The Great Coalfield War

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.