Imagine the dark space of a coal mine. One might see black-and-white images of miners slugging heavy chunks of coal into carts pulled by mules, laboring away in utter darkness. While dangerous, these underground conditions united mining communities and helped them serve as the catalyst for the labor movements’ gains in the early twentieth century. A crucial moment of solidarity occurred in the 1902 anthracite coal strike, led by over 150,000 miners in eastern Pennsylvania. Though the strike is remembered more for the role played by President Theodore Roosevelt in “the saving of American capitalism,” David Correia paints a more complex portrait using the anthracite miners’ own voices (ix).A professor of American studies at the University of New Mexico, Correia presents the most vivid treatment of the 1902 strike in this fascinating “history from below.” Throughout, he weaves in long sections of text from public investigations (notably the transcript of the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission), along with letters and newspaper coverage. The miners’ voices come alive as they talk in the present tense about the dangers at work and the repression they face. These voices are made easier to note because they appear in italics throughout the book, making their actual words, diction, and storytelling stand out. Correia strives to “write a miners’ history, a story told by people who worked hard, were paid little, and died young” (xi). His style fits within the best narrative writing by fiction authors, which allows for “a common tale of a hard-rock miner’s hard-luck life” (168).United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) President John Mitchell wanted the union to be a conservative, probusiness organization, but these goals differed from those of the rank and file, who desired union recognition, abolition of the long ton, and multiyear contracts (38). Correia’s description of the Hazelton convention gives a dramatic flair told in an often staccato manner. We can really hear the miners’ anger and get a better sense of their dialect, humor, and humanity. During the Hazelton meeting, an Irish miner Neil M’Kechnie noted of their plight, “I think we have more lords and kings here than they have in Europe” (84). His ability to give narrative punch to one of the best but also driest of primary sources, the congressional testimony, should be a model for all historians.The author’s most important contribution comes from the juxtaposition of the vibrant working-class culture with the evolution of capital’s police power. Scholars have previously documented the Pinkertons, Baldwin Felts Detective Agency in West Virginia, and the Pennsylvania Coal & Iron Police. During the strike, L. C. Smith of Coxe Brothers & Co. wanted to move past reliance on private agencies and instead to arm “men with roving commissions” who could exist under the color of the law (108). This shift combined all private police forces by filing joint commission requests through the governor. All fifteen independent coal companies signed, and police authority extended to every county where the coal associations operated (109–10). The new professional police force also drew on those with prior military backgrounds. Willard Young was hired to develop a “flying squadron,” which he based on his time serving in the occupation of Puerto Rico during the War of 1898. Young’s unit became the nation’s first “police special weapons and tactical unit” (111). Correia makes a major intervention here, highlighting connections between antilabor policing experts, who learned through the prism of American imperialism, cracking down on protests by the colonized in the Caribbean and the Philippines. These newer forces, including mounted soldiers and a battery of field artillery, built off an older form of military organization: that seen in the occupation of Shenandoah by Brigadier General John Gobin of the State National Guard, a Civil War veteran. They imposed martial law and actively drilled as a warning to strikers (134–36). Thus, the post–Civil War method of quelling labor unrest merged with the newer colonial policing to treat all picketing and public parades by strikers as a state of emergency (114).Correia vividly describes the subsequent crackdown. While UMWA negotiations were ongoing, miners in the town of Jeddo were fired based on a company blacklist. Correia tells the sad stories of the evicted families. Older miner Jimmy Gallagher, often called “Half Dead,” was ridiculed as police called him “Granny.” He remembered, “If I was fit to walk they would have throwed me out alongside it all.” Old men like Gallagher, and many other vocal unionists, were all thrown out for committing “Criminal Acts” (39, 153, 157). Correia’s study is a fine complement to Chad Pearson’s book Capital’s Terrorists: Klansmen, Lawmen, and Employers in the Long Nineteenth Century (2022). Even with the dawn of the Progressive Era, the period also saw the expansion of policing powers abroad and in the Jim Crow South. Case in point: Republican Governor Samuel Pennybacker won election the same week as the Jeddo evictions, campaigning on the need for a state constabulary. State officials studied the Royal Irish Constabulary in putting down Irish rebellions as a model, again reflecting the influence of colonialism (184–85).This book is refreshing to read, but also a little terrifying, as contemporary organizing has been met by increased scrutiny by policing forces at all levels. The echoes of 1902 can still be seen in efforts to blacklist union activists and the use of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) to arrest undocumented immigrants and target working-class communities of color. At the same time, we have a robust array of working-class voices getting their story out via labor podcasts, labor journalists, and social media platforms. Correia’s book honors those who organized against the coal country industrial complex. Making sure we allow working people to speak for themselves as much as possible in our histories is a hallmark of his approach, and one we should all model.
William Hal Gorby (Fri,) studied this question.