One of the most violent conflicts in U.S. labor history occurred in 1914 in southern Colorado. On April 20 a detachment of the Colorado National Guard attacked a tent colony of striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow. Eighteen strikers were shot and killed, and two women and eleven children died when their tents caught fire. The “Ludlow Massacre” was the climax of a notoriously violent coal strike in Colorado that lasted fifteen months. In the six months before Ludlow, nearly thirty persons had been killed. Immediately after Ludlow, a ten-day rampage by strikers destroyed six mines and killed more than thirty strikebreakers, mine guards, and state militiamen. Understanding the sources of this deadly conflict is the goal of Andrews's well-researched and well-written book, which won one of the 2009 Bancroft prizes.
The first chapter describes Colorado before railroads and coal: isolated for lack of water transportation and energy-poor for lack of wood fuel. The author focuses on William Jackson Palmer, who first developed the mines that eventually became the largest coal company in the area, the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. In the 1870s Palmer and others developed coal mines and railroads simultaneously because the mines required transportation and the railroads required fuel.
The second chapter describes the impact of coal and railroads on Colorado. Coal facilitated electrification and industrial development. Gold and silver smelting moved from the mountains, where wood fuel was increasingly scarce, to the cities, where coal was easily obtained. Steel, brick, and other energy-intensive industries grew quickly. Jobs were plentiful, but so was pollution—at least in the central cities. Meanwhile, railroads brought people and goods from the east and west coasts. The third chapter describes migration to Colorado from the eastern United States, Europe, New Mexico, and Japan. Using letters and transcripts of interviews, the author tells the stories of several representative migrants.
The fourth chapter describes the coal miner's workplace. The discussion is thorough and accurate, but not new—see Carter Goodrich's The Miner's Freedom: A Study of the Working Life in a Changing Industry (Boston: Marshall Jones Company, 1925) or John Brophy's A Miner's Life (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964). Conditions in Colorado were similar to those elsewhere, with the additional challenge of water scarcity, which hampered control of mine dust. In any event, the fatality rate in Colorado coal was more than twice as high as the very high rate in the rest of the United States. The author argues that the militancy of Colorado coal miners is explained in part by their extremely dangerous working conditions.
The fifth chapter describes the “marching strike” from April to August of 1894. Led by the United Mine Workers, this strike literally mobilized most of the miners in the southern Colorado coal fields but was ultimately unsuccessful. The sixth chapter describes the coal operators' attempts at pacification through welfare capitalism. Closed company towns were developed, housing was improved, company stores were expanded, liquor was discouraged, and union sympathizers were discharged. Union organizers countered with an “inside-outside” tactic, whereby one unionist would infiltrate a mine while another unionist, posing as a company loyalist, would finger nonunion miners as union sympathizers and thus prompt their discharge (p. 235). Pacification was ultimately unsuccessful, to the operators' apparent surprise.
The last chapter finally brings us to the violent strike of 1913/14, including the Ludlow massacre and the ensuing ten-days' rampage. The author presents fairly even-handed coverage of all sides, in contrast to most labor historians and company apologists, and includes an illuminating account of the governor's attempt at mediation.
A brief epilogue summarizes changes in coal since 1914, but, ironically, ignores the long-run impact of unionism. Henry David Thoreau is quoted (p. 291), but John L. Lewis is not even mentioned.
The major strength of Andrews's book is the extensive use of letters and interview transcripts left by miners, operators, and others. Each event is thereby described from many points of view. Another strength is the author's clear and compelling prose. This is the best-written book on the coal industry I have encountered.
A weakness of the book is that its subject is well worn. Many labor historians have already written about the Colorado coal strike of 1913/14 and the Ludlow massacre—see for example Priscilla Long's Where the Sun Never Shines: A History of America's Bloody Coal Industry (New York: Paragon House, 1989). A second weakness for economists is the lack of quantitative evidence. An economist might ask whether the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company actually paid better than other mines, whether living standards improved under welfare capitalism, and whether strikes were more frequent during economic downturns or following mine disasters. Economists looking for numbers will prefer Price Fishback's Soft Coal, Hard Choices: The Economic Welfare of Bituminous Coal Miners , 1890–1930 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992) or even the U.S. Coal Commission's Report (Washington: GPO, 1925). A third weakness is the somewhat strained attempt to find parallels between coal in 1900 and petroleum in 2000 with respect to both environmental threats and “dependency on fossil fuels,” which even in 1900 “generated considerable fear and foreboding” (p. 85). But while unreliable foreign suppliers are the source of the public's fear today, ironically, union militancy and coal strikes were the source of fear in 1900. Surely the major legacy of the 1913/14 Colorado strike and other deadly conflicts was not increased concern for the environment, but rather gradual development of less-violent and less-costly methods for resolving labor disputes.
Despite these weaknesses, Andrews has produced a vivid, balanced, and highly readable contribution to the history of America's coal industry.
