This Day in Labor History: September 10, 1897. Luzerne County sheriff deputies slaughtered 19 unarmed coal miners striking outside of Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Let's talk about how this brutal massacre was all too typical of the state response to strikers in the Gilded Age. 
The 1890s saw a rise in immigration from Germany and eastern Europe; thousands of those migrants came to the coal mines of eastern Pennsylvania.
They were recruited there by coal companies as strikebreakers and because of that, the English, Welsh, and Scottish miners that previously dominated the industry hated them as scabs.
Conditions in the coal mines were abysmal, with mine collapses and death shockingly common, a situation akin to modern Chinese mines.
Making things worse was the Panic of 1893 and following depression that lasted for five years. The terrible poverty and desperation that resulted from these events led to some of the most dramatic events in American labor history, including the Pullman Strike and Coxey’s Army.
Mine owners slashed wages during the depression for those who could get work at all. Typical company town conditions existed as well, with miners forced to rent from company-owned homes at high prices, forced to see company doctors, forced to shop at company stores, etc.
In 1897, the miners went on strike. The Lehigh and Wilkes-Barre Coal Company laid off workers, raised fees for homes and doctors, forced longer hours on those who still worked, and tolerated a decline in working conditions. Work became even more dangerous.
The strike was lead by drivers, mostly teenagers who ran teams of mules to carry the coal out of the mines. The company consolidated its mule stables, forcing the drivers to travel farther on their own time to get their animals. In response, the drivers struck on August 14.
When the new mine superintendent, Gomer Jones, found out the mule drivers were striking, he grabbed a crowbar and whacked the first striker he saw in the head. The striker fought back and a general scuffle ensued. This helped lead the rest of the workers out on strike.
With overall employment declining, workers saw little to lose by walking off the job together rather than get fired separately. By August 16, 2,000 workers were on strike and most joined the United Mine Workers of America, a union trying to establish itself in the coal fields.
This was a big deal because the Slavs had avoided the UMWA after being vilified by the unionized Anglo-Saxon miners. But the terrible conditions began to break down the ethnic divides in the anthracite fields.
The first strike ended on August 23 when the companies agreed to give miners the option to live in their own houses, see doctors of their choosing, a wage increase of about 10 cents. A second strike a few days later at nearby mines made the pay raise more universal in the region.
Or so the workers thought. In fact, when the owners announced the new pay rates on September 1, only a few workers saw a raise. On September 3, the workers went on strike again, with 3,000 walking out.
By September 8, between 5,000 and 10,000 miners were on strike. The miners developed new demands, including a pay raise of 15 cents per employee, the right to get paid for work even if the machines they workers were out of order, and the freedom from company stores.
The issue of not getting paid when machines weren't working was a big one. Employers could never understand this--after all, if no profit was being created, why should workers be paid? Meanwhile, workers needed that pay to survive. This was the logic of economic rationality.
The coal companies’ private police force, the Coal and Iron Police, were overwhelmed by these numbers and the owners created a posse of English and Irish residents, including many ex-miners.
On September 8, about 300-400 miners, largely Slavs and Germans, marched to a mine in the town of Lattimer to support miners who had just joined the UMWA.
Expanding the strike to Lattimer would be a huge victory for the miners because it would go a long way to shut down the entire the area and force the companies to grant workers’ demands. The mine owners knew this too.
Luzerne County police, led by Sheriff James Martin, were openly heard bragging about how many miners they would kill.
When the miners reached Lattimer, the police confronted them and ordered them to disperse. When they refused, the police opened fire, killing 19 and wounding about 40. All had been shot in the back.
The immediate aftermath led to infuriated miners who destroyed the home of the Lehigh and Wilkes-Barre Company mine superintendent and the Pennsylvania National Guard called in to restore order. Unrest continued until September 20. Local response was pro-miners.
The Hazleton Daily Standard published this poem on September 17:
“If the courts of justice shield you
And your freedom you should gain,
Remember that your brows are marked
With the burning brand of Cain.....
“If the courts of justice shield you
And your freedom you should gain,
Remember that your brows are marked
With the burning brand of Cain.....
....
Oh, noble, noble, deputies
We always will remember
Your bloody work at Lattimer
On the 10th day of September.”
Oh, noble, noble, deputies
We always will remember
Your bloody work at Lattimer
On the 10th day of September.”
The state actually bothered to try Martin and his 73 deputies but despite the evidence of shooting workers in the back, they all claimed the marchers refused to disperse and were acquitted.
The Lattimer Massacre was a hugely important event in the history of the UMWA. First, standing up for the workers led to membership rising to 10,000, the largest in the union’s history.
Second, it ended the widely held belief by both Anglo-Saxon miners and company owners that the Slavic workers were docile and would never join the union.
The UMWA built off this event and in 1900, with an improved economy after the depression ended in 1898, won significant wage increases. UMWA president John Mitchell became, along with AFL head Samuel Gompers, the most important labor leader in the country.
This horrible event, all too common in the Gilded Age, was largely forgotten about nationally, but in 1972, the UMWA put up a memorial at the site. I was lucky enough to visit it a few years back.
Back tomorrow with a discussion of the Christiana Riot of 1851, an action against one of the most oppressive anti-worker laws in American history: The Fugitive Slave Act.
