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An eye-opening account of the Great Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902, showing how the strike—and the violent backlash that ensued—reveal the genesis of modern policing.
In the early years of the twentieth century, in the coalfields of eastern Pennsylvania, nearly 150,000 miners took part in one of the most critical events in the history of US labor organizing. The brutal response by the state of Pennsylvania—as well as the federal government—inaugurated the structure and power of policing that we know today.
In this gripping account of the Great Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902, scholar and activist David Correia takes readers through the story of the United Mine Workers of America, their struggle against systems of private policing—which were present in practically every industry in the US—and the development of public, professionalized, state-sanctioned, and state-serving police.
The demands of their strike included shorter work days, higher wages, and safer conditions in the deadly mines. However, their labor was crucial to westward expansion, colonial occupations in the Caribbean and the Philippines, and many burgeoning industries in the US. To keep the fires of capitalism burning, industrialists prodded state and federal governments to intervene. Together, they established the first uniformed police force of its kind—a model soon emulated in other states.
List of contents
Introduction: Dig Another Grave
1 A Good Practical Miner
2 A Miners’ Timeline
3 On Strike Day in Hazleton
4 Call it the Flying Squadron
5 Oberrender and His Snitches
6 The Occupation of Shenandoah
7 The Jeddo Evictions
8 Show Us the Lung of a Miner
Epilogue: A Wrecking Crew
About the author
David Correia is a Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico. He is the author of
An Enemy Such as This (Haymarket Books, 2022) and
Properties of Violence (University of Georgia Press, 2013), co-author with Tyler Wall of
Police: A Field Guide (Verso, 2018), and co-author with Nick Estes, Melanie Yazzie, and Jennifer Denetdale of
Red Nation Rising Nation: From Bordertown Violence to Native Liberation (PM Press, 2021). He is a co-founder of AbolishAPD, a research and mutual aid collective in Albuquerque, New Mexico
Summary
An eye-opening account of the Great Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902, showing how the strike—and the violent backlash that ensued—reveal the genesis of modern policing.
In the early years of the twentieth century, in the coalfields of eastern Pennsylvania, nearly 150,000 miners took part in one of the most critical events in the history of US labor organizing. The brutal response by the state of Pennsylvania—as well as the federal government—inaugurated the structure and power of policing that we know today.
In this gripping account of the Great Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902, scholar and activist David Correia takes readers through the story of the United Mine Workers of America, their struggle against systems of private policing—which were present in practically every industry in the US—and the development of public, professionalized, state-sanctioned, and state-serving police.
The demands of their strike included shorter work days, higher wages, and safer conditions in the deadly mines. However, their labor was crucial to westward expansion, colonial occupations in the Caribbean and the Philippines, and many burgeoning industries in the US. To keep the fires of capitalism burning, industrialists prodded state and federal governments to intervene. Together, they established the first uniformed police force of its kind—a model soon emulated in other states.
