West Virginia Coal Wars

The West Virginia Coal Wars (1920-21), also known as the Mine Wars, arose out of a dispute between coal companies and miners. It represents one of the first times that the United States Federal Government violated the Posse Comitatus Act of 1874 [http://www.wvculture.org/hiStory/journal_wvh/wvh50-1.html] .

On May 19, 1920, a shootout in Matewan, West Virginia, (known as the Matewan Massacre) between hired goons and miners, who were to later join the United Mine Workers of America, sparked what became known as the Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest insurrection in the United States since the American Civil War.

Every year, the shootout is re-enacted in Matewan, West Virginia.

References

*Corbin, David Alan. "Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields: The Southern West Virginia Miners, 1880-1922." New ed. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1981. ISBN 0252008952
*Corbin, David Alan, ed. "The West Virginia Mine Wars: An Anthology." Charleston, W.Va.: Appalachian Editions, 1990. ISBN 0962748609
*Laurie, Clayton D. "The United States Army and the Return to Normalcy in Labor Dispute Interventions: The Case of the West Virginia Coal Mine Wars, 1920-1921." "West Virginia History." 50 (1991).
*Lee, Howard B. "Bloodletting in Appalachia: The Story of West Virginia's Four Major Mine Wars and Other Thrilling Incidents of Its Coal Fields." Morgantown, W.Va.: West Virginia University Library, 1969. ISBN 0870120417
*Savage, Lon. "Thunder in the Mountains: The West Virginia Mine War, 1920-21." Pittsburgh: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1990. ISBN 0822936348
*Scholten, Pat Creech. "The Old Mother and Her Army: The Agitative Strategies of Mary Harris Jones." "West Virginia History." 40 (Summer 1979).
*Shogan, Robert. "The Battle of Blair Mountain: The Story of America's Largest Labor Uprising." Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2004. ISBN 0813340969
*Sullivan, Ken, ed. "The Goldenseal Book of the West Virginia Mine Wars." Charleston, W.Va.: Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, 1991. ISBN 0929521579