle in the battle for reform: “Coal had been at the core of central

Appalachia’s economic distress since WWII.”

New technologies=unemployment in underground mines=emergence of surface mining

Catastrophe leads to mobilization 1968: #9 mine of Consolidation Coal

Company in WVa explosion: 78 miners die due to accident from coal dust/methane gas

UMWA Pres expresses sympathy, but blames it on “inherent dangers”

Workers furious: within a few months, more than 40,000 miners launch an unauthorized 3 week strike that shuts down industry

Coal Miners begin to fight in the ‘70’s Black lung compensation, mine

safety and union reform, better health care, ending strip mining

Nothing united activists, small land owners and educated mountaineers like strip mining!

There were laws passed to regulate it, but they were weak and poorly enforced

Buffalo Creek, WVa disaster ignites a firestorm of activists demanding ban on strip mining 125 people dead, 4,000 homeless

Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 Set up federal guidelines, but left

enforcement to states, failed to protect private property and compensate landowners

A ‘watered down’ bill that legislators and Pres. Carter knew would pass

Tax issues:

In Appalachian counties, coal companies paid minimal taxes Ex: in 14 WV counties, 25 co’s owned

17% of land but paid only 3% of property taxes

Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (KFTC) and Save our Homeplace campaign : Unmined minerals should be taxed no

differently than any other property A constitutional amendment that limited

coal companies from using land w/out consent of owner and requiring co’s to pay for damages caused by mining

Severance Tax (1972 in KY) Severance taxes are taxes on the

removal of a depletable resource, and are common around the country—about 36 states have them. 

KY:  The coal severance tax is placed on the gross value of coal severed or processed (washed and loaded) in Kentucky. It’s set at 4.5%, $298 million in 2012

Severance $ goes to: Education and social programs like education technology,

reading in schools, the Robinson Scholars program, Pikeville Medical College scholarships, and Operate Unite;

Coal-related programs concerning mine safety, energy-related economic development projects and research, workers’ compensation for injured miners, and mining engineering scholarship programs;

Projects like senior centers, cemeteries, ball fields, parks, tourism projects, community centers, library supplies, ambulances and fire trucks;

Water and sewer projects for which bonds have been issued that will be paid back through future severance tax monies.

The movement changes

What began as a campaign to bring poor people into the mainstream became a battleground of American values: environmental quality, welfare reform, public decision making and economic development

The Appalachian studies movement sought to bring recognition and appreciation for the culture and history (read quote from Ellers’ book)