The Great Coalfield War

by George S. McGovern, Leonard F. Guttridge

It was the most violent and highly significant battle of organized labor in the United States. That lengthy struggle in Ludlow, Colorado, pitted thousands of immigrant miners - largely from Eastern Europe - against absentee company operators who controlled the coal mines of southern Colorado in the early twentieth century. The largest coal company was the Pueblo-based Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, with John D. Rockefeller, Jr., as its chief director.
Now in paperback, The Great Coalfield War is the most complete and carefully documented account of the more-than-year-long strike by the United Mineworkers' Union to gain recognition from stubborn anti-union operators who were joined by political, judicial, media, law enforcement, and other powerful interests in the Colorado industrial establishment.
The bravery, hardship, and deaths suffered by the miners and their families moved millions of Americans to unprecedented sympathy for the efforts of organized labor and led President Wilson to order federal troops to restore law and order. Though action shifted to Washington and a congressional investigation, it would take years before Colorado's coal miners gained union protection.

Genres: History, Labor

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

The son of a Methodist minister, George Stanley McGovern grew up in South Dakota. An indifferent student as a youth, McGovern later credited participation in high school debate with giving him confidence and he graduated in the top 10% of his high school class. His college education was interrupted by World War II, as McGovern enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force and served as a bomber pilot in Europe. After the war, McGovern resumed his studies, culminating in a Ph.D. in history from Northwestern University in 1953.

While employed as a professor of history and political science at Dakota Wesleyan University, McGovern became involved in Democratic Party politics. After working to build a voter list for the party, McGovern ran for the House of Representatives in 1956, successfully defeating the Republican incumbent. McGovern relinquished his House seat in 1960 to run for the Senate, only to be defeated by the incumbent Republican senator, Karl Mundt. After a brief period in the Kennedy administration, McGovern ran for the United States Senate succeeded in his second attempt in 1962, winning election by a slim margin.

As a United States Senator, McGovern emerged as an early opponent of his country's intervention in South Vietnam. Approached by opponents of President Lyndon Johnson within the party, he was an unsuccessful candidate for the party's presidential nomination in 1968. Running again in 1972, he succeeded in winning the Democratic Party presidential nomination, only to be defeated by Republican President Richard Nixon in a landslide. Though he won a third Senate term in 1974, he was defeated in his bid for a fourth term in 1980. McGovern spent his later years engaged in a variety of private activities, including writing, and a stint as a United States ambassador to the United Nations.

Reviews

[ExtremeBibliophile · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sadly overlooked tragedy in the coalfields of Colorado in the early 20th century forms the framework for this book, an expansion of Senator George McGovern's doctoral dissertation. This is not a dry academic recounting of the infamous Ludlow massacre but a detailed examination of the forces that led to the atrocity, not least of which was some baffling decisions (and indecision) on the part of law enforcement, union leaders, mine owners and operators, and probably the major villain of the case, the enormously wealthy industrialist-cum-philanthropist John D. Rockefeller. Anyone who would like a deeper understanding of unionization and the furor that the labor movement ignited in America in the first decades of the 20th century should definitely read this.

[Fv · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the only adult written for adult book about the Ludlow massacre that I could get through. Thank you author for making the reading understandable and not a show off of words and writing style.

I rated a 4 because of some hard to grasp parts of the book, but they were far and few between.

I cried in a few places. The truth the author pointed out, the only true victims were the children and the wives.

From the President at that time to Rockefeller to the UMW to the miner to the country sheriff to the Colorado government and militia and the at that time the National Gard to the managers of CFI to the mine manager and guards and the detective agency that sent outlaws to control the strikers with violence, all had a hand in the deaths of the children and woman that day.


This was a book that was not one that keeps you on the edge of your seat, but opens the eyes of any that live near or care to read about this disaster.

And like I said it was not written in the style to show off the writers knowledge of big words, , but to let readers learn the truth of the strike, the massacre ad the months afterward.

I did read this after reading another book I just rated, because both are due tomorrow. And yes I do read a lot when I got five books due in two days.