Labor politics and personal loyalties clash in this remarkable story forgotten by everyone but those who were there. The behemoth coal companies came to Matewan, West Virginia in 1914, buying up land, houses, and entire towns. The men of the tiny town had no choice but to work in the dirty, deadly mines, earning little pay for exhausting work. But in the hot summer of 1921, the miners strike and form a union. Gerry McCaffrey, the young son of an Irish immigrant, tells the story of a family in conflict and a town faced with the cruel oppression of the coal firms and the tyranny of the corrupt Sheriff Turner Hill, who will stop at nothing to keep the unions out of Matewan. With their friends and loved ones dead and their town under siege, the union men call for an uprising against the coal companies. 5,000 striking miners march on the city of Logan to end the brutal domination of their homeland forever. Their fate, both tragic and heroic, will be met on the slopes of Blair Mountain.
- ISBN10 1257594559
- ISBN13 9781257594559
- Publish Date 4 October 2011
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Lulu.com
- Format eBook
- Language English