The Mine Wars: The Bloody Fight for Workers’ Rights in the West Virginia Coal Fields

The Great West Virginia Mine Wars of 1920 are unknown to most Americans, according to Watkins (Stolen by Night) in this relevant and enlightening read. Forced to work 10- to 12-hour days in unsafe conditions under the brutal treatment of a violent guard system for credits, or scrip pay only usable at their employer’s store, West Virginia miners attempted to unionize. The mine owners and state government responded by hiring local lawmen and “gun thugs” from Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, the mine guard company, to union-bust by terrorizing the workers; the gun thugs beat the employees and destroyed their homes, and the owners brought in hundreds of scabs to work the dormant mines. But the striking miners fought back, “igniting the greatest armed insurrection in America since the Civil War,” a yearlong conflict that only ended when federal troops were sent in. In spare and honest text, Watkins explains that the Mine Wars were a part of history that was not just overlooked but intentionally buried by “the powers that be in West Virginia, the coal owners and their politicians, [who] ran a deliberate disinformation campaign.” Archival b&w photographs, newspaper clippings, and political cartoons throughout illustrate the miners’ hazardous working conditions, prominent figures, and common sentiments during this period. Sources, end notes and more conclude. Ages 10–14. Agent: Kelly Sonnack, Andrea Brown Literary. (May)