4.4 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 6 July 2023
⏱️ 55 minutes
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0:00.0 | The 14-hour ships, such a meager wage, and mother Jones, can't help us in an hour anyway, anyway. |
0:45.0 | The lay down your bibles and pick up your guns. These words, from a courting artist Louise |
0:56.4 | Mosary's song, The Battle of Blair Mountain, co-written with Mike Richardson, with vocal |
1:01.8 | and banjo backup from Anna Uptane, echo the painful cry of thousands of West Virginia |
1:07.0 | men and women who rose up against the coal companies that had them living in tents, starving, |
1:12.3 | and working like slaves for the bi-tuminous black gold that was filling the coffers of ruthless |
1:17.4 | investors and politicians in the mining camps of Appalachia in 1912. When the coal companies |
1:24.6 | turned to eviction, threats, and finally murder to keep the miners down, the miners and |
1:30.5 | their families beaten and starving had no choice but to lay down their bibles and pick |
1:36.1 | up their guns. The fight that ensued was and still remains the bloodiest labor conflict |
1:42.0 | in American history, leaving hundreds dead, families broken, and all faith in government |
1:47.6 | shattered. It is to those mine workers and their families and their descendants that |
1:53.1 | this episode regarding this long forgotten story is dedicated. |
2:12.0 | Welcome to another episode from one thousand one heroes, legends, histories, and mysteries. |
2:29.8 | This one, the true story of the largest and deadliest labor uprising in American history, |
2:34.9 | a story with as many twists and turns as West Virginia has country roads, hills, and |
2:39.6 | hollows. Years ago a singer and teller of tales named Tennessee Ernie Ford had a record |
2:45.3 | called sixteen tongues, a story about a coal miners predicament that stated no matter |
2:50.5 | how hard he worked or how much coal he shoveled, the odds were stacked against him and his |
2:54.9 | family. His meager wages all went back to the company store for food and clothing and |
3:00.0 | rent, leaving he and his wife and kids owing money he hadn't even made yet to the coal |
3:05.4 | company. I owe my soul to the company store was the catchphrase to that song and how |
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