Coal Wars | The Most Dangerous Woman in America | 1

American History Tellers

Wondery

Society & Culture, Kids & Family, History, Education For Kids

4.7 • 18.3K Ratings

🗓️ 16 December 2020

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the early 20th century, coal was the fuel that powered the nation. But the men who mined it in the rugged and remote hills of West Virginia endured harsh exploitation by the coal companies that controlled their lives. In the spring of 1912, miners in West Virginia’s Kanawha Valley rose up against the companies and their powerful allies in law enforcement with a strike for their right to join a union.

But the mine operators responded with force. They hired private security agents to attack the miners and their families and evict them from their homes. Soon, the escalating conflict brought the era’s most notorious labor activist, Mother Jones, to the scene. A self-described “hellraiser,” Jones joined forces with miners on the ground, sparking a series of bloody armed clashes that would rage across West Virginia for the next decade.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to American History Tellers add free on Amazon Music, download the app today.
0:18.0	Imagine a December 1907 in Mananga, West Virginia.
0:22.0	You and a friend have just emerged from a mineshaft.
0:25.0	You collapse on the hillside, both covered in thick black dust.
0:30.0	You spit into the dirt, pull out a bandana and wipe your face.
0:35.0	Below you, the hillside is swarming with people, hundreds of women and children.
0:40.0	Many of them are immigrants like you, pleading in Italian, Polish, Hungarian.
0:45.0	There are a few black families as well, all searching for loved ones.
0:49.0	This morning, there was a massive explosion in two of the Fairemont Coal Company's mines.
0:53.0	You and a friend rushed here to search for survivors, but there's only one minor you really care about.
0:59.0	You're 14-year-old brother.
1:02.0	You see anything?
1:05.0	Your friend spits into his bandana and shakes his head.
1:08.0	Well, nothing. I'm going back down. It's only been 12 hours. There's still a chance.
1:13.0	Antonio. No, no, I'm sorry, but look around. This isn't a rescue mission.
1:17.0	It's a recovery job now.
1:19.0	Most of those men, if they haven't been crushed, have died by now from the fumes.
1:24.0	And you might too if you keep going down there.
1:26.0	A few feet away, a woman with gray hairs rocking over a man's body, stretched out on the ground.
1:32.0	You watch as she reaches out and with her handkerchief gently wipes the black dust from his face.
1:37.0	You drop your pickaxe, bury your head in your hands.
1:41.0	How am I supposed to go home to my mother? Tell her that her son is dead.
	...

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