Miners were generally paid according to tonnage of coal produced, but so-called "dead work", such as shoring up unstable roofs, was often unpaid. In 1913 alone, 110 men died in mine-related accidents.

Frustrated by working conditions they found unsafe and unjust, colliers increasingly turned to unions. Nationwide, organized mines boasted 40% fewer fatalities than nonunion mines.

  1. Recognition of the union as bargaining agent
  2. Compensation for digging coal at a ton rate based on 2,000 pounds Those who went on strike were evicted from their company homes and moved to tent villages prepared by the union. The tents were built on wood platforms and furnished with cast-iron stoves on land the union had leased in preparation for a strike.

thumb|Baldwin–Felts armored car known as the "Death Special" with mounted [[M1895 Colt–Browning machine gun|M1895 machine gun.]]

When leasing the sites, the union had selected locations near the mouths of canyons that led to the coal camps in order to block any strikebreakers' traffic. The company hired the Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency to protect the new workers and harass the strikers.

Baldwin–Felts had a reputation for aggressive strike breaking. Agents shone searchlights on the tent villages at night and fired bullets into the tents at random, occasionally killing and maiming people. They used an improvised armored car, mounted with a machine gun the union called the "Death Special", to patrol the camp's perimeters. The steel-covered car was built at the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company plant in Pueblo, Colorado, from the chassis of a large touring sedan. Confrontations between striking miners and working miners, whom the union called scabs, sometimes resulted in deaths. Frequent sniper attacks on the tent colonies drove the miners to dig pits beneath the tents to hide in. Armed battles also occurred between (mostly Greek) strikers and sheriffs recently deputized to suppress the strike: this was the Colorado Coalfield War.

thumb|[[Karl Linderfelt|Lt. Karl Linderfelt and the Colorado state militia, ride in on horseback to suppress the strike.]]

As strike-related violence mounted, Colorado governor Elias M. Ammons called in the Colorado National Guard on October 28. At first, the Guard's appearance calmed the situation, but the Guard leaders' sympathies lay with company management. Guard Adjutant-General John Chase, who had served during the violent Cripple Creek strike 10 years earlier, imposed a harsh regime. On March 10, 1914, a replacement worker's body was found on the railroad tracks near Forbes, Colorado. The National Guard said the strikers had murdered the man.

The strikers persevered until the spring of 1914. By then, according to historian Anthony DeStefanis, the National Guard had largely broken the strike by helping the mine operators bring in non-union workers. The state had also run out of money to maintain the Guard, and Ammons decided to recall them. He and the mining companies, fearing a breakdown in order, left one company of Guardsmen in southern Colorado. They formed a new company called "Troop A", which consisted largely of Colorado Fuel & Iron Company mine camp guards and mine guards hired by Baldwin–Felts, who were given National Guard uniforms.

The fighting raged for the entire day. The militia was reinforced by non-uniformed mine guards later in the afternoon. At dusk a passing freight train stopped on the tracks in front of the Guards' machine-gun placements, allowing many of the miners and their families to escape to an outcrop of hills to the east called the Black Hills. By 7 p.m., the camp was in flames, and the militia descended on it and began to search and loot it. Tikas had remained in the camp the entire day and was still there when the fire started. He and two other men were captured by the militia. Tikas and Lt. Karl Linderfelt, commander of one of two Guard companies, had confronted each other several times in the previous months. While two militiamen held Tikas, Linderfelt broke a rifle butt over his head. Tikas and the other two captured miners were later found shot dead. Tikas had been shot in the back. Their bodies lay along the Colorado and Southern Railway tracks for three days in full view of passing trains. The militia officers refused to allow them to be moved until a local of a railway union demanded they be taken away for burial.

During the battle, four women and 11 children hid in a pit beneath one tent, where they were trapped when the tent above them was set on fire. Two of the women and all the children suffocated. These deaths became a rallying cry for the United Mine Workers of America, who called the incident the Ludlow Massacre.

Julia May Courtney reported different numbers in her contemporaneous article "Remember Ludlow!" for the magazine Mother Earth. She said that, in addition to men who were killed, a total of 55 women and children had died in the massacre. According to her account, the militia:

Underground shelter in which women and children died during a fire set by the Colorado National Guard.|thumb|right

Some reports say a second machine gun was brought in to support the estimated 200 Guardsmen who participated in the engagement, and that a Colorado and Southern train's operators purposely put their engine between a machine gun and the strikers as a shield against National Guard fire.

