Blair Mountain, WV (1921)

[AdamG]

On a sultry August morning in 1921, some 15,000 coal miners converged at the foot of the steep, brambly slopes of West Virginia's Blair Mountain. On a high ridge above, coal industry forces, private detectives, and state police officers peered out from fortified positions, training Thompson submachine guns and high-powered rifles on the men below.

After years of violent confrontations with mine operators in West Virginia coalfields, the miners were marching to Mingo County, West Virginia, to free miners imprisoned by state authorities and unionize workers who lived in dire poverty in company towns. But the 1,952-foot-tall (595-meter-tall) Blair Mountain stood in the marchers' path. So the miners—armed with machine guns and other weapons, and wearing red bandannas around their necks—started up the slopes.

The ensuing battle, the second largest civil insurrection in U.S. history, lasted about five days and claimed dozens of lives. And while the miners eventually decided to lay down their arms when federal troops arrived, the battle of Blair Mountain focused national attention on the oppressive company towns of West Virginia and dangerous mines, resulting in part from lagging state safety regulations.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...energy-nation/


See also
http://www.wvculture.org/hiStory/thi...tory/0904.html

[baboon6]

Thank you I had never heard of this before. Some parallels maybe with the 1922 Rand Rebellion in South Africa:

http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/go...and-revolt.htm

The Rand Rebellion of 1922 was an armed uprising that is also referred to as the Rand Revolt or Red Revolt. It occurred during a period of economic depression following World War I, when mining companies were faced with rising costs and a fall in the price of gold...

http://www.joburgnews.co.za/march2002/1922strike.stm

Eighty years ago, Johannesburg became a war zone for three months. It was bombed by the air force and shelled by artillery as the forces of General Jan Smuts brutally suppressed a general strike, known as the Rand Revolt

[AdamG]

Interesting how the post-WWI Labor Revolts and subsequent 'Red Scares' generated some kneejerk legislation (the UK's Firearms Act of 1920 being one of them).

[Umar Al-Mokhtār]

Here and here and here...

Then there were those who were not exactly enamoured with the new sheriffs in town in Mass and Pennsy.

[AdamG]

WRT Blair Mountain (1921) and Colorado (1913), I find the Miners' Unions pre- and post- WWI acquisition of automatic weapons to be really interesting.

Also related, the etymology of a popular slur.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redneck

The United Mine Workers of America (UMW) and rival miners' unions appropriated both the term redneck and its literal manifestation, the red bandana, in order to build multiracial unions of white, black, and immigrant miners in the strike-ridden coalfields of northern and central Appalachia between 1912 and 1936. The origin of redneck to mean "a union man" or "a striker" remain uncertain, but according to linguist David W. Maurer, the former definition of the word probably dates at least to the second decade of the twentieth century, if not earlier. The use of redneck to designate "a union member" was especially popular during the 1920s and 1930s in the coal-producing regions of southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, and western Pennsylvania, where the word came to be specifically applied to a miner who belonged to a labor union.

The term can be found throughout McAllister Coleman and Stephen Raushenbush's 1936 socialist proletarian novel, Red Neck, which recounts the story of a charismatic union leader named Dave Houston and an unsuccessful strike by his fellow union miners in the fictional coalfield town of Laurel, Pennsylvania. The word's varied usage can be seen in the following two examples from the book. "I'm not much to be proud of," Houston admits to his admiring girlfriend Madge in one scene. "I'm just a red necked miner like the rest." In another scene, a police captain curses Houston as a "God-damned red neck" during a fruitless jailhouse interrogation, before savagely beating him with a sawed-off chair-leg.

[Ken White]

any American could legally buy and was not required in most States to register an automatic weapon. In addition to production and sale (limited) prior to WW I, a large number of souvenir weapons were returned from Europe and went on the market. They can still be legally purchased and employed in most States but must be federally registered and are taxed.

Redneck is not really a slur -- except to some people whose opinions count little.

It's also a lot older than the quote implies, though the quote does say "The United Mine Workers of America (UMW) and rival miners' unions appropriated both the term redneck..."

[AdamG]

any American could legally buy and was not required in most States to register an automatic weapon. In addition to production and sale (limited) prior to WW I, a large number of souvenir weapons were returned from Europe and went on the market. They can still be legally purchased and employed in most States but must be federally registered and are taxed.

Indeed, Ken. The Peanut Gallery who are not familiar with American firearms laws would probably also find it interesting that the $200 Federal Tax (per weapon, per each time it changes hands) was meant to keep legal weapons out of the hands of the common man.

Around 1934, a $250 1921 Thompson Sub Machinegun cost almost as much as a used car, so a $200 tax essentially doubled that. With prices starting around $5k now (and going upwards to around $30k for some of the rarer-but-available weapons), the $200 tax is a spit in the bucket (although the relative value of the weapons themselves has remained constant).

IIRC, COL Icks (of Aberdeen Ordnance Museum fame) kept a collection of WWI ordnance (howitzers, mortars, etc, in working condition) on the family farm around Princeton (in the People's Republik of New Jersey).

Redneck is not really a slur -- except to some people whose opinions count little.

It's also a lot older than the quote implies, though the quote does say "The United Mine Workers of America (UMW) and rival miners' unions appropriated both the term redneck..."

Yup, the wiki link tells all about the origins in the paragraphs before my pull quote. We need a [box] for snark, just so's I can annotate things like [snark]redneck[/snark].

AdamG
Descendent of [snark]Rednecks[/snark].

[Ken White]

OTOH, well done snark doesn't need explanation.

[slapout9]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...energy-nation/


See also
http://www.wvculture.org/hiStory/thi...tory/0904.html

You need to watch Glenn Beck's show from today. I did for 5 minutes( that's about all I can stand) but it was about a lot of stuff on this thread.

[Pete]

The trial of the defendants was held in the other end of the state, Charles Town in the Eastern Panhandle, from where the labor violence took place. The theory was that holding the trial far from the scene of the events would prevent tension in the courtroom from stirring up the local population again. A few years ago after a number of appeals it was decided to demolish the jail where the defendants had been held. It was a concrete structure that was part of a municipal building next to the famous courthouse where John Brown was tried. It was said the jail had no particular aesthetic value and its only claim to fame was being where the miners were held--that in a town full of early American and Civil War sites. A few days after 9/11 the town was full of Union re-enactors while a scene for the film "Gods and Generals" was filmed at the courthouse. My commute to work was redirected through town for two days because dirt had been put on the main street.