E57: West Virginia Mine Wars, part 1
Working Class History
Working Class History
5.0 • 813 Ratings
🗓️ 9 November 2021
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Our podcast is brought to you by our patreon supporters. Our supporters fund our work, and in return get exclusive early access to podcast episodes, bonus episodes, free and discounted merchandise and other content. For example you can listen to part 2 of this double episode now. Join us or find out more at https://patreon.com/workingclasshistory
Music used in these episodes is Which Side Are You On, by Florence Rees, performed by Tom Morello: The Night Watchman. Buy/stream it here: https://tommorellothenightwatchman.bandcamp.com/track/which-side-are-you-on
And Solidarity Forever by Ralph Chaplin, performed by David Rovics.Learn more about the mine wars in these great books: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/west-virginia-mine-wars
Full acknowledgements, show notes, photos, sources and more information on the webpage for this episode here: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e57-west-virginia-mine-wars-1902-1922/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A little over a century ago, a war was going on in the US state of West Virginia. It was a protracted |
| 0:05.8 | war, one fought with intense violence, with hand-to-hand fighting, guerrilla warfare, armed |
| 0:11.1 | insurrection and even with aircraft. But it was not a conflict with a foreign nation. It was |
| 0:16.3 | a battle between a multiracial mine workers community on one side, and coal bosses, company thugs, police, |
| 0:22.3 | and the military on the other. |
| 0:24.6 | This is working class history. |
| 0:26.6 | When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run, there can be no power |
| 0:31.9 | greater anywhere beneath the sun, yet what force on earth is weaker, then the feeble strength of one, but the union |
| 0:40.2 | makes us strong. Solidarity forever, solidarity forever. Solidarity forever. Now, before we get started today, I need to explain something. |
| 0:55.9 | Long-term listeners may recall hearing an episode about the Mine Wars before, and they'd be right. |
| 1:00.7 | Our podcast episode 7 was about the Mind Wars. |
| 1:03.8 | However, like all of our earliest episodes, it was basically raw audio from my interview |
| 1:08.4 | with volunteers at the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum. |
| 1:11.6 | So the sound quality wasn't great and there wasn't narrative to fill in any gaps, explain |
| 1:16.6 | context and pull the story together. Now in addition to working on new episodes, we're also going back |
| 1:22.6 | over our earliest episodes to re-edit and re-release them in the new narrative format we use for all of our later |
| 1:28.3 | episodes. This is the first such episode we've reworked and re-released. So the interview audio |
| 1:33.8 | will have the same quality as before, but there will be added narrative with better quality |
| 1:37.7 | audio to explain things better and hopefully tell the story in a more cohesive manner. We hope |
| 1:42.5 | you enjoy it. Before we get on with the main |
| 1:44.6 | episodes, just a reminder that our podcast is brought to you by our Patreon supporters. Our supporters |
| 1:49.4 | fund our work and in return get exclusive early access to podcast episodes, bonus episodes, |
... |
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