A board of Colorado military officers described the events as beginning with the killing of Tikas and other strikers in custody, with gunfire largely emanating from the southwestern corner of the Ludlow Colony. Guardsmen stationed on "Water Tank Hill"—the name for the machine gun position—fired into the camp. The Guardsmen reported having seen women and children withdrawing the morning before the battle and said they thought the strikers would not have begun firing if they had women still with them. The board's official report commended the "truly heroic behavior" of Linderfelt, the guardsmen, and the militia during the battle and blamed the strikers for any civilian casualties during the engagement, despite those killed being family members of the strikers. The report also blamed the looting that occurred afterward on "Troop 'A'", a unit composed largely of non-uniformed mine guards who had been integrated into the Guard.

In addition to the miners and their family members, three regular members of the National Guard and one other militiaman were reported killed in the day's fighting by contemporary accounts. However, modern historians assert that only one of the militia's number, a private named Martin of the National Guard, was killed. Martin was fatally shot in the neck, presumably by strikers. As news of the deaths of women and children spread, the leaders of organized labor issued a call to arms. They urged union members to get "all the arms and ammunition legally available". Subsequently, the coal miners began a large-scale guerrilla war against the mine guards and facilities throughout Colorado's southern coalfields. In the town of Trinidad, the United Mine Workers of America openly and officially distributed arms and ammunition to strikers at union headquarters.

Over the next ten days, 700 to 1,000 strikers "attacked mine after mine, driving off or killing the guards and setting fire to the buildings." At least 50 people, including those at Ludlow, were killed during the ten days of fighting between the guards and miners. Hundreds of state militia reinforcements were rushed to the coalfields to regain control of the situation. The troops disarmed both sides, displacing and often arresting the militia in the process. The Colorado Coalfield War produced a total death toll of approximately 75.

The United Mine Workers of America finally ran out of money, and called off the strike on December 10, 1914. 408 strikers were arrested, 332 of whom were indicted for murder.

Of those present at Ludlow during the massacre, only John R. Lawson, leader of the strike, was convicted of murder, and the Colorado Supreme Court eventually overturned the conviction.

An Episcopalian minister, Reverend John O. Ferris, pastored Trinity Church in Trinidad and another church in Aguilar. He was one of the few pastors in Trinidad permitted to search and provide Christian burials to the deceased victims of the Ludlow Massacre.

Victims

{| class="wikitable sortable"

|-

!Name

!Also reported as

!Age (years)

!Cause of death

|-

| Cardelima Costa

| Fedelina/Cedilano Costa

| 27

| asphyxiation, fire, or both

|-

| Charles Costa

| Charlie Costa

| 31

| shot

|-

| Cloriva Pedregone

| Gloria/Clovine Pedregon[e]

| 4 months

| asphyxiation, fire, or both

|-

| Elvira Valdez

|

| 3 months

| asphyxiation, fire, or both

|-

| Eulala Valdez

| Eulalia Valdez

| 8

| asphyxiation, fire, or both

|-

| Frank Bartolotti

| Frank Bartoloti/Bartalato

| Unknown

| shot

|-

| Frank Petrucci

|

| 6 months

| asphyxiation, fire, or both

|-

| Frank Rubino

|

| 23

| shot

|-

| Frank Snyder

| William Snyder Jr.

| 11

| shot

|-

| James Fyler

|

| 43

| shot

|-

| Joseph "Joe" Petrucci

|

| 4

| asphyxiation, fire, or both

|-

| Louis Tikas

|Elias Anastasiou Spantidakis,

Ηλίας Αναστασίου Σπαντιδάκης,

| 29

| shot

|-

| Lucy Costa

|

| 4

| asphyxiation, fire, or both

|-

| Lucy Petrucci

|

| 2.5

| asphyxiation, fire, or both

|-

| Mary Valdez

|

| 7

| asphyxiation, fire, or both

|-

| Onafrio Costa

| Oragio Costa

| 6

| asphyxiation, fire, or both

|-

| Patria Valdez

| Patricia/Petra Valdez

| 37

| asphyxiation, fire, or both

|-

| Primo Larese (bystander)

| Presno Larce

| Unknown

| shot

|-

| Rodgerlo Pedregone

| Roderlo/Rogaro Pedregon[e]

| 6

| asphyxiation, fire, or both

|-

| Rudolph Valdez

| Rodolso Valdez

| 9

| asphyxiation, fire, or both

|}

<gallery widths="200">

File:Ludlow Massacre - Costa Family Photo.png|The Costa family, pictured before the Ludlow Massacre. Four members of this family were killed in the massacre, three by asphyxiation, fire, or both.

File:Ludlow Massacre - Petrucci family.png|The children of the Petrucci family, all of whom died at the Ludlow Tent Colony.

