| MINERS, MILLHANDS, AND MOUNTAINEERS Industrialization of the Appalachian South, 1880-1930 Ronald D. Eller Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, September 1982 |
Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-0-87049-341-6 | ||||
| ISBN-10 0-87049-341-8 | 272pp. | SC/BWI | $25.00 | |
One of the myths this book debunks is the myth that the people of Appalachia were in any sense "backward" — inherently unable to cope with modern life. It's not clear where this concept of "hillbilly" culture came from; perhaps it came from Arnold Toynbee, who in his writings described the mountain people as "barbarians."1 But most of what the book presents accords with my previous understanding: that Appalachia was a region plundered by outside interests, its nearly monolithic economy constrained to serve these outsiders rather than its native people.
Ronald D. Eller provides here a very detailed history of the region from 1880 through 1930. He documents the growth of the timber industry, which clearcut a major portion of the forests of poplar, hemlock, chestnut and pine for lumber and then for pulp to feed the paper mills. The timber prospectors could not help but notice the abundance of a black rock, and soon lumbering was supplanted by coal-mining, which devastated the region and its people even more thoroughly.
The story is probably familiar to readers interested enough in the subject to read this book. Even as early as the 18th century, sharp dealers had begun fleecing local residents of their property rights. But this trend did not flourish until the region's mineral wealth (coal and iron ore)2 became known. It was often possible to convince residents who understood neither the true value of their mineral assets nor what would happen to the land when those assets were taken to sign over their property rights for a pittance.3
The general result was that coal companies came to own most of the land in Appalachia (80 to 90 percent) and, having little interest in the people other than as a source of labor — and none at all in preserving either the character of their community life or the quality of their environment — left the hillsides denuded, the valleys choked with waste, and community life disrupted by hundreds of squalid company towns.
There were exceptions to be sure. Some owners understood that employees were more productive when well-treated, and planned their towns carefully, providing water and sewer systems, schools, churches, comfortable homes, and luxuries like movie theaters. There was also at least one employee cooperative in which every miner was a stockholder in the company and received an equal share of the profits. This was Himlerville, established by a Hungarian coal miner named Henrich Himler. Among other desirable features, the town had a hotel, a library, and a modern ten-month school.4
Don Chafin was the sheriff of Logan County, WV, effectively ruling the county from 1908 until 1925.
A state investigation in 1919 revealed that the Logan County Coal Operators Association paid $32,700 a year to the sheriff of that county for the salaries of twenty-five deputy sheriffs. These deputies were stationed on various mining properties around the county, carrying out the wishes of the coal operators. They were public officials, nominated by the sheriff and appointed by the county court, but hey were paid by the mine owners and served at the pleasure of the coal men. The sheriff of Logan County at that time was Don Chafin, one of the most notorious netive political leaders to reign during the early coal years. . . . Although a Democrat, Chafin controlled the county on the behalf of the coal operators. All of the mine owners in the county paid tribute to Sheriff Chafin, and in return he protected the county from unionization. At the height of his power, Chafin employed over three hundred deputized mine guards, whose salaries were provided by the Logan County coal operators. Chafin's private army spent most of its time preventing the infiltration of Logan County by union organizers. The officers met every train that came into the county and interrogated strangers as to their name and business. If the replies were not satisfactory, the stranger was placed back on the train and told not to return. Union sympathizers among the miners were ferreted out, beaten, and removed from the county. Those citizens who objected to such tactics were also ordered to leave, and, according to E. T. England, West Virginia attorney general at that time, 'to ignore the warning sometimes meant death or serious injury at the hands of his deputy-thugs, who always killed their man in self-defense, or while the victim was resisting arrest, or attempting to escape.' The sheriff also used force and violence to maintain his political supremacy. Opposing politicians were sometimes arrested and jailed; precincts were closed on election days; and ballots were seized and burned after they had been cast. Chafin's reach extended into the county courts, the public schools, the churches, and almost every other aspect of the county's life. Unfavorable publicity and state and federal investigations of Chafin's corrupt kingdom eventually brought an end to his reign and to the deputy-mine-guard system in southern West Virginia, but the coal operators found other ways and other men to sustain their authority in the coal districts." – Pages 215-216 |
But such beneficence was rare. The more common goal was maximum profit in the shortest possible time:
"King Coal, however, had never expressed a deep concern for the mountain people. Like the timber barons before them, the coal men came into the region for the sole purpose of extracting the natural resources of the mountains, as quickly and as profitably as possible. Any benefits that might come to the local population were supplemental. The investors measured success not by any improvement in the quality of life, but by the accumulation of material wealth." *
* * "By 1930, 'progress' had been at work in the mountains for over four decades, transforming a ' backward' and 'primitive' society into an integral part of the modern world. The ascendancy of coal had brought sudden and dramatic changes to the land and people of the hills—changes that would not disappear with the passing of the old king himself. The mountaineers had partaken of progress, but for most, the profits had failed to accrue." – Page 160 |
Hand in hand with commercial exploitation went political corruption. This developed over several decades, at first affecting only local politics. The typical practice was for coal operators to pay substantial sums to the county sheriff, by means of which he would hire extra men to patrol the mines. One Don Chafin was the prime example (see the sidebar.) But by the 1930s it had effectively encroached at the state level, especially in West Virginia. Control of state and local politics by large corporations was a problem throughout the United States, but nowhere was there such a degree of corporate control as in Appalachia, and it reached its apex in the Mountain State. Progressive West Virginia politicians repeatedly introduced measures to tax extracted coal (as they did in other Appalachian coal states), but none ever succeeded until the 1970s.
Effective mine safety regulations labored under similar constraints. Mining safety laws were passed in the region as early as 1883, but these early measures put the responsibility primarily on the miners. A series of disasters after 1900 led West Virginia to establish a Department of Mines with the power to close any mine found in violation of new, stiffer standards. But understaffing and underbudgeting made enforcement problematical, and county courts were loathe to prosecute the coal operators. Indeed, the first man to head the Department of Mines was John Laing, a prominent coal operator.
Ronald Eller describes the transformation of Appalachia over those five decades from a relatively isolated and self-sufficient region of small farms to one where the majority of households were beholden to distant corporations for their livelihoods and the greater portion of the land had been stripped of most of its natural resources — first timber, then coal. His account is exhaustively detailed and very well researched. The text is supplemented by 15 black-and-white photographs, as well as maps and tables. The bibliography contains 284 entries, organized as shown in the table below. It includes notes on selected sources, notably Harry Caudill's Night Comes to the Cumberland. For students of the history of Appalachia, or American history in general, it is an invaluable resource.
| Manuscript collections | 7 |
| Government documents | 19 |
| Periodicals | 3 |
| Interviews | 6 |
| Dissertations and theses | 25 |
| Articles and unpublished papers | 122 |
| Books | 122 |
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