Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
Ludlow Strike
One of the bloodiest and most prolonged strikes in U.S. labor history occurred at Ludlow, Colorado in 1913-14, in which 10-12,000 miners employed by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CFIC) demanded a 10% pay raise, the right to trade outside of company stores and recognition of the United Mine Workers Union. These mines were also among the most dangerous in the country, with a death rate over double the national average, but relatives of those killed in the mines almost never received compensation from the local courts. Indeed, the judges, sheriffs and county officials were all under the control of the company, while over 60% of the workers were immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe.[footnoteRef:1] CCFI, which was owned by the Rockefeller family, fired the miners immediately, evicted them from the company towns and brought in strikebreakers protected by the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency. This organization began a reign of terror against the strikers, who were now living in...
At Ludlow, the colony had about 200 tents and 1,200 strikers and their families, who were regularly attacked by rifle and machine gun fire and even an armored car owned by CFIC. [1: Mark, Wallace, "The Ludlow Massacre: Class, Warfare, and Historical Memory in Southern Colorado" (Historical Archeology, Vol. 37, No. 3, 2003), p. 68.]
At the request of the CFIC and its local officials, Gov. Elias Ammons called out the National Guard in 1913-14 and declared martial law in the Southern Colorado Coal Fields. Many mine guards and private detectives were also recruited into the force and the cost for maintain it "bankrupted the state."[footnoteRef:2] When the National Guard attacked and burned down the Ludlow tent colony, at least twenty-five people were killed, including eleven children trapped in an underground shelter, while the leader of the camp,: Louis Tikas, was summarily executed. This led to ten days of open…
Bibliography
Ammons, Elias M. "The Colorado Strike." North American Review, Vol. 200, No. 704, July 1914, pp. 35-44.
Wallace, Mark. "The Ludlow Massacre: Class, Warfare, and Historical Memory in Southern Colorado." Historical Archeology, Vol. 37, No. 3, 2003, pp.66-80.
Ludlow Coal Miners' Strike in ColoradoToday, workers in the United States take a number of things for granted, including state and federal employment laws, a 40-hour workweek, paid holidays, sick leave, vacation time and retirement plans, among numerous others, and few Americans would be willing to work at arduous and dangerous jobs for free. The situation in 1914 was dramatically different, though, and Americans workers today can credit the
Coal War Reading Between the Historical Lines Perhaps the most important thing that a reader can learn from reading Scott Martelle's recounting of a bloody conflict between coal miners and coal mine owners (and the groups that they represented both directly and indirectly) is that history is as much about what is left out as it is about what is included. While this may be rather obvious in terms of large-scale wars,
According to Martelle, the majority of these workers were immigrants who were lured to the coal mines with promises of good jobs and affordable housing. The Rockefeller family, along with other mining companies, followed very few safety regulations and paid workers very small wages for the work they did. Miners did not receive any of the bonuses they do today, including down-time work, such as clearing cave-ins, or given fair
The National Guard, as anticipated by the Constitution's framers, was now a military reserve ready to serve the national interest. The National Guard, while getting large amounts of federal funds and growing in size, continued to struggle to find its true role in military operations and readiness. The natural disasters and civil disorder incidents in which Guardsmen were called to help supported their cause. These included such events as
American History Between 1870 and 1920 The years between 1870 and 1920 had been the period of astonishing changes because of the political, social and military upheaval that occurred during the period. Typically, the United States had witnessed several changes that affected the American way of life during the period. For example, period of 1877 -1900 had witnessed the rise of the industrial revolution. The years between 1870 and 1920 were