File:William "Frank" Snyder - 1914.jpg|William "Frank" Snyder Jr. – Shot in his family's tent during the initial battle on 20 April 1914.

</gallery>

Legacy

thumb|upright|[[Ludlow Monument was erected by the United Mine Workers of America.]]

The massacre sparked nationwide reproach for the Rockefellers, especially in New York, where protesters demonstrated outside of the Rockefeller building in New York City. Protesters led by Ferrer Center anarchists Alexander Berkman and Carlo Tresca followed when Rockefeller Jr. fled upstate to the family estate near Tarrytown. In early July, a failed bomb plot on the Tarrytown estate ended with a dynamite explosion in East Harlem and three dead anarchists. The New York City Police Department inaugurated its bomb squad within a month. Bomb plots continued throughout the rest of the year.

Although the UMWA failed to win recognition from the company, the strike had a lasting effect both on conditions at the Colorado mines and on labor relations nationally. John D. Rockefeller Jr. engaged W. L. Mackenzie King, a labor relations expert and future Canadian Prime Minister, to help him develop reforms for the mines and towns. Improvements included paved roads and recreational facilities, as well as worker representation on committees dealing with working conditions, safety, health, and recreation. He prohibited discrimination against workers who had belonged to unions and ordered the establishment of a company union. The miners voted to accept the Rockefeller plan.

Rockefeller Jr. also brought in pioneer public relations expert Ivy Lee, who warned that the Rockefellers were losing public support and developed a strategy that Rockefeller followed to repair it. Rockefeller had to overcome his shyness, go to Colorado to meet the miners and their families, inspect the homes and the factories, attend social events, and listen closely to the grievances. This was novel advice, and attracted widespread media attention. The Rockefellers were able both to resolve the conflict, and present a more humanized version of their leaders.

Over time, Ludlow has assumed "a striking centrality in the interpretation of the nation's history developed by several of the most important left-leaning thinkers of the 20th century." George McGovern wrote his doctoral dissertation on the subject. In 1972, the same year as his U.S. presidential campaign, he published this dissertation with the help of historian Leonard Guttridge under the title The Great Coalfield War.

A United States Commission on Industrial Relations (CIR), headed by labor lawyer Frank Walsh, conducted hearings in Washington, DC, collecting information and taking testimony from all the principals, including Rockefeller Sr., who testified that, even after knowing that guards in his pay had committed atrocities against the strikers, he "would have taken no action" to prevent his hirelings from attacking them. The commission's report endorsed many of the reforms the unions sought, and provided support for bills establishing a national eight-hour workday and a ban on child labor.

In other media

Several popular songs have been written and recorded about the events at Ludlow. American folk singer Woody Guthrie's is "Ludlow Massacre", Red Dirt country singer Jason Boland's "Ludlow", and Irish musician Andy Irvine's is "The Monument (Lest We Forget)".

Upton Sinclair's novel King Coal is loosely based on the origin and aftermath of the Ludlow Massacre. Thomas Pynchon's 2006 novel Against the Day contains a chapter on the massacre.

American writer and Colorado Poet Laureate David Mason wrote what he calls a verse-novel, Ludlow (2007), inspired by the labor dispute. Composer Lori Laitman's opera Ludlow is based on Mason's book. The University of Colorado's New Opera Works presented Act I of the opera in June 2012, directed by Beth Greenberg.

Commemorations

Memorial

In 1916, the United Mine Workers of America bought the site of the Ludlow tent colony. Two years later, they erected the Ludlow Monument to commemorate those who died during the strike. It was fabricated by the Jones Brothers Company of Barre, Vermont using local granite and was commissioned by Sam Falsetto, president of the United Mine Workers of Trinidad, Colorado. The Springfield Granite Company served as the contractor. The monument was damaged in May 2003 by unknown vandals. The repaired monument was unveiled on June 5, 2005, with slightly altered faces on the statues.

National Historic Landmark

The tent colony site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985,

On May 7, 2003, vandals attacked the monument cutting off the solid granite/marble head of the male figure and the arm of the female figure. The missing parts were never recovered but replaced in 2005 with funding from private donations.

Centennial

On April 19, 2013, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper signed an executive order to create the Ludlow Centennial Commemoration Commission. The group worked to develop programming in the state, such as lectures and exhibits, to commemorate the Ludlow workers' struggle and raise awareness of the massacre. It worked with Colorado museums, historical societies, churches and art galleries, and supplied programming in 2014.

