General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums100 years ago today: Ludlow Massacre
The was an attack by the Colorado National Guard and Colorado Fuel & Iron Company camp guards on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colorado, on April 20, 1914. Some two dozen people, including women and children, were killed. The chief owner of the mine, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was widely criticized for the incident.
The massacre, the culmination of a bloody widespread strike against Colorado coal mines, resulted in the violent deaths of between 19 and 26 people; reported death tolls vary but include two women and eleven children, asphyxiated and burned to death under a single tent.[1] The deaths occurred after a daylong fight between militia and camp guards against striking workers. Ludlow was the deadliest single incident in the southern Colorado Coal Strike, lasting from September 1913 through December 1914. The strike was organized by theUnited Mine Workers of America (UMWA) against coal mining companies in Colorado. The three largest companies involved were the Rockefeller family-owned Colorado Fuel & Iron Company (CF&I), the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company (RMF), and the Victor-American Fuel Company (VAF).
In retaliation for Ludlow, the miners armed themselves and attacked dozens of mines over the next ten days, destroying property and engaging in several skirmishes with the Colorado National Guard along a 40-mile front from Trinidad to Walsenburg.[2]The entire strike would cost between 69 and 199 lives. Thomas G. Andrews described it as the "deadliest strike in the history of the United States".[3]
The Ludlow Massacre was a watershed moment in American labor relations. Historian Howard Zinndescribed the Ludlow Massacre as "the culminating act of perhaps the most violent struggle between corporate power and laboring men in American history".[4] Congress responded to public outcry by directing the House Committee on Mines and Mining to investigate the incident.[5] Its report, published in 1915, was influential in promoting child labor laws and an eight-hour work day.
The Ludlow site, 12 miles (19 km) northwest ofTrinidad, Colorado, is now a ghost town site is owned by the UMWA, which erected a granite monument in memory of the miners and their families who died that day.[6] TheLudlow Tent Colony Site was designated a National Historic Landmark on January 16, 2009, and dedicated on June 28, 2009.[6] Modern archeologicalinvestigation largely supports the strikers' reports of the event.[7]
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre
marmar
(77,097 posts)Solly Mack
(90,792 posts)xchrom
(108,903 posts)chervilant
(8,267 posts)but for the fact that corporate megalomaniacs have worked hard to eliminate such tragic events from our history books.
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)They should have gone with 'Ludlow Loonies' or something similar. Do that and the American people are totally cool with it.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)redqueen
(115,103 posts)Community college professor. Worth his weight in gold. Ran into him years later at a dem precinct convention.
malthaussen
(17,217 posts)Isn't it wonderful that we're free of that now?
-- Mal
Alkene
(752 posts)Sort of a thingy.
malthaussen
(17,217 posts)Hadn't even considered the second point. Thanks!
-- Mal
LeftishBrit
(41,212 posts)Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Great read thanks.
former9thward
(32,097 posts)If you are traveling on I-25 in southern Colorado it is well worth the visit but it can be easy to miss. It is just off the freeway but it is not well marked.
Brickbat
(19,339 posts)John1956PA
(2,659 posts)A sad anniversary.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)truedelphi
(32,324 posts)other chocolates. (or else helping the kids maneuver through the Easter Egg hunt)
But maybe when they return from those hijinks?
And Happy Easter to you Enthusiast. (or Happy Spring and Happy Ishtar, if easter is not your thing.)
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)And Happy Easter to you.
Earth_First
(14,910 posts)druidity33
(6,449 posts)countryjake
(8,554 posts)everywhere!
Colorado Coal Field War Project
http://www.du.edu/ludlow/cfphoto.html
Mother Jones believed in organizing entire communities.
She brought that style to Colorado and elsewhere .
http://motherjonesmuseum.org/index.htm
Brigid
(17,621 posts)Several months ago right here on DU. Just like I never never heard of Blair Mountain until I saw an account of it in a doc about Appalachia on the History Channel a few years ago.
It is no accident that labor history is not taught in school.