Overview

Founded by white, Anglo-Saxon pick miners in 1890, the United Mine Workers of America had become by World War I the largest, most powerful, and in many ways the most progressive labor organization in the American Federation of Labor. Developing out of a conference commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the UMWA, this volume explores its critical influence in the development of industrial unionism, efforts at interracial and interethnic organizing, and the foundation and guidance of the CIO between 1935 and 1955. The essays—most commissioned especially for this volume—also examine the impact of mechanization on the coal industry, issues of health, safety, and company control, the long-neglected role of women in coal-mining communities, and the influence of the leadership of John Mitchell and John L. Lewis. The final section looks at the UMWA's efforts to renew itself as a democratic and dynamic organization in recent decades. Contributors are John H. M. Laslett, Perry K. Blatz, Craig Phelan, Alan J. Singer, Robert H. Zieger, Keith Dix, Price V. Fishback, Alan Derickson, George S. Goldstein, Joe W. Trotter, Jr., Ronald L. Lewis, Mildred Allen Beik, Priscilla Long, Stephanie E. Booth, Isaac Cohen, David Frank, Paul E Clark, Marat Moore, James R. Green, and Maier B. Fox.

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9780271015378

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Reviews

I will not hide my enthusiasm for this book. I cannot think of an equivalent anthology that so well covers the history of a vital trade and a vital union. -Walter Licht, University of Pennsylvania John Laslett has managed to assemble here virtually the entire community of scholars studying the history of mine unionism in America. What they offer us is not a mere 'introduction' but a remarkable distillation of the best and most provocative thinking on the subject today. For the United Mine Workers, this volume is a worthy monument to a century of hard struggle and, for students of that struggle, it is and will long remain the place where serious study begins. -David Brody, University of California, Davis

Author Information

John H. M. Laslett is Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of many books, including Labor and the Left: A Study of Socialist and Radical Influences in the American Labor Movement, 1881–1924 (1970) and (with Mary Tyler) The ILGWU in Los Angeles, 1907–1988 (1989).

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