Rare Broadside United Mine Workers (1 results)
Published by United Mine Workers (?), 1922
- Art / Print / Poster
Seller: JF Ptak Science Books, Hendersonville, NC, U.S.A.JF Ptak Science Books
Contact seller5-star sellerNo Binding. Condition: Good. Rare Broadside Calling for Support, Food, and Clothing for Striking Miners, 1922// "The Case of the Somerset Miners / Send Clothing and Money to Miners' Headquarters", "Cresson, PA. James Mark (VP District No. 2., United Mine Workers.in charge if miners' pickets in New York, October 19, 1922". Print…ed on one side only. 24"x 12" Several old folds; 5 inch tear in the middle fold at bottom repaired on reverse with Japanese pressure archival tape; two inch-long tears in the margins of the top horizontal fold; one chip in the top middle fold, missing a 1/20inch x 1/8 inch piece, affecting four words. [++] Provenance: Library of Congress, with their surplus rubber stamp at bottom right. Good/Very Good condition. [++]This is a rare broadside seeking household items and money for the relief of the striking miners of the hard/tough/brutal Somerset Mine strike of 1922-3. The miners struck for union representation from the United Mine Workers against the Berwind-White Company, which ran a very tight ship, evidently. The miners for Somerset lived in a classical company-town existence, with their pay being mostly entirely absorbed by the company via rent for company-owned houses, stores, food, water, and so on, all aspects of life controlled by the employer who/which retrieved the salary of its underpaid workers by controlling all aspects of the workers' lives. So the miners struck for representation from the union for more money and management resisted, especially since it would cost them profit during a year that saw coal production falling by a third. So the strike began and lasted from 1922 to 1923, during which Berwind-White employed scabs and security and thugs to intimidate and control their workers, evicting 1200, sending hundreds of families into a Pennsylvania tent life for the winter, stopping the flow of water, and general thuggery. The strike ended unsuccessfully in 1923, though the union came in by 1933. It was reported by union officials that "all was not in vein", as wages paid were now union scale, conditions weren't nearly as bleak, and the company towns/stores were not as ruthless-https://www.iup.edu/archives/coal/unions-and-mining/that-magnificent-fight-for-unionism/ Reading this summation and plea is a heartbreaker, and will no doubt make a person appreciate the idea of unions, especially in the U.S.A. of the 1920's/1930's.