Historical investigation

Archaeology

In 1996, the 1913–1914 Colorado Coalfield War Project began under the leadership of Randall H. McGuire of Binghamton University, Dean Saitta of University of Denver, and Philip Duke of Fort Lewis College, who later formed the Ludlow Collective. Their team conducted excavations of the territory of the former tent colony and surrounding areas.

See also

  • Coal Wars
  • Colorado Labor Wars
  • Columbine Mine Massacre of 1927
  • Labor history of the United States
  • Labor movement
  • Labor unions
  • Labor unions in the United States
  • List of battles fought in Colorado
  • List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States
  • List of massacres in the United States
  • List of worker deaths in United States labor disputes
  • Ludlow Massacre (song)
  • Mary Thomas O'Neal
  • Union violence

References

Further reading

  • Adams, G., The Age of Industrial Violence, 1910–1915: The Activities and Findings of the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations. Columbia University Press, New York, 1966.
  • Alhadef, Tammy. "Last Survivor of Ludlow Massacre Dies at 94." Pueblo Chieftain. July 6, 2007.
  • Andrews, Thomas G. Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War. (Harvard University Press, 2008), focus on Ludlow
  • Beshoar, Barron B., Out of the Depths: The Story of John R. Lawson, a Labor Leader. Colorado Historical Commission and Denver Trades and Labor Assembly, Denver, 1957.
  • Boughton, Major Edward J., Capt. William C. Danks, and Capt. Philip S. Van Cise, Ludlow: Being the Report of the Special Board of Officers Appointed by the Governorsas A of Colorado to Investigate and Determine the Facts with Reference to the Armed Conflict Between the Colorado National Guard and Certain Persons Engaged in the Coal Mining Strike at Ludlow, Colo., April 20, 1914.
  • Chernow, R., Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller Sr., Random House, New York, 1998.
  • Clyne, R., Coal People: Life in Southern Colorado's Company Towns, 1890–1930. Colorado Historical Society, Denver, 1999.
  • CoalThe Kingdom Below, Trinidad Printing, Trinidad, Colorado, 1992
  • Cronin, W., G. Miles, and J. Gitlin, Becoming West: Toward a New Meaning for Western History, Under an Open Sky: Rethinking America's Western Past, edited by W. Cronin, G. Miles, and J. Gitlin, W.W. Norton and Company, New York, 1992.
  • DeStefanis, Anthony, "Violence and the Colorado National Guard: Masculinity, Race, Class, and Identity in the 1913–1914 Southern Colorado Coal Strike" in Mining Women: Gender in the Development of a Global Industry, 1670 to the Present, Laurie Mercier and Jaclyn Gier, eds. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 195–212
  • DeStefanis, Anthony, "The Road to Ludlow: Breaking the 1913–14 Southern Colorado Coal Strike," Journal of the Historical Society, 12 no. 2 (September 2012): 341–390.
  • Downing, Sybil, Fire in the Hole. University Press of Colorado, Niwot, Colorado, 1996.
  • Farrar, Frederick, Papers of the Colorado Attorney General, Western History/Genealogy Department, Denver Public Library, including Testimony by Capt. Philip S. Van Cise in the Transcript of the Court of Inquiry Ordered by Gov. Carlson in 1915.
  • Foote, K., Shadowed Ground: America's Landscapes of Violence and Tragedy. University of Texas Press, Austin, 1997.
  • Fox, M., United We Stand: The United Mine Workers of America, 1890–1990. International Union, United Mine Workers of America, Washington, 1990.
  • Gitelman, H., Legacy of the Ludlow Massacre: A Chapter in American Industrial Relations. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1988.
  • Long, Priscilla. Where the Sun Never Shines: A History of America's Bloody Coal Industry. Paragon House, New York, 1989.
  • Mahan, Bill, "The Ludlow Massacre: An Audio History. Water Tank Hill Productions, 1994.
  • Margolis, Eric, Western Coal Mining as a Way of Life: An Oral History of the Colorado Coal Miners to 1914. Journal of the West 24(3), 1985.
  • online
  • McGuire, R. and P. Reckner, The Unromantic West: Labor, Capital, and Struggle. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Salt Lake City, 1998.
  • Memorial Day at Ludlow, United Mine Workers Journal, June 6, 1918.
  • Nankivell, Major John H., History of the Military Organizations of the State of Colorado 1860–1935, Infantry U.S. Army (Senior Instructor, Colorado National Guard), obtained from the Colorado Historical Society, 1935.
  • Norwood, Stephen H.; Strikebreaking & Intimidation: Mercenaries and Masculinity in Twentieth-Century America. University of North Carolina Press. 2002.
