The Making of Modern America: Coal Unionization in Alabama

July 14, 2011

Miners Unions• 1830s: Origins • 1850s: miners’ unions• 1869-87: Knights of Labor • 1890: United Mine

Workers (UMW)• 10% AL budget: leased

convicts to Tennessee Coal and Iron (TCI)

• “Judicial mixture” and “Biracial unionism”

Alabama: 1890-1908• Strikes: 1890, 1894 • 1904-6 TCI strike• 1908: US Steel• July 1908: Strike,

militia, strikebreakers, violence–Aug.: Evans

document: reappraisal?

Turning Point: 1908Braxton Bragg Comer

and ProgressivismMartial lawTent cities destroyedStrikers = “vagrants” =

convict laborHenry Debardeleben,

miners and race

Post-war strife• World War I• 1919: National UMW strike– Red Scare

• 1920-21: “Wildcats”• What elements of our

“modern America” list can be found in this microhistory?