  • Papanikolas, Zeese, Buried Unsung: Louis Tikas and the Ludlow Massacre. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, 1982.
  • Roth, L., Company Towns in the Western United States, The Company Town: Architecture and Society in the Early Industrial Age, edited by John S. Garner. Oxford University Press, New York, 1992.
  • Saitta, D., R. McGuire, and P. Duke, Working and Striking in Southern Colorado, 1913–1914. Presented at the Society for Historical Archaeology annual meeting, Salt Lake City, 1999
  • Saitta, D., M. Walker, and P. Reckner, Battlefields of Class Conflict: Ludlow then and now, Journal of Conflict Archaeology 1, 2005.
  • Scamehorn, H. Lee, Mill & Mine: The CF&I in the Twentieth Century. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1992.
  • Seligman, E., Colorado's Civil War and Its Lessons. Leslie's Illustrated Weekly Newspaper, November 5, 1914.
  • Sinclair, Upton, King Coal. The MacMillan Company, New York, 1917.
  • Sunieseri, A., The Ludlow Massacre: A Study in the Mis-Employment of the National Guard. Salvadore Books, Waterloo, Iowa, 1972.
  • The Coal War. Colorado Associated University Press, Boulder, 1976.
  • The Crisis in Colorado. The Annalist, May 4, 1914.
  • Transcript of the Court Martial of Sgt. P.M. Cullen and Privates Mason and Pacheco, among others, Testimony of Lt. K.M. Linderfelt, Sgt. P. Cullen, and Ray W. Benedict, State of Colorado Archives.
  • Transcript from the Court Martial of Capt. Edwin F. Carson, Testimony of Sgt. Cullen, State of Colorado Archives.
  • The Denver Post: May 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, and 30 and June 3, 1914
  • The Trinidad Free Press: April 24 and 29, 1914, and May 9, 1914
  • United Mine Workers of America, An Answer to 'The Report of the Commanding General to the Governor for the Use of the Congressional Committee on the Military Occupation of the Coal Strike Zone by the Colorado National Guard during 1913–1914, State of Colorado Archives
  • Vol VII
  • Vol. VIII
  • Vol. IX
  • Vallejo, M. E., Recollections of the Colorado Coal Strike, 1913–1914, La Gente: Hispano History and Life in Colorado, edited by V. De Baca. Colorado Historical Society, Denver, 1998.
  • Walker, M., The Ludlow Massacre: Labor Struggle and Historical Memory in Southern Colorado. Paper presented at the North American Labor History Conference, Detroit, Michigan, 1999.
  • Yellen, S., American Labor Struggles. Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1936.
  • Zinn, H., The Politics of History: With a New Introduction. University of Illinois Press, 1990.
  • Zinn, H., Dana Frank, and Robin D. G. Kelley, Three Strikes: The Fighting Spirit of Labor's Last Century
  • The Steelworks Center of the West and the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company Archives.
  • The World Socialist Web Site A four-part series on the history of the massacre and its place in the history of the American working class.
  • The Colorado Coal Field War Project An account of the strike and the assault by the Colorado State National Guard, published by University of Denver's Anthropology department.
  • Phelps-Dodge Mine explosion, 1913. During the time of the Colorado Coalfields Strike (which included Ludlow) this mine in New Mexico exploded, killing 263 men, the second deadliest mine disaster in US history. It was owned by Rockefeller-in-law M. Hartley-Dodge, owner of Remington Arms.The Ghosts of Dawson New Mexico, p. 2
  • Ludlow Massacre – Historical Background Background material prepared by the Colorado Bar for the 2003 Colorado Mock Trial program
  • Ludlow Massacre Archive at marxists.org
  • The Ludlow Massacre on libcom.org
  • The lyrics to Woodie Guthrie's "Ludlow Massacre" are here The Ludlow Massacre (Woody Guthrie) and the lyrics to Guthrie's closely related song about copper miners in Calumet, Michigan, "1913 Massacre", are here. 1913 Massacre
  • The Virtual Oral/Aural History Archive Audio of an interview with Ludlow survivor Mary Thomas O'Neal in 1974.
  • Historian Howard Zinn on the Ludlow Massacre
  • Caleb Crain, "There Was Blood: The Ludlow Massacre Revisited," The New Yorker January 19, 2009.
  • Caleb Crain, "Notebook: The Ludlow Massacre Revisited," an annotated bibliography to the preceding article
  • Interview with David Hawkins, nephew of Ludlow Massacre miners' lawyer, Horace Hawkins
  • Hundredth Anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre , historian Jonathan Rees and author Jeff Biggers, The Real News, 2014.04.20
  • The Ludlow Massacre Still Matters. The New Yorker, April 18, 2014.